okay question is people there’s he heard
something he talked about God on CBS
television and he’s had he’s like
thinking about near-death experiences
and he wonders whether these deep
one of the things we know from research
and psychology as well as just practical
matters in the conducting of scientific
experiments is that one of the lowest
forms of evidence you could possibly
invoke is eyewitness testimony which is
odd because it’s one of the highest
forms of evidence in the court of law
which disturbs me greatly so if you cut
if you come from a lab to a science
conference and say this is true we say
how do you know this because I saw it
let’s really the end of your talk and
you just leave and then we say come back
when you have a chart recorder or you
have to just give me something that does
not have to flow through your senses
because your senses is some of the worst
data taking devices that exist and
science did not achieve maturity modern
sites do not receive maturity until we
had instruments that either extended our
senses or replace them and Galileo is
not an accident that we have modern
science as I’ve described it experiment
verification this these tactics these
methods and tools began with Galileo and
Francis Bacon and Galilei was around
1600 that was the invention in that
period of the microscope and the
telescope so it’s not an accident that
all this sort of came together at that
time so now we have people who are in
the act of dying and they come back from
life and they report on mental
experiences and that’s intriguing it’s
intriguing but because it is in the
realm of eyewitness testimony you can
establish it perhaps as a personal truth
but it will take more than that to
establish it as an objective truth and
an objective truth is the kind of truths
that science discovers and it’s the kind
of truth that
true whether or not you believe in it
okay
it exists outside of your culture your
religion your political affiliation
personal truths if I may consider that
would be okay Jesus is your Savior
that’s your personal truth you cannot
convince someone else that Jesus is
their Savior in an objective way you
have to persuade them you have to
persuade them in some with in some cases
by war right look at the wars that have
been fought between religions that did
not agree about who was their respective
saviors so so sure we know if I walked
on water made you unblind turned got
created loaves and fishes out of nothing
that would be a maze I think we would
like investigate that and we would sit
we would sit whoa let yes we would we
would so it would be an amazing thing
and then if we if we cannot account for
that for by any other known laws of
physics and it’s only happening with you
that we see we’d wonder if you were like
alien or something first right but no it
would be so easy to demonstrate divinity
if in fact you had the power you wanted
to display but getting back to the
gentleman’s point so part of this issue
is what does it mean to be dead okay it
used to be did you fog a mirror that was
held up in front of you while you were
laying there on your bed alright and if
you didn’t fog the mirror you were
judged to be dead they would put you in
a coffin and in some parts that it is
told there’s a string that they put into
the coffin as they buried you and they
put it over a tree branch and connected
you would pull the string and you that’s
where you get the term dead ringer okay
you would pull the string and you come
rescue me because you buried a living
person okay so then it was you dead
because your heart stops well we know
why your heart beats its electrochemical
so you do produce the heart beats again
we got that one okay well is it when
you’re brain dead well you can be brain
dead but your heart is still beating and
we can keep you alive are you dead yet
well no because your heart still beating
is your brain functioning no okay I can
tell you this that if you’re dead long
enough that your brain is deprived
oxygen and then you we bring you back
you’re not talking about seeing any
lights because you’re brain dead
okay so Plus this often happens to
someone who is definitely ill to begin
with and where are they they’re in a
hospital and if they go into cardiac
arrest or something critical they take
you from your hospital bed to an
operating table and what is sitting
above an operating table like bright
lights okay and so if you say oh I was
dead and I came back and I saw lights we
maybe it’s not all the cases but it’s
many of the cases okay now do skeptics
who tried to do an experiment they’re
people who say they left their body hmm
and they saw we got some of those
Montesquiou so here’s what they did when
was Montesquieu he got rear-ended by
some guy in a horse fell off flew up
into the air looked down at himself in
agony watched his wife wait oh we’re in
collisions in the air Montaigne
Montaigne sorry Montaigne not bill they
have rear-end collisions in the air well
you ride a horse with a guy behind you
is riding too fast is like a cab
situation okay I didn’t know that okay
