1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:01,800 Speaker 1: I want you to try a little thought experiment with 2 00:00:01,879 --> 00:00:04,080 me right now, wherever you are. 3 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:05,160 Speaker 2: Oh, I love these. 4 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:07,799 Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want you to imagine that you have 5 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:11,480 a remote control in your hand, and this remote it 6 00:00:11,519 --> 00:00:13,000 controls time itself. 7 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:14,720 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm picturing it right. 8 00:00:14,599 --> 00:00:18,039 Speaker 1: So you press the rewind button. Imagine just watching the 9 00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:22,559 world around you unspooling backward. You watch buildings unbuild, you know, 10 00:00:22,600 --> 00:00:25,679 you watch cities shrink back into forests, stuff flying through 11 00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:28,760 history and reverse exactly, and you keep rewinding. You're flying 12 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:32,240 past the ice ages, past the dinosaurs, past the very 13 00:00:32,280 --> 00:00:36,439 formation of the Earth itself as it breaks apart, into 14 00:00:36,479 --> 00:00:39,320 the swirling cloud of hot dust around a really. 15 00:00:39,119 --> 00:00:40,759 Speaker 2: Young sun, going way back. 16 00:00:40,799 --> 00:00:43,640 Speaker 1: Now, well, we're keeping going. You're rewinding past the birth 17 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:46,560 of the first stars, past the cosmic dark ages, right 18 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:48,960 back to the exact millisecond of the Big. 19 00:00:48,799 --> 00:00:52,000 Speaker 2: Bang, that moment of just infinite heat and density, right 20 00:00:52,079 --> 00:00:54,840 the absolute, universally accepted beginning of everything. 21 00:00:54,840 --> 00:00:57,679 Speaker 1: You pause it right there, and then what happens if 22 00:00:57,719 --> 00:00:58,880 you hit rewind one more time? 23 00:00:58,960 --> 00:01:01,359 Speaker 2: Ooh, that is the ultimate question, right. 24 00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:04,599 Speaker 1: What exists in the negative space before reality even started? 25 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:07,400 Speaker 2: I mean, when you hit that button, you are stepping 26 00:01:07,439 --> 00:01:09,000 completely off the edge of the map. 27 00:01:09,239 --> 00:01:09,879 Speaker 1: You really are. 28 00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:13,319 Speaker 2: You're moving way past the boundaries of general relativity as 29 00:01:13,359 --> 00:01:16,480 we comfortably understand it, and you're stepping into a void 30 00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:22,079 that human brains are frankly not wired to comprehend. The 31 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:23,799 math just starts screaming at you. 32 00:01:24,519 --> 00:01:27,920 Speaker 1: Welcome to thrilling Threads. Today, we are taking a deep 33 00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:31,920 dive into the source material to answer the ultimate impossible question. 34 00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:34,640 It's going to be weird, so weird. We are taking 35 00:01:34,680 --> 00:01:41,280 an incredibly dense, groundbreaking stack of theoretical physics, models, astrophysical proposals, 36 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:45,000 and mathematical papers, and we're going to explore that negative space. 37 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,040 Speaker 2: What actually existed before the universe itself exactly. 38 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:49,920 Speaker 1: We aren't just looking at the Big Bang today. Okay, 39 00:01:49,959 --> 00:01:53,959 let's unpack this. We are going into ten distinct, scientifically 40 00:01:54,040 --> 00:01:58,120 rigorous and honestly terrifying theories about what preceded our existence. 41 00:01:58,239 --> 00:01:59,879 Speaker 2: And we're going to break down the heavy physics. Sure, 42 00:02:00,159 --> 00:02:03,400 but we're also going to explore the mechanics behind these theories. 43 00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:04,799 Speaker 1: The nuts and bolts of the void. 44 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:07,959 Speaker 2: Right, we need to understand how the mathematics even allow 45 00:02:08,039 --> 00:02:10,680 for these concepts to exist in the first place. And 46 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:15,000 why they fundamentally challenge everything you thought you knew about 47 00:02:15,039 --> 00:02:17,319 time and human significance. 48 00:02:16,759 --> 00:02:19,400 Speaker 1: Because when you mess with the origins of reality, you 49 00:02:19,479 --> 00:02:21,520 kind of mess with our place inside it. 50 00:02:21,520 --> 00:02:23,639 Speaker 2: Right, I absolutely do. It changes everything. 51 00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:27,120 Speaker 1: Just laying the groundwork here before we jump in, we 52 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:31,719 are impartially reporting on the theoretical physics and the cosmological 53 00:02:31,759 --> 00:02:35,439 mathematics directly from our sources, tricly the science, strictly the science, 54 00:02:35,599 --> 00:02:38,960 no sides, no political stuff, no philosophical endorsements from us. 55 00:02:39,159 --> 00:02:42,240 We're giving you the pure science, and it is entirely 56 00:02:42,319 --> 00:02:45,039 up to you, the listener, to draw your own conclusions. 57 00:02:45,039 --> 00:02:47,759 Speaker 2: And trust me, the science alone is more than enough 58 00:02:47,759 --> 00:02:48,520 to handle today. 59 00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:51,759 Speaker 1: It really is. So let's start with the most intuitive 60 00:02:51,759 --> 00:02:54,639 way our human minds can handle the idea of before, 61 00:02:54,800 --> 00:02:58,560 right cause and effect Exactly. We naturally assume that every 62 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:02,520 single event has a preceding cause. So the easiest way 63 00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:05,039 to imagine the before is just as an infinite chain 64 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:06,520 of physical reality. 65 00:03:06,319 --> 00:03:09,120 Speaker 2: Just one thing leading to another forever right. 66 00:03:09,599 --> 00:03:13,199 Speaker 1: And that brings us to the physicist Andre Lynn at Stanford. 67 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,280 He proposed something in nineteen eighty three called eternal inflation. 68 00:03:17,879 --> 00:03:20,039 Speaker 2: Ah Yes, a classic And. 69 00:03:20,039 --> 00:03:22,919 Speaker 1: The way I've always visualized this one is by imagining 70 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:24,960 a giant pot of boiling water. 71 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:26,520 Speaker 2: That's a really good analogy. 72 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:31,080 Speaker 1: So our entire observable cosmos, with its billions of galaxies 73 00:03:31,080 --> 00:03:34,439 and everything we know, is just a single tiny bubble 74 00:03:34,719 --> 00:03:36,960 that nucleated in this eternal boil, Just. 75 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,039 Speaker 2: One little bubble in a massive pot. 76 00:03:39,199 --> 00:03:41,159 Speaker 1: Right, So the Big Bang wasn't the beginning at all. 77 00:03:41,199 --> 00:03:44,000 It was just our local pocket popping into existence. Here's 78 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:46,919 where it gets really interesting, though. There is no first bubble. 79 00:03:47,120 --> 00:03:49,319 The pot has just been boiling forever. 80 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:52,800 Speaker 2: The boiling water analogy gets you about halfway there, i'd say, 81 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:55,919 but it breaks down when you realize the water in 82 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,039 this case is actually a scaler field trapped in what 83 00:03:59,080 --> 00:04:01,360 physicists call a false vacuum state. 84 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:03,680 Speaker 1: Okay, you're gonna have to untack false vacuum for me. 85 00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,360 Speaker 2: Sure, So, in standard inflation theory, we know the early 86 00:04:06,439 --> 00:04:09,199 universe expanded exponentially for a fraction of a second. 87 00:04:09,319 --> 00:04:10,639 Speaker 1: Right it blew up super fast. 88 00:04:10,759 --> 00:04:13,520 Speaker 2: Right Wind looked at the mathematics of that underlying inflating 89 00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:17,879 field and realized it doesn't just turn off everywhere. 90 00:04:17,399 --> 00:04:21,240 Speaker 1: All at once, like it doesn't just stop expanding uniformally. 91 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:24,759 Speaker 2: Exactly because of quantum fluctuations. There are regions of this 92 00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:28,040 field that remain in that high energy false vacuum state, 93 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:30,160 and they just keep expanding eternally. 94 00:04:30,199 --> 00:04:32,319 Speaker 1: So the background is always stretching. 95 00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:36,959 Speaker 2: Always, and as it expands, tiny patches undergo quantum tunneling. 96 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:40,040 They sort of decay into a true vacuum, which is 97 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:41,480 a much lower energy state. 98 00:04:41,560 --> 00:04:43,959 Speaker 1: Wait, decay, like it rots, not rock. 99 00:04:43,879 --> 00:04:46,759 Speaker 2: Just settling into a more stable state. When that happens, 100 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,079 the energy of the field is dumped right into that 101 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:52,759 specific pocket, creating the matter and radiation of a brand 102 00:04:52,759 --> 00:04:53,399 new universe. 103 00:04:53,519 --> 00:04:55,720 Speaker 1: Oh wow, so our Big Bang was just one of 104 00:04:55,720 --> 00:04:57,439 those local decay events. 105 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:00,800 Speaker 2: Precisely, just a little localized energy dump in an ever 106 00:05:00,879 --> 00:05:01,720 expanding field. 107 00:05:01,879 --> 00:05:05,000 Speaker 1: But how does a scaler field infleet eternally? I mean, 108 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:09,040 if it's constantly dumping energy into creating entire universes complete 109 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:12,480 with you know, hundreds of billions of galaxies, doesn't it 110 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:13,680 eventually run out of fuel? 111 00:05:14,079 --> 00:05:15,639 Speaker 2: You would think, So, yeah. 112 00:05:15,399 --> 00:05:18,000 Speaker 1: How do you get infinite bubbles out of a finite 113 00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:18,720 pot of water? 