Lex Fridman & Brian Keating: The Day After We Discover Life
I recently chatted with Lex Fridman about a dozen topics, including the existence of extraterrestrial life in the universe.
Brian Keating: So what do you think would happen the next day? Let’s say we discover Life. Proxima Centauri B. It looks just like slime mold like you got on your brie cheese or whatever. Do we discover what would happen the next day? And they were like, “Oh this would be transformative”, and I’m not trying to be like, you know, total Cassandra about this.
But I said I don’t think anything would happen. What are you talking about? It would be transformational. I’m like, I stipulate that life exists. Go down to the river. You know, I’m in San Diego, going out to the Pacific Ocean, scoop up a glass. You can find life there. And what are we doing? What are we doing to our Earth? We’re destroying it, callously. We’re like pumping crap into the earth like we have this toxic waste spill a couple of months ago in San Diego. I couldn’t go to the beach.
Let me take it a step further, do you know how many people I’m sorry that you do know, but how many people died in the 20th century? Killed? These are advanced civilizations, this is a slime mold. We kill, we maim, we harm, we hurt, we hate. I don’t think anything would happen the next day.
And then we go back to what we had and I said if that weren’t proof enough life, has been discovered at least two or three times just in my professional career. Once in 1996 these Allen Land Hills meteorites in Antarctica. That is so it’s like microbial respiration processes. Still, we don’t know. It was a press conference held by Bill Clinton on the White House Lawn that’s featured in the movie “Contact” repurpose for that movie. And then there’s this phosphorus life, toxic life in the pools of Mono Lake, extremophiles, we don’t give a crap. We continue.
So why are we thinking that like from whence will our Salvation come as the Bible says? It’s not going to change how we are, it’s not going to magnify how I treat you or you treat me and we’re pretty knowledgeable people, you and I compared to laypeople.
Lex Fridman: Okay, that’s interesting. That’s a really interesting argument. I wonder if you’re right, but my intuition is, I can maybe present a different argument that you can think about in the realm of things you care about even deeper, which is like, what happens once we figure out the origins of the universe?
Like, how did that change your life? I would say there are certain discoveries that even in their very idea will change the fabric of society. I tend to see if there’s definitive proof that there is life in the more complex, the more powerful that idea is elsewhere that I’m not exactly sure how it will change society.
Because it’s such a slap in the face. It’s such a humbling force or maybe not, or maybe it’s a motivator to say, “Yeah, I don’t know which force would take over, maybe it would be governments with military start to think like, how do we kill it?” Is there’s a lot of life out there? How do we create the defenses?
Brian Keating: How do we extract it?
Lex: Or yeah, or mine it for benefits.
Brian Keating: I mean, I just see there are 100 million literal counter-examples about. I mean right now, there are 700 million kids in poverty, and we just how do we go about our lives and just not deal with that? I mean look, I put it aside. I eat hamburgers, in 100 years I’ll be canceled for being a carnivore or whatever. But you know, so obviously to get through life you have to make a certain compromise. You’re not going to think about certain things. But I just think that is a sort of wish fulfillment like every time there’s war, why are we going to Mars and digging and flying this cool-ass helicopter on?
We’re looking for water like stipulate that water was there. I believe there was water. I think we should investigate and see what the geology was like.
Lex: But don’t you think? So you’re saying…
Brian Keating: I don’t think you’re going to get meaning from it. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not saying it’s not worth doing. I’m just saying there’s a wish-fulfillment aspect that people will find meaning for life from science.
Lex: Okay, but there’s a complicated line here. What if it’s this intelligent civilization, living probably not on Mars but somewhere like in the neighboring star system that we discover, don’t you think that profound change in meaning?
Brian Keating: I mean, I guess again, I assume that because of this pan ceramic[?] process or whatever, the probability is much greater than 0. I mean it’s not 100%, but it’s much likelier than not that at least some living material from Earth has ejaculated itself into the solar system, into the universe, or into our galaxy.
Lex: Beat that, please as well.
Brian Keating: The fact that that could happen and that you’re holding a piece from a planetary body, one that couldn’t support life as far as we know. But I could get it next time if you play nice and you come on my podcast someday. I will give you a tiny chunk of Mars. So Mars, theoretically could support stuff, right?
I believe that there could be remnants of Earth in the so that means that could be evolution. I don’t think there’s any chance that there’s like people using iPhones and having podcasts and stuff and [unintelligible].
Lex: I know there is so much some chance though, right?
Brian Keating: I think the [odds], obviously the simple statement to say, it has a much higher probability that life exists and technological life exists, right? I don’t think we can argue that. It doesn’t mean it’s forbidden. Again, I’m not saying any of this is forbidden. Not worth studying, not interesting.
Lex: It’s a likelihood thing.
Brian Keating: Yeah, and to answer, I think you’re wise to push back and what does it matter what I’m doing. And I like to think about that, you know, because it’s like, what is the value of what you’re doing? You have to answer that question or else at the end of your life, you’ll have these existential kinds of crises, right?
So when I think about who I am, part of my identity is answering and asking scientific questions.