okay so I didn’t know that well
I love stopping you mid rear-end
collision with the horses where was I so
so there was an experiment so there’s
some descriptions that are part of this
near-death experience literature where
they come above and they see themselves
down there on the bed okay so what they
decided to do is for people who are
about to die they would write a message
facing upwards to the ceiling above the
bed and suspend it there so if a person
goes above their bed and looks down
they’d be able to read the message so
they rejoin their body they what they
should then tell us what message they
saw that’s never half this system no
that’s enough now now I have a cousin
who when her father died was alone with
him in the room and he’s in an open
casket and she’s otherwise completely
rational okay I’m not saying this a
crazy person too completely when she’s a
real estate agent so ok thanks for
among other town okay so she’s in there
she tells me of a conversation she had
with her dead father and I said was it
in your mind no he sat up and spoke to
her I said what was the conversation and
she said well he asked he said don’t
worry about him he’s in a better place
this sort of thing so this is her
eyewitness testimony I’m not going to
say it’s wrong I’m just saying it’s not
scientifically useful that’s all I’m
really saying here okay
I told her next time this happens ask
these questions and not those questions
okay don’t say are you happy and did you
how you know saying are you wearing
clothes where are you where did you get
your clothes what temperature is it are
you just asked questions like this is
this is an amazing scientific experiment
you could be performing so so that’s my
lessons all of you don’t find yourself
in that situation okay cuz if a dead
person sits up and starts talking to me
oh my god but my iphone is coming out
I’m getting charged the corners I’m I’m
going to be all up in that as an
experimental okay question is can you
help us understand a multi-dimensional
universe what would be the dimensions we
are unaware of any dimension higher than
the three that we’re familiar with or
the actual for that we’re embedded in we
live in a four-dimensional world and
that might sound a little flaky freaky
but consider the following fact you have
never met someone at a place unless it
was also at a time and you have never
met someone at a time unless it was also
at a place that requires four dimensions
of a ordinary wave eight what about in a
dream
this is the dream happening inside your
head yes I don’t know when so the only
point is we know intuitively that we
need four dimensions to localize someone
to meet up with them especially well
only two dimensions if you don’t have
tall buildings you have tall buildings
you need the third dimension so you
don’t say I’ll meet you at the 20th
floor of you know on 7:21 Park Avenue
what time okay this is a full four
dimensions going on there so just I want
to convince you we live in a four
dimensional world for that reason okay
it may be that these four dimensions are
manifest to us but that in fact we are
embedded in higher them in a higher
dimensional space and strength theorists
on the frontier of this exercise are
hypothesizing at least ten dimensions to
account for everything we see in the
universe even if we do not directly
measure those dimensions themselves now
with your permission may I go on a
dimensional journey with you man might
take you on a journey a dimensional
Odyssey Odyssey are you ready yeah okay
so I’m at my desk and the desk is a
surface okay and I start putting pages
down on the desk of tiling them on the
desk and then I run out of room I have
exhausted the two dimensions of the
surface of my desk we have ways of
accommodating this problem and so we
have page organizers that go upwards so
now and I don’t have any more surface
area of the desk I can enter a third
dimension and put pages there if you are
an ant embedded in this two-dimensional
world of the surface of my desk and you
fill up the desk with these sheets of
paper the ants will say there is no more
room and I say yes there is watch me and
I take a piece of paper off the desk put
it in the page organizer and according
to the ant that’s embedded into two
dimensions that page disappeared it
disappeared into a dimension that ant
does not have access to what a brilliant
invention this is you can put
practically an unlimited number of pages
but far more pages above the desk then
on the desk so access to a third
dimension is an extraordinarily useful
storage device for a two dimensional
creature does the ant trust you that
what it cannot see is nevertheless there
we have to then talk to it about this
extra dimension and then it will have to
just trust you yes because watch what
happens next
I now have my three dimensional room and
I’m filling it with boxes now I’ve run
out of space to put the boxes but now an
alien four dimensional alien looks at us
and says
I got this just move it into the fourth
dimension what are you talking about and