114 00:05:19,079 --> 00:05:23,199 Speaker 2: Well, this is where the physics of inflation becomes incredibly counterintuitive. 115 00:05:23,639 --> 00:05:27,160 The inflating false vacuum has a property called negative pressure. 116 00:05:27,519 --> 00:05:29,240 Speaker 1: Negative pressure that sounds made up. 117 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:32,199 Speaker 2: I know it sounds wild, but in general relativity, pressure 118 00:05:32,199 --> 00:05:37,040 actually contributes to gravity. Positive pressure pulls things together, but 119 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:40,759 negative pressure creates this repulsive gravitational effect. 120 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:43,160 Speaker 1: So it pushes space apart instead of pulling it together. 121 00:05:43,399 --> 00:05:47,240 Speaker 2: Exactly, it actively drives the rapid expansion of space. And 122 00:05:47,319 --> 00:05:51,120 here's the real trick of it. As the space expands, 123 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,279 the energy density of the false vacuum remains exactly constant. 124 00:05:55,399 --> 00:05:57,879 Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, ye, so you have more physical space, 125 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:01,160 but with the exact same energy density per cubic centimeter. 126 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:03,639 Speaker 2: You got it. The total energy the inflating field is 127 00:06:03,639 --> 00:06:07,079 actually growing exponentially as it expands. It literally creates its 128 00:06:07,079 --> 00:06:07,560 own fuel. 129 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,439 Speaker 1: That violates everything my brain understands about conservation. 130 00:06:10,879 --> 00:06:13,920 Speaker 2: It's totally nonintuitive. It will never run out. And because 131 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:16,560 the rate of expansion is vastly faster than the rate 132 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:19,959 to which these bubble universes nucleate, the space between the 133 00:06:19,959 --> 00:06:22,439 bubbles grows faster than the bubbles can ever collide. 134 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:25,360 Speaker 1: So the pod has literally been boiling forever and the 135 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:27,920 bubbles are flying apart so fast they never touch. 136 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:30,720 Speaker 2: Right we exist in the middle of a chain that 137 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:31,680 has no first link. 138 00:06:31,879 --> 00:06:35,480 Speaker 1: That is deeply unsettling. If you ask what came before 139 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:40,079 our universe, the answer is just the underlying scaler field 140 00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:44,600 churning out other universes infinitely backward in time foreverever. There 141 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:47,199 is no origin story, There is no underlying explanation for 142 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,279 why the boiling pot exists in the first place. It 143 00:06:49,399 --> 00:06:49,759 just is. 144 00:06:49,959 --> 00:06:52,600 Speaker 2: It really forces you to completely abandon the concept of 145 00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:55,879 a singular genesis. But what if the chain isn't a 146 00:06:55,959 --> 00:06:58,360 side by side arrangement of isolated bubbles? 147 00:06:58,439 --> 00:06:59,519 Speaker 1: Okay, what's the alternative? 148 00:06:59,519 --> 00:07:04,120 Speaker 2: What if the B four is a single, relentlessly recycling timeline. Oh, 149 00:07:04,199 --> 00:07:07,879 like a loop exactly. Paul Steinhardt at Princeton and Neil 150 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:10,920 Trurock at Cambridge propose the cy click model in two 151 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:13,720 thousand and one, and it shifts the perspective entirely. 152 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:16,000 Speaker 1: I remember reading about this one and the sources right. 153 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:18,560 Speaker 2: So instead of a field smawning bubbles, they looked at 154 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:23,279 string theory, specifically m theory, to suggest our universe is 155 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:26,199 trapped in an infinite look of destruction and rebirth. 156 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:29,439 Speaker 1: Right, this is where things get super violent. The cyclic 157 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:33,879 model suggests the universe expands, cools, contracts, and then basically 158 00:07:34,199 --> 00:07:37,160 triggers a new big bang that resets the entire board. 159 00:07:37,319 --> 00:07:39,079 Speaker 2: Yeah, a complete cosmic reset. 160 00:07:39,319 --> 00:07:42,759 Speaker 1: But it's not just a single balloon inflating and deflating. Right. 161 00:07:43,439 --> 00:07:47,279 They draw on the concept of brains or membranes. 162 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:48,560 Speaker 2: Yes, the higher dimensional brains. 163 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:52,360 Speaker 1: The idea is that our entire observable universe, literally everything 164 00:07:52,399 --> 00:07:55,600 you see and experience, exists on a three dimensional surface 165 00:07:55,759 --> 00:08:00,240 a brain embedded in a higher dimensional space called the bulk. 166 00:08:00,439 --> 00:08:02,839 Speaker 2: It's a great way to visualize extra dimensions. 167 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:05,639 Speaker 1: I picture our universe is a single sheet of paper 168 00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:08,519 floating in a large empty room, and there is a 169 00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:12,519 parallel universe, another sheet of paper floating right alongside. 170 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:13,279 Speaker 2: Ours, right, a parallel brain. 171 00:08:13,399 --> 00:08:16,560 Speaker 1: And periodically these two brains are drawn together by a 172 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:20,439 really weak attractive force across that extra dimension, and they 173 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:21,319 just collide. 174 00:08:21,480 --> 00:08:25,319 Speaker 2: The mechanics of that collision are absolutely fascinating. It's known 175 00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:27,279 in the physics as the ekporotic phase. 176 00:08:27,399 --> 00:08:30,680 Speaker 1: Ekparotic sounds intense very. 177 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:34,320 Speaker 2: When those two brains smash together, the massive kinetic energy 178 00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:37,759 of the collision is converted directly into the fiery plasma 179 00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:38,679 of a new Big Bang. 180 00:08:38,759 --> 00:08:41,039 Speaker 1: So the crash is the Big Bang exactly. 181 00:08:41,159 --> 00:08:44,759 Speaker 2: The brains bounce apart, our universe expands, it eventually cools 182 00:08:44,799 --> 00:08:48,039 over trillions of years, the attractive force takes over again, 183 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:50,200 and they are pulled back for another collision. 184 00:08:50,279 --> 00:08:54,519 Speaker 1: It's just two giant cosmic symbols constantly crashing together. 185 00:08:54,759 --> 00:08:58,159 Speaker 2: Yes, But the crucial part of Steinhardt and Trock's math 186 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:00,080 is how it handles the enterp. 187 00:09:00,159 --> 00:09:02,440 Speaker 1: Problem right, the messiness factor exactly. 188 00:09:02,919 --> 00:09:05,919 Speaker 2: Normally, if a universe cycles like that, disorder builds up. 189 00:09:06,279 --> 00:09:10,120 Each subsequent universe should be messier, and if you rewind time, 190 00:09:10,399 --> 00:09:13,080 the cycle should get smaller and shorter until you hit 191 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:14,320 an absolute. 192 00:09:13,799 --> 00:09:16,720 Speaker 1: Beginning, because you can't have an infinite past. If entropy 193 00:09:16,759 --> 00:09:19,960 is constantly accumulating, eventually the battery just dies. 194 00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,720 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, precisely. But in the cyclic model, during the 195 00:09:23,759 --> 00:09:30,039 expansion phase, the universe grows so massively that the entropy, 196 00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:33,799 the disorder, the scattered matter, the black holes, it all 197 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:35,600 gets diluted to practically zero. 198 00:09:35,799 --> 00:09:38,759 Speaker 1: It stretches it out so much that the mess is negligible. 199 00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:41,279 Speaker 2: Right by the time the brains collide again, they are 200 00:09:41,279 --> 00:09:45,480 completely flat, cold, and empty. The collision doesn't just recycle 201 00:09:45,519 --> 00:09:50,120 the energy. The sheer geometric stretching of the brains literally 202 00:09:50,159 --> 00:09:51,240 wipes the slate clean. 203 00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:53,080 Speaker 1: Okay. I have to push back on the idea of 204 00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:57,519 a completely clean slate, though. If two entire universes, two 205 00:09:57,639 --> 00:10:00,360 vast brains are clapping together to create a bit bang, 206 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:03,919 surely something survives the crash, right, you'd hope. So, I mean, 207 00:10:03,919 --> 00:10:06,919 if the previous cycle had its own planets, its own physics, 208 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:11,360 maybe its own gravitational waves. Does absolutely no whisper of 209 00:10:11,399 --> 00:10:13,080 that make it through to our cycle. 210 00:10:13,159 --> 00:10:14,799 Speaker 2: I hate to break it to you, but the boundary 211 00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:17,759 conditions of the ex prioritic collision are mathematically ruthless. 212 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:18,320 Speaker 1: Ruthless. 213 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:21,440 Speaker 2: How when the brains collide, the distance between them drops 214 00:10:21,440 --> 00:10:24,279 to absolute zero, But the spatial dimensions of the brains 215 00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:25,840 themselves do not shrink to zero. 216 00:10:25,919 --> 00:10:27,840 Speaker 1: Okay, So they stay flat sheets. 217 00:10:27,639 --> 00:10:31,440 Speaker 2: Right, and that avoids the singularity of the standard Big bang. However, 218 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:36,240 the physical structure within the brain is completely utterly eradicated, erased. 