the alien comes in reaches in takes one
of the boxes and then the Box disappears
disappears it went into a fourth
dimension and this was captured in the
film Monsters Inc did you guys see the
film these are monsters that work in a
door Factory and they make these doors
and they open the door and it is the
door of the kid’s bedroom or their
closet and they’ve step through and
they’re in the kid’s closet and then
they scare the kid because that’s their
job they’re monsters this okay this
doorway is a portal through the fourth
dimension and then back to the third so
imagine a new storage system we just go
to Home Depot and buy a door and that
door is your portal to a fourth
dimension you open the door put your
boxes close the door you look on the
other side of the door there’s nothing
there so this is what’s going on when
you have access to higher dimensions
wait don’t you have to then talk to
somebody as far as you know if you’re a
scientist and you need data what you
have is something that you had it’s gone
and now a voice says I’ve got this yeah
if that what data if it’s a voice from
the fourth dimension I’m gonna listen to
it so does everything I’m not going to
say I know you’re a lie I if if there’s
a voice coming out of the fourth
dimension and makes one of my boxes
disappear I’m thinking it’s got more
power than I do and more knowledge of
the space-time continuum so I’m going
with it does that mean that in order for
scientists to credit another dimension
with reality with real existence it will
need a testifier from beyond so you need
a dimension plus a dimension dimension
voice demand a dimension a dimensionless
voice yeah that comes from another from
another place now there are things that
happen in quantum physics that kind of
defy our sensibilities like particles
pop in and out of existence they don’t
they defy any rational attempt to
understand it particles can be entangled
with one another a particle can be here
and there’s a barrier and it can
spontaneously show up on the other side
of the barrier at faster than the speed
of light all of this is just mysterious
let me ask you suppose you have a sphere
and I live in a 2-dimensional world and
you take this hollow sphere so it’s a
shell and you pass that sphere through
my two-dimensional universe
how will I describe that I will say this
point just appeared out of nowhere
oops now it’s a circle a small circle
and that circle is getting bigger by the
moment oh my gosh well if we study
maximum size now that circle is just
shrinking it’s shrinking up now it’s a
point now the whole thing disappeared
this will be completely freaky to a
two-dimensional being but it makes
complete sense if you live in three
dimensions and you passed a sphere
through my universe so who is to say
that some of the mysterious things we
are describing accurately but don’t
otherwise make sense makes sense in a
higher dimension and these are just the
manifestations of higher dimensional
phenomena
in our world and that’s an aspect of
what these higher dimensional physicists
are trying to establish at this point
out I want to totally blow their minds
if I can if I may but you got to stay
with me on this okay we’ll roll Upper
East Siders so you got this you ready
okay
these are not all Upper East so haha era
suspiciously um Upper East Side people
littering the room okay but you got to
stay with me okay a point has no
dimensions there’s no height width depth
so it has zero dimensions a line has one
dimension length okay a square has two
dimensions so the height and width a
cube has three dimensions
Pike with depth we got this now follow
me a line is one dimensional but it’s
bounded by two zero dimensional things
those are the points one dimension
bounded by two zero dimensional points
a square is two dimensions bounded by
four one-dimensional sides a cube is
three dimensions bounded by six
two-dimensional sides so in other words
the dimensions of your sides are going
up your line is bound by zero
dimensional points your square is bound
by two-dimensional lines I mean by by um
by one dimensional size the cube is
bound by two dimensional squares okay
so we going up to four six two points
four sides of a square six sides of a
cube and each side is one dimension less
they’re squares on the sides of the cube
they’re lines on the side of a square
they’re dots on the sides of a line
let’s go up to a four dimensional cube a
four dimensional cube has eight sides a
regular cube has six sides we’re going
up by two a four dimensional cube has
eight sides and each of those sides is a
three dimensional cube one dimension
down from itself in the same way each
side of a three-dimensional cube is a
two-dimensional square so when you get
to four dimensions the sides are three
dimensional surfaces and you can take
this all the way up and our brains can’t
picture what we call a hypercube in some
circles our tesseract
we can’t picture a volume bounded by
three-dimensional cubes what does it
even mean this is because we evolved in
the plains of Africa just not wanting to