219 00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:41,639 Nothing survives, no civilization, no memory, no physical trace can 220 00:10:41,679 --> 00:10:46,000 survive the energy conversion of that impact. Wow, every single 221 00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:49,240 atom in your body right now might be forged from 222 00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:53,240 the kinetic energy of a collision that obliterated a previous cosmos, 223 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,559 but no information carries over. The slate is wiped so 224 00:10:57,720 --> 00:11:01,000 thoroughly that the past is permanently seen off from the present. 225 00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:05,320 Speaker 1: That is incredibly bleak. That implies everything humanity ever builds 226 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:09,080 or achieves is ultimately destined for total erasure. When those 227 00:11:09,120 --> 00:11:10,639 symbols crash again, we. 228 00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:13,519 Speaker 2: Are just temporary arrangements of recycled energy, just. 229 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:15,080 Speaker 1: Recycled brain crash energy. 230 00:11:15,279 --> 00:11:17,639 Speaker 2: Wild But let's say we don't want to rely on 231 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:20,200 hidden extra dimensions and colliding sheets of paper in a 232 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:21,759 bulkroom to explain the cycle. 233 00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:23,080 Speaker 1: Sure, let's look closer to home. 234 00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:26,519 Speaker 2: What if the universe resets from within? This leads us 235 00:11:26,519 --> 00:11:28,919 straight into the physics of the Big Bounce, which was 236 00:11:28,919 --> 00:11:31,480 proposed by Martin Bojowald in two thousand and seven. 237 00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:34,279 Speaker 1: Right, Bojolot approached the problem using a framework called loop 238 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:37,799 quantum gravity. Loop quantum gravity. Okay, break that down for us. 239 00:11:37,919 --> 00:11:41,200 Speaker 2: General relativity has a fatal flaw. If you rewind the 240 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:44,559 Big Bang using standard relativity, all the matter and energy 241 00:11:44,559 --> 00:11:48,639 in the universe compresses into a point of infinite density. 242 00:11:48,360 --> 00:11:49,080 Speaker 1: The singularity. 243 00:11:49,159 --> 00:11:54,480 Speaker 2: Exactly the singularity. The equations literally spit out infinities, which 244 00:11:54,519 --> 00:11:56,879 is a mathematical way of nature telling us, hey, your 245 00:11:56,919 --> 00:11:57,919 theory is broken. Here. 246 00:11:58,039 --> 00:11:59,519 Speaker 1: The math just gives up, it does. 247 00:12:00,080 --> 00:12:03,440 Speaker 2: Loop quantum gravity attempts to fix this by applying quantum 248 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:07,639 mechanics to the very fabric of space itself. It suggests 249 00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:10,519 that space is not a smooth, continuous background like we 250 00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:11,240 usually picture. 251 00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:12,440 Speaker 1: It's not a seamless canvas. 252 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,080 Speaker 2: Right if you zoom all the way in to the 253 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:18,399 plank length, which is roughly ten to the negative thirty 254 00:12:18,399 --> 00:12:21,480 five meters, unimaginably small space. 255 00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:23,240 Speaker 1: Is quantized, meaning it's made of little chunks. 256 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:26,440 Speaker 2: Yes, it is made of discrete finite loops woven into 257 00:12:26,440 --> 00:12:27,679 what are called spin networks. 258 00:12:27,879 --> 00:12:30,240 Speaker 1: So I try to picture space not as a smooth 259 00:12:30,279 --> 00:12:34,240 silk sheet, but like a microscopic chain mail. The chain 260 00:12:34,279 --> 00:12:37,240 mail analogy is perfect for this, right, So, when the 261 00:12:37,279 --> 00:12:41,080 previous universe collapsed inward under its own gravity, it got 262 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:44,240 smaller and denser. But because space is like chain mail, 263 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:48,679 it can't be compressed infinitely exactly. Those tiny quantum loops 264 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:53,039 eventually experience stress and strain. They push back against the crush. 265 00:12:53,279 --> 00:12:57,240 Speaker 2: To be mathematically precise about it, In loop quantum gravity, 266 00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:02,240 the operator for volume has a discrete spectrum. You literally 267 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:06,000 physically cannot have a volume smaller than a fundamental quantity 268 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:06,519 of space. 269 00:13:06,720 --> 00:13:08,840 Speaker 1: It's the absolute pixel size of the universe. 270 00:13:08,879 --> 00:13:11,559 Speaker 2: Right, So, when the matter of a collapsing universe tries 271 00:13:11,600 --> 00:13:15,039 to pack into a volume smaller than the physical geometry allows, 272 00:13:15,480 --> 00:13:18,200 the quantum state of the geometry becomes highly repulsive. 273 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:19,399 Speaker 1: It fights back hard. 274 00:13:19,879 --> 00:13:23,879 Speaker 2: At maximum compression, the plank density gravity actually flips. It 275 00:13:23,919 --> 00:13:27,480 goes from being an attractive force to an intensely repulsive one. 276 00:13:27,759 --> 00:13:29,360 The collapse is violently halted. 277 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:32,639 Speaker 1: It rebounds like hitting a solid concrete floor and bouncing. 278 00:13:32,360 --> 00:13:33,840 Speaker 2: Back up exactly like a bounce. 279 00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:37,360 Speaker 1: Which means there never was a singularity. The infinity is vanished. 280 00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,159 There was just a big bounce. Every single star you 281 00:13:40,200 --> 00:13:42,919 see at night is just the rebound of a universe 282 00:13:42,919 --> 00:13:44,279 that collapsed in on itself. 283 00:13:44,600 --> 00:13:48,480 Speaker 2: And this completely removes the necessity for a creation event. 284 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:50,919 Speaker 1: Right. There's no beginning from nothing. 285 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:54,039 Speaker 2: The origin of our expanding universe is simply the death 286 00:13:54,080 --> 00:13:57,440 throes of a collapsing one. We are the continuation of 287 00:13:57,440 --> 00:14:01,240 a localized process governed by quantum geometry. 288 00:14:00,879 --> 00:14:03,840 Speaker 1: That feels a little more comforting than the brain collisions, honestly, 289 00:14:04,360 --> 00:14:07,600 But so far, the infinite bubbles, the colliding brains, the 290 00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:11,039 bouncing chain mail, they all treat the past universe as 291 00:14:11,039 --> 00:14:13,639 a disconnected or erased event. 292 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:14,679 Speaker 2: A fresh start each time. 293 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:18,200 Speaker 1: Right, But what if the previous universe wasn't just a predecessor. 294 00:14:18,399 --> 00:14:20,519 What if it was apparent and it actually left behind 295 00:14:20,559 --> 00:14:21,679 a genetic lineage. 296 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:24,080 Speaker 2: Now we're getting into the really mind bending stuff. 297 00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:26,960 Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Lee S. Mollin at the Perimeter Institute proposed 298 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:30,360 cosmological natural selection in nineteen ninety two, and it forces 299 00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:33,919 us to look at the before as an actual evolutionary process. 300 00:14:34,399 --> 00:14:38,720 Speaker 2: Smollen noted something that is bothered physicists for decades. The 301 00:14:38,759 --> 00:14:42,840 fundamental constants of our universe, like the mass of the electron, 302 00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:46,159 the strength of the strong nuclear force, the cosmological constant. 303 00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:49,080 They all seem exquisitely fine tuned. 304 00:14:48,799 --> 00:14:50,240 Speaker 1: Like they were dialed in perfectly. 305 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,200 Speaker 2: Right. If you change them even slightly, stars don't form, 306 00:14:53,279 --> 00:14:56,840 carbon isn't created, and the entire universe just falls apart. 307 00:14:56,879 --> 00:15:00,120 Speaker 1: And usually anthropi centrism suggests this is so we can exist, 308 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:03,120 like the universe is tuned for human life exactly. 309 00:15:03,559 --> 00:15:07,919 Speaker 2: But Smolen hypothesized a biological mechanism. Instead, he proposed that 310 00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:12,759 inside every single black hole, the singularity actually bounces, creating 311 00:15:12,799 --> 00:15:16,240 a new baby universe on the other side of the 312 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:16,960 event horizon. 313 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:19,000 Speaker 1: Wait, inside every black. 314 00:15:18,759 --> 00:15:20,000 Speaker 2: Hole, every single one. 315 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:22,360 Speaker 1: And the crucial part here is that the physical laws 316 00:15:22,399 --> 00:15:25,240 aren't perfectly copied to the baby universe. Right, there's a. 317 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:27,559 Speaker 2: Mutation, exactly, a tiny mutation. 318 00:15:27,799 --> 00:15:30,519 Speaker 1: The bounce mechanics inside the black hole slightly alter the 319 00:15:30,519 --> 00:15:33,399 fine structure constant or the gravitational constant for the new 320 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:37,720 baby cosmos. It's literal Darwinian evolution, but on a cosmic scale, 321 00:15:37,720 --> 00:15:38,720 the universes. 322 00:15:38,320 --> 00:15:40,159 Speaker 2: Are competing to produce the most offspring. 323 00:15:40,519 --> 00:15:44,360 Speaker 1: Universe is competing to make black holes. That is wild. 324 00:15:44,720 --> 00:15:49,120 Speaker 2: Think about the selection pressure here. In biology, organisms compete 325 00:15:49,159 --> 00:15:50,639 for limited resources, right. 326 00:15:50,559 --> 00:15:52,559 Speaker 1: Yeah, food space mates. 327 00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:56,960 Speaker 2: But in Smolln's multiverse, space isn't limited. So the only 328 00:15:57,039 --> 00:16:00,519 metric of evolutionary success is pure reproductive volume. 329 00:16:00,759 --> 00:16:02,879 Speaker 1: Whoever makes the most babies wins. 330 00:16:03,399 --> 00:16:06,320 Speaker 2: Right. If a universe has physical constants that make it 331 00:16:06,399 --> 00:16:09,559 really bad at forming stars and black holes, it basically 332 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:11,559 dies out without leaving many offspring. 333 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:13,200 Speaker 1: It's an evolutionary dead end. 334 00:16:13,480 --> 00:16:16,200 Speaker 2: But if a universe has constants that naturally lead to 335 00:16:16,480 --> 00:16:20,600 massive stars, supernovas, and an abundance of black holes. It 336 00:16:20,639 --> 00:16:23,600 will spawn billions of baby universes. 337 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,639 Speaker 1: And those babies will inherit those favorable black hole making traits. 338 00:16:26,679 --> 00:16:29,639 Speaker 2: Yes, they mutate slightly and perhaps become even better at 339 00:16:29,679 --> 00:16:33,960 making black holes. Over countless generations, the multiverse becomes completely 340 00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:37,960 dominated by universes mathematically optimized for gravitational collapse. 341 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,919 Speaker 1: Which completely utterly reframes our entire existence. 342 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:41,519 Speaker 2: It really does. 343 00:16:41,759 --> 00:16:43,799 Speaker 1: I mean, we look at our universe and think it 344 00:16:43,840 --> 00:16:48,200 was perfectly designed for human life, but under cosmological natural selection, 345 00:16:48,720 --> 00:16:50,759 humanity is a complete accident. 346 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:51,840 Speaker 2: We are not the goal. 347 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:54,799 Speaker 1: We are a byproduct. The universe was fine tuned over 348 00:16:54,879 --> 00:16:59,080 billions of ancestral generations to manufacture black holes. The fact 349 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:01,960 that the specific mystry required to make black holes also 350 00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:05,279 happens to allow for carbon based life and human consciousness. 351 00:17:06,079 --> 00:17:07,200 It's just a. 352 00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:09,359 Speaker 2: Fluke, a total statistical anomaly. 353 00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:11,680 Speaker 1: We are literally the mold growing on the side of 354 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:12,759 a cosmic factory. 355 00:17:12,920 --> 00:17:15,359 Speaker 2: It is deeply humbling, isn't it. It strips away the 356 00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:18,599 illusion of our centrality in the cosmos. Yeah, the universe 357 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:21,599 before ours was our literal parent. It gives birth to 358 00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:24,559 our reality through a black hole, but it had absolutely 359 00:17:24,559 --> 00:17:26,279 no intention of creating life. 360 00:17:26,359 --> 00:17:29,119 Speaker 1: We are the exhaust fumes of an evolutionary machine that 361 00:17:29,279 --> 00:17:31,799 is man. That is rough on the ego it is. 362 00:17:32,319 --> 00:17:35,319 Speaker 2: But if Smolin gives us a lineage, Roger Penrose gives 363 00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:36,400 us literal ghosts. 364 00:17:36,559 --> 00:17:38,240 Speaker 1: Oh yes, theory number six. 365 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:42,759 Speaker 2: In twenty ten, Penrose proposed conformal cyclic cosmology, or CCC 366 00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:43,359 for short. 367 00:17:43,599 --> 00:17:46,000 Speaker 1: And I really struggled with this one in the sources 368 00:17:46,039 --> 00:17:50,279 because Penroe suggests that the ultimate freezing heat death of 369 00:17:50,319 --> 00:17:55,200 a universe is mathematically identical to the fiery explosive birth 370 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:55,960 of a new one. 371 00:17:56,079 --> 00:17:57,920 Speaker 2: It's a massive paradox on the surface. 372 00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:01,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, how does the infinite freeze end equate to the 373 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,559 dense hot beginning? That makes no logical sense to me. 374 00:18:04,759 --> 00:18:08,319 Speaker 2: I know, it's tough. It relies on something called conformal geometry. 375 00:18:08,599 --> 00:18:11,480 You have to trace the universe to its absolute furthest 376 00:18:11,519 --> 00:18:12,559 limit to understand it. 377 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:14,160 Speaker 1: Okay, take me to the end of time. 378 00:18:14,599 --> 00:18:17,039 Speaker 2: So trillions of years from now, all the stars will 379 00:18:17,079 --> 00:18:20,920 burn out, the galaxies will go dark. Eventually, even the 380 00:18:21,039 --> 00:18:25,119 supermassive black holes will evaporate via Hawking radiation, total darkness. 381 00:18:25,240 --> 00:18:28,799 Right in the deepest darkest future, all massive particles will 382 00:18:28,799 --> 00:18:32,079 eventually decay. The only things left of the cosmos will 383 00:18:32,079 --> 00:18:35,759 be massless particles, primarily photons. 384 00:18:35,119 --> 00:18:37,880 Speaker 1: Just an endless, incredibly diluted soup of light. 385 00:18:38,079 --> 00:18:42,359 Speaker 2: Exactly. Now here's the trick. Because they are massless, photons 386 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:45,000 travel at the speed of light, and relativity tells us 387 00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:47,799 that at the speed of light, time essentially stops. 388 00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,759 Speaker 1: Right time dilation. A photon emitted from a dying star 389 00:18:50,880 --> 00:18:54,559 and traveling for ten billion years doesn't experience a single 390 00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:56,559 second passing exactly. 391 00:18:57,039 --> 00:18:59,759 Speaker 2: So, if the entire universe is filled only with particles 392 00:18:59,799 --> 00:19:04,160 that do not experience time, the cosmic clock simply stops ticking. 393 00:19:04,559 --> 00:19:05,759 Speaker 1: Time ceases to exist. 394 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:10,160 Speaker 2: And if time loses its meaning, spatial scale also loses 395 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,039 its meaning because we define distance using timelike light years. 396 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:17,200 Speaker 1: Oh, I see, if there's no time, you can't measure distance. 397 00:19:17,599 --> 00:19:21,160 Speaker 2: Right. In the mathematics of general relativity, the metric tensor, 398 00:19:21,519 --> 00:19:23,839 which is the tool we use to measure distance in time, 399 00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:26,319 can be scaled by what's called a conformal factor. 400 00:19:26,519 --> 00:19:27,640 Speaker 1: Okay, stick with me here. 401 00:19:27,839 --> 00:19:30,559 Speaker 2: When you remove mass from the universe, the geometry loses 402 00:19:30,599 --> 00:19:33,599 its conformal factor. It effectively forgets how big it is. 403 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:34,839 Speaker 1: It forgets its own size. 404 00:19:35,039 --> 00:19:38,839 Speaker 2: Yes, an infinitely large, cold, dead universe without time or 405 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:44,039 scale becomes mathematically indistinguishable from the infinitely hot, dense microscoptic 406 00:19:44,160 --> 00:19:45,640 singularity of new Big Bang. 407 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:48,720 Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, I know, but space is still expanding 408 00:19:48,759 --> 00:19:52,599 in that dead universe. How does infinitely large become infinitely 409 00:19:52,599 --> 00:19:54,640 dense just because it forgot its size? 410 00:19:54,880 --> 00:19:58,319 Speaker 2: Because without mass to act as a reference point, words 411 00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:03,759 like large and dense are meaningless concepts. The conformal rescaling 412 00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,319 allows the infinite future boundary of the old universe to 413 00:20:07,480 --> 00:20:10,640 perfectly match the initial singularity boundary of the new one. 414 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:11,680 Speaker 1: It just snaps together. 415 00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:15,079 Speaker 2: The boundary matching is perfectly seamless. The death of the 416 00:20:15,119 --> 00:20:18,839 old cosmos is geometrically the exact same event as the 417 00:20:18,839 --> 00:20:19,720 birth of the next. 418 00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:23,119 Speaker 1: That is beautiful but also terrifying. But the part that 419 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,039 really shook me in the reading is Penrose's claim about. 420 00:20:25,759 --> 00:20:28,200 Speaker 2: Hawking points ah the thermal scars. 421 00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:31,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, because he argues, the previous universe didn't just quietly 422 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:34,559 fade into our Big Bang, It left actual scars on 423 00:20:34,599 --> 00:20:35,960 the foundation of our reality. 424 00:20:36,079 --> 00:20:39,400 Speaker 2: Yes he did. In twenty eighteen, Penrose's team analyzed the 425 00:20:39,440 --> 00:20:42,759 cosmic microwave background, which is the residual heat map of 426 00:20:42,799 --> 00:20:44,480 the Big Bang that we can still see. 427 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,279 Speaker 1: Today, the static from the dawn of time. 428 00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,960 Speaker 2: Right, They look for anomalous concentrated circular rings of thermal 429 00:20:50,039 --> 00:20:53,480 variation in that heat map. According to CCC math, when 430 00:20:53,519 --> 00:20:57,160 supermassive black holes in the previous universe finally evaporated, they 431 00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:00,039 released these massive bursts of Hawking radiation. 432 00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:02,119 Speaker 1: A huge pop of energy right at the end of 433 00:21:02,119 --> 00:21:03,640 the previous universe. 434 00:21:03,279 --> 00:21:06,200 Speaker 2: Exactly, And because of the conformal boundary matching we just 435 00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,839 talked about, the entire history of that evaporation gets squashed 436 00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:13,599 down into a single intense point of energy that punches 437 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:17,160 straight through the boundary into our newly born universe. Wow, 438 00:21:17,279 --> 00:21:20,839 it creates an expanding ring of heat in the primordial 439 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:22,519 plasma of our cosmos. 