get eaten by a lion
our neuro synapses are ill-equipped to
do to do the distance on this and this
is why we invent mathematics that can
take us there
well the mathematics can help us imagine
it but if we want to credit it with
reality then you have to design an
experiment that somehow touches your own
world yes yes so you can invent
something that you can’t see if it has
testable consequences in ways that you
can see that’s perfectly allowed not a
problem oh and by the way there’s some
people that say you cannot prove a
negative
some people like coming after so you
generally won’t hear a scientist say
that it’s others like philosophers and
people who like criticizing scientists
but who are not scientist so that you
can’t prove a neck we kind of do that
all the time ok
but we don’t use the word proof we
demonstrate without any further
discussion that the negative is true
okay so here’s an example there’s a cave
there is there a bear in the cave I
don’t know I’m not going in to find out
okay I’m going to set up cameras and see
if a bear comes out okay
so I set up the cameras all throughout
summer no bear goes in and out but then
I
okay then I take down the camera maybe a
bear went in there to hibernate so
here’s what you do you set up powder
outside of the cave something that will
record a footprint and you just monitor
this month after month after month after
month do it for 12 months look up in the
charts how often a bear has to eat and
how long would take a bear to die for
not eating if the period of time you
waited is long enough so that there are
no footprints you conclude that there is
no bear in that cave I just demonstrated
a negative sufficient enough for me to
no longer pose that question and go on
to another problem but if you were so
distracted that it’s not a formal proof
of a negative then you could just keep
sitting there wondering while the rest
of us decode the nature of the universe
if we have a was the last bear in the
cave but I guess let’s see oh by the way
maybe the cave is not a closed cave you
might have a rear way have a back door
yeah okay that’s possible I suppose
that’s possible
so then the assumption that there’s no
bear in the cave would be wrong but I’m
or the cave could have a cave and that
cave could have another cave you see
there is just so much to worry about
right and so you will sit there you’ll
sit there arrested by your own capacity
to doubt an experimental reality yes
well like I said the rest of us go and
keep making discoveries well we
we need we have time for one more
question in your career as a scientist
if there is one question that you wish
to address what would that science
question be yeah okay so I’m going to
give an answer but then I want your
permission to give you a kind of a
cop-out answer
I’ll give both a full answer and then a
cop-out answer that my full answer is I
wonder if in fact the human intellect is
sufficient to actually decode the full
operations of this universe in which we
live and it’s not specifically an
Astrophysical question it’s just more we
are in intelligent species because we
we don’t have the benefit of another
species to compare ourselves with
against whom we might fail miserably and
so when we compare ourselves to chimps
we sit up righteously and say we have
poetry and the Hubble telescope and
philosophy and the trim just stacks
banana stacks boxes to reach a banana
yet there’s only 1% difference in our
DNA but then you’ll say what a
difference that 1% makes and I would say
maybe that 1% DNA difference corresponds
with an equally small difference in the
intelligence between a chimp and humans
and you say I can’t believe that no no
well imagine some other species that
visits us that’s 1% along on that same
scale smarter than us consider the
smartest chimp does what our toddlers
can do and there’s no way you will
explain to a chimp all of dinner ready
at 6:30 if you pick up some sub juice on
the way home that the simplest human
thoughts are inconceivable to a chimp
and their talents are about what our
toddlers can do so let’s get back to
this 1% smarter alien that we’ve
discovered corresponding this analogy we
now say what would we look like to them
well they would roll Stephen Hawking
forward after combing the human species
and they’d say this one is slightly
smarter than the rest because he can do
astrophysics calculations in his head
like little Timmy over here
but who just came home from preschool Oh
Timmy you just composed three sonnets
isn’t that cute let’s put it up on the
refrigerator door oh you just derived
the fundamental law of calculus isn’t
that kid put it up on the refrigerator
their simplest thoughts would transcend
our deepest thoughts and maybe they to
them it is obvious what dark matter is
and dark energy maybe to them particles
popping in and out of existence is a
trivial exercise in their understanding
of the multi-dimensional space-time
continuum and we are here groping at the
sides of a wall not knowing how tall
wide or deep it is because we have the