440 00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,920 Speaker 1: So let me get this straight. When astronomers map the 441 00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:29,480 cosmic microwave background today, they might literally be looking at 442 00:21:29,519 --> 00:21:32,400 the thermal fingerprints of a reality that died before ours 443 00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:32,960 even began. 444 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:33,799 Speaker 2: That's the claim. 445 00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,200 Speaker 1: Yes, we are looking at the ghosts of supermassive black 446 00:21:37,279 --> 00:21:40,599 holes from a previous eternity. We're just passing scars down 447 00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:41,920 the generational line. 448 00:21:42,119 --> 00:21:45,319 Speaker 2: It is a profoundly haunting image. Now, to be fair 449 00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:48,920 to the broader scientific community, many cosmologists argue these patterns 450 00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,400 could just be statistical noise in the data. But the 451 00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,559 mathematical framework Penrose built is undeniably rigorous. 452 00:21:55,759 --> 00:21:58,880 Speaker 1: It's definitely compelling. But notice that in all these theories, 453 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,599 bouncing chain mail, black hole evolution, conformal geometry, we are 454 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:06,440 still assuming the before was made of something physical. 455 00:22:06,279 --> 00:22:08,240 Speaker 2: Right, matter, gravity space? 456 00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:11,799 Speaker 1: Exactly? What if the precursor to our universe wasn't a 457 00:22:11,839 --> 00:22:13,720 physical place at all? What if we have to look 458 00:22:13,759 --> 00:22:16,079 into genuine nothingness and. 459 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:20,359 Speaker 2: That transitions us perfectly To Edward Tryon's nineteen seventy three 460 00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:24,519 paper on the quantum vacuum theory, Number eight, Tryon proposed 461 00:22:24,559 --> 00:22:28,839 that the entire universe is a massive quantum fluctuation from 462 00:22:29,000 --> 00:22:29,880 pure nothingness. 463 00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: Okay, look, I'm going to push back hard on this one. 464 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:32,799 Speaker 2: I figured you would. 465 00:22:32,960 --> 00:22:36,359 Speaker 1: You cannot get something from nothing. It violates the first 466 00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:40,920 law of thermodynamics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. You 467 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,000 can't spawn a universe with hundreds of billions of galaxies 468 00:22:44,039 --> 00:22:46,519 out of an empty void. The energy has to come 469 00:22:46,559 --> 00:22:47,759 from somewhere, right, You. 470 00:22:47,720 --> 00:22:50,359 Speaker 2: Would absolutely think so. It seems like basic common sense. 471 00:22:51,039 --> 00:22:54,279 But the mathematics of general relativity provide a very specific 472 00:22:54,319 --> 00:22:57,599 loophole via something called the Hamiltonian. 473 00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:58,559 Speaker 1: Constraint, a physics loophole. 474 00:22:58,599 --> 00:23:02,079 Speaker 2: Okay, explain, Try realize that to create the universe from nothing, 475 00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:05,240 you don't actually violate the conservation of energy provided that 476 00:23:05,279 --> 00:23:07,799 the net total energy of the universe is exactly zero. 477 00:23:08,079 --> 00:23:11,759 Speaker 1: Wait, okay, Calling gravity negative energy feels like an accounting 478 00:23:11,799 --> 00:23:15,160 trick cooked up to balance a checkbook that is fundamentally overdrawn. 479 00:23:16,079 --> 00:23:19,160 How does a universe full of burning stars and kinetic 480 00:23:19,279 --> 00:23:20,279 energy equal zero. 481 00:23:20,559 --> 00:23:23,480 Speaker 2: It's not a trick, I promise. It is a fundamental 482 00:23:23,519 --> 00:23:28,119 consequence of how gravitational potential works. The matter in radiation, 483 00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,200 the mass of the stars, the heat you and me. 484 00:23:31,839 --> 00:23:33,880 That all represents positive energy. 485 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:35,279 Speaker 1: Okay, that's the stuff, right. 486 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,680 Speaker 2: But gravity is an attractive force. To pull two massive 487 00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:42,279 objects apart, you have to input energy into the system. 488 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:44,839 Speaker 1: Like lifting a rock off the ground takes work exactly. 489 00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:49,720 Speaker 2: That means their gravitational binding energy is mathematically negative. If 490 00:23:49,759 --> 00:23:52,880 you integrate the total positive mass energy of the observable 491 00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:56,000 universe and add it to the total negative gravitational the 492 00:23:56,039 --> 00:23:59,680 potential energy holding it all together. They precisely cancel each. 493 00:23:59,599 --> 00:24:00,960 Speaker 1: Other out ages equals zero. 494 00:24:01,079 --> 00:24:03,319 Speaker 2: The universe has exactly zero net energy. 495 00:24:03,519 --> 00:24:07,000 Speaker 1: So because the universe technically costs nothing to make, quantum 496 00:24:07,039 --> 00:24:10,039 mechanics allows it to just pop into existence precisely. 497 00:24:11,039 --> 00:24:16,000 Speaker 2: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allows for temporary violations of energy conservation 498 00:24:16,559 --> 00:24:20,039 as long as they happen quickly. We see virtual particles 499 00:24:20,319 --> 00:24:23,880 pop in and out of the vacuum constantly in lab experiments. 500 00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:25,039 Speaker 1: Right quantum foam boiling. 501 00:24:25,279 --> 00:24:28,759 Speaker 2: But because our entire universe has zero net energy, the 502 00:24:28,839 --> 00:24:32,079 uncertainty principle says a fluctuation of zero energy can last 503 00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:33,440 for an infinite amount of time. 504 00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,839 Speaker 1: It doesn't need to instantly annihilate like those lab particles. 505 00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,359 Speaker 2: Exactly a tiny patch of nothingness tunneled into a state 506 00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:44,160 of exponential inflation, and our universe was born. It is 507 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,359 the ultimate cosmic free lunch. 508 00:24:46,559 --> 00:24:49,279 Speaker 1: But if we are just a zero energy quantum fluctuation, 509 00:24:49,519 --> 00:24:52,720 quantum mechanics is ruled by probability, not certainty. 510 00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:54,200 Speaker 2: Oh, I see where you're going with us. 511 00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,960 Speaker 1: If we borrowed our existence from the void. Doesn't that 512 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,599 mean the fluctuation could spontaneously reverse like, couldn't the universe 513 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:02,119 just decided to cancel itself out? 514 00:25:02,279 --> 00:25:05,279 Speaker 2: Yes, that is the very real threat of vacuum decay. 515 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:07,200 Speaker 1: Vacuum decay, I hate the sound of that already. 516 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:12,440 Speaker 2: If our universe is a fluctuation, its stability is entirely probabilistic. 517 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:17,000 At any completely random moment, a new quantum tunneling event 518 00:25:17,039 --> 00:25:21,599 could occur. A bubble of true vacuum could nucleate somewhere 519 00:25:21,599 --> 00:25:24,240 in space and expand outward at the speed of light. 520 00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:26,240 Speaker 1: And what happens If that bubble hits us. 521 00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,039 Speaker 2: It would instantly alter the fundamental forces of physics. It 522 00:25:29,079 --> 00:25:32,960 would dissolve all atomic bonds. Reality wouldn't even explode, It 523 00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:34,319 would just instantly cease to be. 524 00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:36,400 Speaker 1: We wouldn't even see it coming because it moves at 525 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:37,640 light speed exactly. 526 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:40,119 Speaker 2: The universe would pay off at zero energy debt, and 527 00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,559 the lights would go out everywhere with absolutely zero warning. 528 00:25:43,759 --> 00:25:46,359 Speaker 1: One second we're here, and the next second the universe 529 00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,920 corrects a math error and we vanish. It makes you 530 00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:52,359 feel incredibly fragile. It's the ultimate sort of damicles well, wait, 531 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,880 if the vacuum is fundamentally unstable, what if the three 532 00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,000 D space we're sitting in right now isn't even structurally real. 533 00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,319 Speaker 2: H step into the illusion of space. 534 00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:05,039 Speaker 1: Yeah. This brings us to Juan Maldasana's nineteen ninety seven 535 00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:09,440 paper on the holographic principle, and this paper, if I recall, 536 00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,839 is famously the most cited in the history of theoretical physics. 537 00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,359 Speaker 2: It absolutely revolutionized the field. 538 00:26:15,599 --> 00:26:18,200 Speaker 1: Maltasena took this fear of the void and pushed it 539 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,279 completely into the realm of pure data. 540 00:26:20,359 --> 00:26:24,599 Speaker 2: Malvasena introduced what's known as the ad SCFT correspondence. 541 00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:25,839 Speaker 1: Okay, acronym alert, yes sorry. 542 00:26:26,279 --> 00:26:29,599 Speaker 2: He demonstrated mathematically that a specific type of three dimensional 543 00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:34,160 space that contains gravity, called antidsitter space. The ADS part 544 00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:38,000 is perfectly mathematically equivalent to a two dimensional boundary that 545 00:26:38,039 --> 00:26:41,759 does not contain gravity, which is governed by conformal field theory. 