limits of the human physiology evolved
off the plains of Africa just to try to
understand the entire universe
so I lose sleep on that question each
night so that’s my way did you almost
say at the beginning of that answers
that you are wondering where you may be
something of a mysterious you you’re not
sure I’m not sure the world is so the
universe is so complicated that it may
be more complicated than we can ever
fathom
no that’s the hubristic way to say it
it’s not how I said it okay how did you
say it again we might not be smart
enough okay not you eristic if you’re
hubristic you would say we are smart but
the universe is just really complicated
that’s not what I said
well I said we might not be smart enough
to figure out a universe that could be
trivial to the brain of a more
intelligent species okay so check your
hubris at the door otherwise you’re you
will not bask in the cosmic perspective
that so much of this discussion brings
upon us so may I now give you my comp
out answer my cop-out answer is I think
often about the questions we do not yet
know to ask because discoveries
yet to come but when they arrive we’ll
put us in a new Vista a new place to
stand enabling us to see questions
undreamt of and unimaginable when I
again lay awake at night I ponder what
kinds of questions lay beyond our reach
because the questions that we even know
how to pose they’re there those are not
even interesting to me anymore because
we knew how to ask the question I want
to know the question that is beyond
everyone’s reach and by definition I
can’t because we haven’t gotten there
yet but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t
that sounded like a coda to me I got a
save I can hear the orchestra playing
today huh can man offer a better coda
yes and then we’ll let you go but we
don’t have long sorry we went long try
not to ever forget that the history of
this exercise this beautiful exercise
where we find out where we fit in this
great unfolding of cosmic events and
phenomenon that the larger grows the
area of knowledge the bigger that area
grows just remember so – grows our
perimeter of ignorance it may be that as
much as we think we know as much as we
know we know as much as the more things
that we ultimately learn for all we know
we could be steeped in the center of
infinite ignorant which then provides job security forever for scientists
something he talked about God on CBS
television and he’s had he’s like
thinking about near-death experiences
and he wonders whether these deep
one of the things we know from research
and psychology as well as just practical
matters in the conducting of scientific
experiments is that one of the lowest
forms of evidence you could possibly
invoke is eyewitness testimony which is
odd because it’s one of the highest
forms of evidence in the court of law
which disturbs me greatly so if you cut
if you come from a lab to a science
conference and say this is true we say
how do you know this because I saw it
let’s really the end of your talk and
you just leave and then we say come back
when you have a chart recorder or you
have to just give me something that does
not have to flow through your senses
because your senses is some of the worst
data taking devices that exist and
science did not achieve maturity modern
sites do not receive maturity until we
had instruments that either extended our
senses or replace them and Galileo is
not an accident that we have modern
science as I’ve described it experiment
verification this these tactics these
methods and tools began with Galileo and
Francis Bacon and Galilei was around
1600 that was the invention in that
period of the microscope and the
telescope so it’s not an accident that
all this sort of came together at that
time so now we have people who are in
the act of dying and they come back from
life and they report on mental
experiences and that’s intriguing it’s
intriguing but because it is in the
realm of eyewitness testimony you can
establish it perhaps as a personal truth
but it will take more than that to
establish it as an objective truth and
an objective truth is the kind of truths
that science discovers and it’s the kind
of truth that
true whether or not you believe in it
okay
it exists outside of your culture your
religion your political affiliation
personal truths if I may consider that
would be okay Jesus is your Savior
that’s your personal truth you cannot
convince someone else that Jesus is
their Savior in an objective way you
have to persuade them you have to
persuade them in some with in some cases
by war right look at the wars that have
been fought between religions that did
not agree about who was their respective
saviors so so sure we know if I walked
on water made you unblind turned got
created loaves and fishes out of nothing
that would be a maze I think we would
like investigate that and we would sit
we would sit whoa let yes we would we
would so it would be an amazing thing
and then if we if we cannot account for
that for by any other known laws of
physics and it’s only happening with you