546 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:42,839 The CFT part. 547 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,279 Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this very carefully, because a three D 548 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,960 space with gravity equating to a flat two D surface 549 00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,039 without gravity is well, it's. 550 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,000 Speaker 2: Mind bending, it's extremely unintuitous. 551 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:53,640 Speaker 1: The best analogy I can think of is a three 552 00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:55,960 D movie. When you sit in the theater, you see 553 00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,559 spaceships and depth. But the rich three D experience is 554 00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:02,200 just a trick of light projected from a flat two 555 00:27:02,279 --> 00:27:03,440 D reel of film. 556 00:27:03,559 --> 00:27:04,960 Speaker 2: Right, The depth is an illusion. 557 00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:07,759 Speaker 1: So the three D world isn't the fundamental reality the 558 00:27:07,799 --> 00:27:09,920 flat film is. Is that what we're talking about here? 559 00:27:10,039 --> 00:27:12,599 Speaker 2: The film projector analogy is a really good starting point, 560 00:27:12,799 --> 00:27:15,279 but it breaks down when you realize the film in 561 00:27:15,319 --> 00:27:18,359 this case is a massively tangled quantum state. 562 00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,200 Speaker 1: Okay, explain that it. 563 00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,759 Speaker 2: Has to do with the Peckenstein bound Physicists realized a 564 00:27:23,759 --> 00:27:26,279 while ago that the maximum amount of information you can 565 00:27:26,319 --> 00:27:29,000 cram into a region of spacelike inside a black hole 566 00:27:29,559 --> 00:27:32,119 is proportional to the surfaced area of the event horizon, 567 00:27:32,759 --> 00:27:34,359 not the three D volume inside. 568 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,039 Speaker 1: So a black hole's data limit is based on its skin, 569 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:38,039 not its guts. 570 00:27:38,319 --> 00:27:41,119 Speaker 2: Exactly. All the information about the three D objects that 571 00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,559 fell into the black hole is encoded permanently on its 572 00:27:44,559 --> 00:27:47,599 two D surface. Melasine, it just took that concept and 573 00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:49,119 applied it to the entire universe. 574 00:27:49,279 --> 00:27:53,200 Speaker 1: But how does string theory math map onto a flat surface? 575 00:27:53,279 --> 00:27:56,640 I mean, how does the feeling of gravity emerge from something. 576 00:27:56,319 --> 00:28:00,079 Speaker 2: Flat through the magic of quantum entanglement. The particles and 577 00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:03,519 the two D boundary are highly highly entangled. The complex 578 00:28:03,559 --> 00:28:07,279 web a quantum entanglement on that flat surface actually generates 579 00:28:07,279 --> 00:28:10,079 the geometric illusion of three D space and the force 580 00:28:10,079 --> 00:28:11,319 of gravity in the interior. 581 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:12,720 Speaker 1: So gravity isn't real. 582 00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:16,880 Speaker 2: Gravity isn't a fundamental force in this model. No, it 583 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,759 is an emergent property of information processing happening on the boundary. 584 00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,640 Speaker 1: So if the holographic principle is correct, you and I 585 00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,519 do not actually exist as physical entities in three dimensional space. 586 00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:28,839 Speaker 2: Not fundamentally enough. 587 00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:32,400 Speaker 1: We are incredibly complex patterns of data encoded on a 588 00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,960 distant two dimensional surface. The depth of volume, the feeling 589 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,880 of me moving my hands right now, it's all an 590 00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,359 illusion generated by a cosmic server. 591 00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:43,519 Speaker 2: Rack, the quantum server rack. 592 00:28:43,599 --> 00:28:47,240 Speaker 1: But yes, essentially, and this completely destroys our core question 593 00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,359 for this deep dive, because if space is just an 594 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:54,319 illusion of data, then asking what came before the universe 595 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:56,759 is no longer a question about time. 596 00:28:57,079 --> 00:29:00,640 Speaker 2: Exactly, in a holographic model, the before F four wasn't 597 00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,119 a prior time or a physical place at all. It 598 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,200 was simply a different configuration of quantum information on that 599 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,079 two D boundary. 600 00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:08,799 Speaker 1: It's just a different save file. 601 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,759 Speaker 2: Right. Our universe wasn't born in a temporal sense. The 602 00:29:11,759 --> 00:29:15,319 boundary data just underwent a phase transition. The original reality 603 00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:18,079 is a lower dimensional substrate that looks absolutely nothing like 604 00:29:18,119 --> 00:29:19,160 the universe we perceive. 605 00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,400 Speaker 1: That is just wow. But even in the holographic model, 606 00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,720 we are still using words like prior configuration. We are 607 00:29:26,799 --> 00:29:28,319 implicitly clinging to time. 608 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,279 Speaker 2: We can't help it, It's how our language works. 609 00:29:30,359 --> 00:29:32,759 Speaker 1: We are still asking what happened before? So let's push 610 00:29:32,759 --> 00:29:35,039 this into the actual dissolution of time itself. 611 00:29:35,119 --> 00:29:36,279 Speaker 2: Three number two right. 612 00:29:36,759 --> 00:29:39,200 Speaker 1: John Wheeler in nineteen sixty seven and Stephen Hawking in 613 00:29:39,279 --> 00:29:42,920 nineteen eighty three completely dismantled the concept of before with 614 00:29:43,079 --> 00:29:46,079 quantum gravity foam and the no boundary proposal. 615 00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:48,079 Speaker 2: For this one, we have to zoom back down to 616 00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:51,559 the plank length. Wheeler coined the term quantum foam. 617 00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:53,559 Speaker 1: The churning chain mail from earlier. 618 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,759 Speaker 2: Similar but worse. At that extreme microscopic scale, the smooth 619 00:29:58,839 --> 00:30:02,880 fabric of space and time entirely loses its structure. It 620 00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:06,960 dissolves into a violently churning froth. Tiny wormholes open and 621 00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:08,359 close instantly. 622 00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,160 Speaker 1: Just microscopic chaos sotal chaos. 623 00:30:10,279 --> 00:30:14,079 Speaker 2: Geometry itself becomes fundamentally uncertain. You literally can't tell up 624 00:30:14,079 --> 00:30:15,440 from down or before from after. 625 00:30:15,559 --> 00:30:17,519 Speaker 1: And at the Big Bang, all the matter and energy 626 00:30:17,519 --> 00:30:19,960 in the universe was compressed down into a space so 627 00:30:20,319 --> 00:30:24,440 unimaginably tiny that the entire cosmos was dominated by this 628 00:30:24,599 --> 00:30:25,359 quantum foam. 629 00:30:25,759 --> 00:30:29,599 Speaker 2: Right, and in that primordial quantum foam, the absolute rule 630 00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,759 of time completely breaks down. Stephen Hawking and James Hartle 631 00:30:34,039 --> 00:30:36,200 used quantum mechanics to model this. 632 00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,599 Speaker 1: Origin state the Hartle Hawking state. 633 00:30:38,519 --> 00:30:42,440 Speaker 2: Exactly, and to make the math work. Hawking utilized a 634 00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:47,920 technique called a Wick rotation. He substituted normal time, represented 635 00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:52,200 by the letter T, with imaginary time it by multiplying 636 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:54,880 it by the square root of negative one. Wait, wait, stop, 637 00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,440 I know imaginary numbers. 638 00:30:56,319 --> 00:30:59,440 Speaker 1: Imaginary time. You're telling me Stephen Hawking just multiplied time 639 00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,960 by the square root of negative one and solve the universe. 640 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,079 That sounds like a mathematical parlor trick. Oh, the equation 641 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:06,960 doesn't work. Let me just use an imaginary number. 642 00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:08,440 Speaker 2: I know it sounds like a trick, but the Wick 643 00:31:08,559 --> 00:31:13,359 rotation actually has profound geometrical consequences in physics. When you 644 00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:16,920 replace real time with imaginary time and the metric equations 645 00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:21,400 of relativity, the fundamental distinction between time and space vanishes. 646 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:22,400 Speaker 1: They become the same thing. 647 00:31:22,559 --> 00:31:26,920 Speaker 2: The metric signature changes from Lorenzian to Euclidean. Time literally 648 00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,039 transforms into a fourth spatial dimension. 649 00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,920 Speaker 1: Okay, so time becomes space. Hawking use the North Pole 650 00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:34,200 analogy for this, right. 651 00:31:34,119 --> 00:31:35,680 Speaker 2: Yes, it's the best way to explain it. 652 00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:37,960 Speaker 1: If you walk north on the Earth, you eventually hit 653 00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,920 the North Pole. But once you are standing exactly on 654 00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,680 the pole, every direction is south. The concept of north 655 00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:46,759 simply ceases to exist. 656 00:31:47,039 --> 00:31:49,799 Speaker 2: That is the absolute essence of the Hartle Hawking state. 657 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,119 The universe doesn't have a boundary in time, just like 658 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,240 the Earth doesn't have an edge you can fall. 659 00:31:55,039 --> 00:31:57,720 Speaker 1: Off, so there's no cliff to drop off of. At 660 00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:58,240 the beginning. 661 00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:01,319 Speaker 2: Right as you rewind toward the Big Bang, you don't 662 00:32:01,359 --> 00:32:04,400 hit a wall of creation. You hit a temporal pole 663 00:32:04,759 --> 00:32:07,960 where the dimension of time curves into a spatial dimension. 664 00:32:08,039 --> 00:32:08,799 Speaker 1: It just rounds up. 665 00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,960 Speaker 2: There's no moment of creation from nothing, because there is 666 00:32:12,119 --> 00:32:15,839 literally no first moment. The concept of before the Big 667 00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:19,480 Bang is as mathematically incoherent as asking what is north 668 00:32:19,519 --> 00:32:21,920 of the North Pole. It's just an invalid query. 669 00:32:22,079 --> 00:32:25,680 Speaker 1: And this is where the physics gets deeply, profoundly upsetting 670 00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:26,759 to human psychology. 671 00:32:26,799 --> 00:32:27,720 Speaker 2: You know, oh totally. 672 00:32:27,799 --> 00:32:31,119 Speaker 1: We evolved on the African savannah to understand causes and effects. 673 00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:34,640 The grass rustles, that's the cause a predator jumps out, 674 00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:35,319 that's the effect. 675 00:32:35,599 --> 00:32:37,839 Speaker 2: It's hardwired into our survival exactly. 676 00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:42,160 Speaker 1: Our entire survival and cognitive structure rely on understanding before 677 00:32:42,279 --> 00:32:46,559 and after. The disturbing realization here is that human cognition 678 00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:50,680 is constitutionally incapable of understanding the origin of reality. 679 00:32:50,799 --> 00:32:52,279 Speaker 2: We just don't have the hardware for it. 680 00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,799 Speaker 1: Our brains are simply the wrong shape to process a 681 00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:59,119 universe where causes and effects dissolve into spatial geometry. We 682 00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,720 desperately want to story with a beginning, and the universe 683 00:33:01,799 --> 00:33:03,759 just flat out refuses to give us one. 684 00:33:04,039 --> 00:33:07,079 Speaker 2: We are trying to use temporal reasoning in a domain 685 00:33:07,079 --> 00:33:10,319 where that tool fundamentally does not apply. But if you 686 00:33:10,359 --> 00:33:13,640 think losing the concept of before is hard, wait until 687 00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:14,440 we get to theory. 688 00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,160 Speaker 1: Number three Max tech Mark at MIT in two thousand 689 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,400 and seven, the mathematical universe. 690 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,160 Speaker 2: This one removes the concept of time passing entirely. 691 00:33:22,279 --> 00:33:25,599 Speaker 1: Right, tech Mark takes us straight into extreme platonism. Most 692 00:33:25,599 --> 00:33:28,559 physicists use math to describe the universe, right like we 693 00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,799 use equations to map how gravity works or how planets orbit. 694 00:33:32,079 --> 00:33:34,400 Speaker 2: Math is the language we use to describe reality. 695 00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:36,559 Speaker 1: But teg Mark flip the script entirely, and so the 696 00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,480 universe isn't just described by mathematics. It is mathematics exactly. 697 00:33:40,759 --> 00:33:43,240 Speaker 2: Tech Mark argues for what he calls a level four 698 00:33:43,319 --> 00:33:47,480 V multiverse, where every single mathematically consistent structure that can 699 00:33:47,519 --> 00:33:50,480 possibly exist actually does exist physically. 700 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:52,839 Speaker 1: So if the math works, the universe exists. 701 00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,519 Speaker 2: Yes, our universe, with its quarks, biological life, expanding galaxies 702 00:33:57,799 --> 00:34:01,799 is simply one highly complex mathematic structure among infinitely many. 703 00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,039 And because it is purely a mathematical object, it doesn't 704 00:34:05,079 --> 00:34:08,199 need a creator, doesn't need to be simulated by a computer, 705 00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:09,960 and it certainly doesn't need a beginning. 706 00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:13,159 Speaker 1: I have to interject here because I am a human being. 707 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,000 I experience entropy, I make choices. Every day. 708 00:34:16,119 --> 00:34:17,239 Speaker 2: You feel like you have free will. 709 00:34:17,639 --> 00:34:19,880 Speaker 1: I remember the past and I don't know the future. 710 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:25,159 How can my lived dynamic messy unpredictable experience of life 711 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,880 just be a static math equation. It feels too real 712 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:29,880 to be math. 713 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,920 Speaker 2: Because that dynamic experience is an illusion generated from within 714 00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,800 the math. In tech Mark's block universe, you are not 715 00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,360 a dynamic entity moving through a flowing river of time. 716 00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:38,719 Speaker 1: I'm not. 717 00:34:39,079 --> 00:34:42,920 Speaker 2: No, you are a highly complex, completely static pattern embedded 718 00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:45,639 inside an eternal mathematical object. Think of a DVD. 719 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:46,480 Speaker 1: Okay, a DVD. 720 00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,599 Speaker 2: The movie on the DVD contains a story with a beginning, middle, 721 00:34:50,639 --> 00:34:54,360 and end. The characters inside the movie experience time passing. 722 00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:57,880 They make choices, they suffer, But the DVD itself is 723 00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,480 just a single static piece of plastic. 724 00:35:00,599 --> 00:35:02,400 Speaker 1: It's all just data etched on a disk. 725 00:35:02,559 --> 00:35:05,320 Speaker 2: It doesn't experience time. It just exists. 726 00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:09,159 Speaker 1: So my consciousness, every moment of suffering, every joy, my birth, 727 00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:13,239 my eventual death, it all exists simultaneously right now as 728 00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,000 an eternal mathematical fact. 729 00:35:15,079 --> 00:35:17,480 Speaker 2: Yes, all of it. The experience of time passing is 730 00:35:17,559 --> 00:35:20,639 just an internal property of your specific pattern within that 731 00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,719 overarching structure that is heavy. Nothing preceded the universe because 732 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,599 the universe doesn't exist in time. It is a mathematical 733 00:35:27,679 --> 00:35:31,159 landscape frozen in eternity. You are never created, and you 734 00:35:31,199 --> 00:35:33,920 will never end. You simply are, in the exact same 735 00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:35,480 way that the number seven simply is. 736 00:35:35,559 --> 00:35:37,599 Speaker 1: The number seven doesn't need a cause. It's just a 737 00:35:37,599 --> 00:35:39,199 mathematical truth exactly. 738 00:35:39,519 --> 00:35:41,000 Speaker 2: It always was and always will be. 739 00:35:41,159 --> 00:35:44,079 Speaker 1: It completely strips away all the dynamism of life. We 740 00:35:44,119 --> 00:35:46,800 are just fossils trapped in a mathematical block. 741 00:35:46,639 --> 00:35:47,639 Speaker 2: The very complex block. 742 00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,639 Speaker 1: But yes, but if we are just math, what if 743 00:35:50,639 --> 00:35:52,679 the math is just a random roll of the dice. 744 00:35:54,039 --> 00:35:56,880 This brings us to our final source, the concept I 745 00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,719 find the absolute most existentially. 746 00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,400 Speaker 2: Terrifying of the bun oh Boltzman. 747 00:36:01,039 --> 00:36:04,719 Speaker 1: Boltzmann genesis, tracing all the way back to the physicist 748 00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:07,239 Ludwig Boltzmann in the late eighteen hundreds. 749 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:11,039 Speaker 2: To really grasp the horror of Boltzmann's theory, we have 750 00:36:11,079 --> 00:36:13,320 to look at statistical mechanics in phase space. 751 00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:14,400 Speaker 1: Okay, take us there. 752 00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:17,679 Speaker 2: The second law of thermodynamics tells us that closed systems 753 00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:22,400 always moved toward maximum entropy, which means thermal equilibrium, a 754 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,199 state of complete and utter disorder, like a hot. 755 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,000 Speaker 1: Cup of coffee cooling down to room temperature. 756 00:36:27,079 --> 00:36:30,000 Speaker 2: Perfect example. The problem is our universe started in a 757 00:36:30,039 --> 00:36:32,119 state of impossibly low entropy. 758 00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:34,480 Speaker 1: It was incredibly ordered at the Big Bang, right. 759 00:36:34,679 --> 00:36:37,639 Speaker 2: Roger Penrose actually calculated the probability of the Big Bang's 760 00:36:37,639 --> 00:36:40,559 initial low entropy state occurring purely by. 761 00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:42,320 Speaker 1: Chance, and what were the odds? 762 00:36:42,639 --> 00:36:44,599 Speaker 2: The number is one in ten to the power of 763 00:36:44,639 --> 00:36:45,719 ten to the one twenty three. 764 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:47,840 Speaker 1: That is, I can't even conceptualize that. 765 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:53,119 Speaker 2: Nobody can. It's a number so staggeringly huge that if 766 00:36:53,159 --> 00:36:55,960 you put a zero on every single subatomic particle in 767 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,480 the observable universe, you would run out of particles long 768 00:36:59,519 --> 00:37:00,840 before the whole number. 769 00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,480 Speaker 1: So it's effectively impossible for our universe to just happen by. 770 00:37:04,519 --> 00:37:06,519 Speaker 2: Chance, exactly unless. 771 00:37:06,199 --> 00:37:09,760 Speaker 1: Unless you have infinite time there it is. Boltzman proposed 772 00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,800 that the before was just an eternal, infinite void of 773 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:17,880 maximum entropy, a completely dead, featureless expanse of thermal noise 774 00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:19,199 stretching forever, and. 775 00:37:19,159 --> 00:37:23,760 Speaker 2: The mathematics of statistical mechanics, specifically the point kerret recurrence theorem, 776 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:28,960 dictate that in an infinite system, random thermal fluctuations are 777 00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:33,320 absolutely guaranteed to eventually visit every possible state, no matter 778 00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:34,559 how ridiculously unlikely. 779 00:37:34,559 --> 00:37:37,159 Speaker 1: If you roll the dice infinitely eventually you get every combination. 780 00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,599 Speaker 2: Right, if you wait long enough. In a dead, infinite universe, 781 00:37:41,039 --> 00:37:44,440 a random fluctuation of particles will eventually align perfectly to 782 00:37:44,519 --> 00:37:48,400 create a localized, highly ordered, low entropy patch like our 783 00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:48,880 Big Bang. 784 00:37:49,079 --> 00:37:52,639 Speaker 1: Like our Big Bang, so our entire Cosmos, the Milky Way, 785 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,280 the Earth, all of human history. It might just be 786 00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,599 a random statistical accident that popped out of eternal thermal noise. 787 00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:05,039 Speaker 2: Yes, because infinity has no beginning, that insanely rare fluctuation 788 00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,800 was actually an absolute mathematical certainty. Yeah, if you wait forever, 789 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:10,519 the impossible becomes guaranteed. 790 00:38:10,559 --> 00:38:14,400 Speaker 1: That's chilling. But the terror of Boltzmann genesis isn't just 791 00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,960 that we are a statistical accident in a void, right. 792 00:38:17,679 --> 00:38:22,679 It's the horrifying logic of probability that inevitably follows. 793 00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:23,559 Speaker 2: That thought the Boltzman brain. 794 00:38:23,599 --> 00:38:28,199 Speaker 1: The Boltzman brain, statistical mechanics dictates that smaller, simpler fluctuations 795 00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:31,800 are exponentially more probable than massively complex ones. 796 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:32,400 Speaker 2: Bugyous. 797 00:38:32,559 --> 00:38:36,000 Speaker 1: It takes infinitely less luck to spontaneously assemble a rock 798 00:38:36,079 --> 00:38:39,159 out of random thermal noise than it takes to assemble 799 00:38:39,199 --> 00:38:40,800 a whole, functioning planet. 800 00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,360 Speaker 2: That is the core logic. Yes, oh, it is infinitely 801 00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,079 more probable for a random fluctuation to create a single 802 00:38:46,079 --> 00:38:50,440 solar system than a whole galaxy, And extending that exact logic, 803 00:38:51,159 --> 00:38:54,440 it is infinitely more probable for a random fluctuation in 804 00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:59,199 the void to temporarily assemble just a single conscious human 805 00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:02,599 brain loading out there in the dark, complete with false 806 00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,920 preloaded memories of a thirteen point eight billion year cosmic history, 807 00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,440 than it is for the actual full universe to physically exist. 808 00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,119 Speaker 1: Let that sink in for a second. According to the 809 00:39:13,119 --> 00:39:17,400 pure mathematics of statistical probability, it is far far more 810 00:39:17,559 --> 00:39:20,639 likely that you, yes, you listening to this deep dive 811 00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,599 right now, are just a solitary brain that spontaneously materialized 812 00:39:24,639 --> 00:39:26,639 out of the chaos a fraction of a second agoin 813 00:39:26,679 --> 00:39:29,519 a terrifying thought. Your memories of your childhood, the sensation 814 00:39:29,599 --> 00:39:31,480 of the chair you're sitting in, your memory of the 815 00:39:31,519 --> 00:39:35,239 start of this very conversation, they are all just chemical 816 00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,079 illusions forged by a freak alignment of atoms in an 817 00:39:38,159 --> 00:39:38,840 endless void. 818 00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:40,639 Speaker 2: The Earth doesn't exist, I don't exist. 819 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:42,480 Speaker 1: You are totally alone in the dark, and we are 820 00:39:42,519 --> 00:39:45,039 just the smallest possible dream that the void could have 821 00:39:45,559 --> 00:39:48,280 right before your brain dissolves back into the thermal noise. 822 00:39:48,519 --> 00:39:51,840 Speaker 2: It is the ultimate nightmare of probability. It tells us 823 00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:55,719 there is no grand architecture, no physical reality outside of 824 00:39:55,760 --> 00:40:00,400 a momentary hallucination generated by statistical inevitability in an infinite 825 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:01,800 featureless chaos. Wow. 826 00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:04,039 Speaker 1: Okay, let's pull ourselves out of that boyd for a 827 00:40:04,079 --> 00:40:06,400 second before we all have an existential crisis. 828 00:40:06,519 --> 00:40:07,480 Speaker 2: Probably a good idea. 829 00:40:07,519 --> 00:40:11,440 Speaker 1: We've gone from the chaote eternal inflation of false vacuums 830 00:40:11,519 --> 00:40:15,719 to the ruthless epiotic collisions of higher dimensional brains. We've 831 00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:19,440 explored the repulsive gravity of loop quantum gravity and the 832 00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:22,599 biological evolution of universes breeding black holes. 833 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:24,119 Speaker 2: You've covered a lot of ground. 834 00:40:24,159 --> 00:40:27,280 Speaker 1: We've seen the conformal scars of Hawking points, the thread 835 00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:29,920 of instant vacuum decay, and the illusion of three D 836 00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,599 space generated by a holographic two D boundary. We've watched 837 00:40:33,639 --> 00:40:36,960 time dissolve completely into spatial geometry at the Plank scale 838 00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,199 and realized we might be nothing more than static math 839 00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:42,840 or a hallucinating brain in a dead universe. 840 00:40:43,199 --> 00:40:48,119 Speaker 2: These theories aggressively dismantle our intuitive understanding of existence. They 841 00:40:48,199 --> 00:40:50,960 challenge the very bedrock of what we consider to be real. 842 00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:53,119 Speaker 1: But I want to leave you with one final thought, 843 00:40:53,199 --> 00:40:56,280 something we haven't actually touched on yet today, that builds 844 00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:58,639 right out of that Boltzmann brain nightmare. 845 00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:00,639 Speaker 2: Oh, the quantum immortality angle. 846 00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:05,039 Speaker 1: Exactly if the void is capable of producing a momentary 847 00:41:05,039 --> 00:41:08,280 brain with false memories, what happens when it produces a 848 00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:13,519 mind that realizes it's an illusion. If infinity guarantees every 849 00:41:13,679 --> 00:41:17,760 possible fluctuation, then it guarantees an infinite number of identical 850 00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,920 Boltzmann brains. Having this exact thought at this exact moment, 851 00:41:22,119 --> 00:41:26,239 infinite copies of you, which introduces the concept of quantum immortality. 852 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,800 Even if your current physical iteration dissolves into thermal noise 853 00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,239 a microsecond from now, there is another exact copy of 854 00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:36,599 your neural state fluctuating into existence somewhere else in the 855 00:41:36,599 --> 00:41:39,440 infinite void, continuing the thought seamlessly. 856 00:41:39,679 --> 00:41:41,400 Speaker 2: It just picks up right where you left off. 857 00:41:41,519 --> 00:41:44,960 Speaker 1: Your consciousness might be jumping across an infinite expanse of 858 00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:48,400 dead space, sustained purely by the fact that out of infinity, 859 00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,079 there's always one brain that survives long enough to finish 860 00:41:51,159 --> 00:41:54,280 the sentence, you might be immortal solely because the math 861 00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:54,920 demands it. 862 00:41:55,039 --> 00:41:58,480 Speaker 2: That is somehow both terrifying and incredibly comforting. 863 00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:01,119 Speaker 1: Right, So, I have a H's direct question for you 864 00:42:01,159 --> 00:42:03,960 to ponder as you go about your day. Out of 865 00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:07,679 all the theories we unpacked, from eternal inflation and colliding 866 00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:12,880 brains to holographic projections and immortal statistical fluctuations, which model 867 00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:16,159 of the before do you actually believe governs our reality. 868 00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:17,320 Speaker 2: I'd love to know what people think. 869 00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,440 Speaker 1: Drop a comment below and let us know your stance. 870 00:42:19,599 --> 00:42:21,880 Thank you for joining us on this reality bending edition 871 00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,800 of Thrilling Threads. The math is brutal, the timeline is 872 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,480 an illusion, so keep your curiosity infinite.