that we see we’d wonder if you were like
alien or something first right but no it
would be so easy to demonstrate divinity
if in fact you had the power you wanted
to display but getting back to the
gentleman’s point so part of this issue
is what does it mean to be dead okay it
used to be did you fog a mirror that was
held up in front of you while you were
laying there on your bed alright and if
you didn’t fog the mirror you were
judged to be dead they would put you in
a coffin and in some parts that it is
told there’s a string that they put into
the coffin as they buried you and they
put it over a tree branch and connected
you would pull the string and you that’s
where you get the term dead ringer okay
you would pull the string and you come
rescue me because you buried a living
person okay so then it was you dead
because your heart stops well we know
why your heart beats its electrochemical
so you do produce the heart beats again
we got that one okay well is it when
you’re brain dead well you can be brain
dead but your heart is still beating and
we can keep you alive are you dead yet
well no because your heart still beating
is your brain functioning no okay I can
tell you this that if you’re dead long
enough that your brain is deprived
oxygen and then you we bring you back
you’re not talking about seeing any
lights because you’re brain dead
okay so Plus this often happens to
someone who is definitely ill to begin
with and where are they they’re in a
hospital and if they go into cardiac
arrest or something critical they take
you from your hospital bed to an
operating table and what is sitting
above an operating table like bright
lights okay and so if you say oh I was
dead and I came back and I saw lights we
maybe it’s not all the cases but it’s
many of the cases okay now do skeptics
who tried to do an experiment they’re
people who say they left their body hmm
and they saw we got some of those
Montesquiou so here’s what they did when
was Montesquieu he got rear-ended by
some guy in a horse fell off flew up
into the air looked down at himself in
agony watched his wife wait oh we’re in
collisions in the air Montaigne
Montaigne sorry Montaigne not bill they
have rear-end collisions in the air well
you ride a horse with a guy behind you
is riding too fast is like a cab
situation okay I didn’t know that okay
okay so I didn’t know that well
I love stopping you mid rear-end
collision with the horses where was I so
so there was an experiment so there’s
some descriptions that are part of this
near-death experience literature where
they come above and they see themselves
down there on the bed okay so what they
decided to do is for people who are
about to die they would write a message
facing upwards to the ceiling above the
bed and suspend it there so if a person
goes above their bed and looks down
they’d be able to read the message so
they rejoin their body they what they
should then tell us what message they
saw that’s never half this system no
that’s enough now now I have a cousin
who when her father died was alone with
him in the room and he’s in an open
casket and she’s otherwise completely
rational okay I’m not saying this a
crazy person too completely when she’s a
real estate agent so ok thanks for
among other town okay so she’s in there
she tells me of a conversation she had
with her dead father and I said was it
in your mind no he sat up and spoke to
her I said what was the conversation and
she said well he asked he said don’t
worry about him he’s in a better place
this sort of thing so this is her
eyewitness testimony I’m not going to
say it’s wrong I’m just saying it’s not
scientifically useful that’s all I’m
really saying here okay
I told her next time this happens ask
these questions and not those questions
okay don’t say are you happy and did you
how you know saying are you wearing
clothes where are you where did you get
your clothes what temperature is it are
you just asked questions like this is
this is an amazing scientific experiment
you could be performing so so that’s my
lessons all of you don’t find yourself
in that situation okay cuz if a dead
person sits up and starts talking to me
oh my god but my iphone is coming out
I’m getting charged the corners I’m I’m
going to be all up in that as an
experimental okay question is can you
help us understand a multi-dimensional
universe what would be the dimensions we
are unaware of any dimension higher than
the three that we’re familiar with or
the actual for that we’re embedded in we
live in a four-dimensional world and
that might sound a little flaky freaky
but consider the following fact you have
never met someone at a place unless it
was also at a time and you have never
met someone at a time unless it was also
at a place that requires four dimensions
of a ordinary wave eight what about in a
dream
this is the dream happening inside your
head yes I don’t know when so the only
point is we know intuitively that we
need four dimensions to localize someone
to meet up with them especially well
only two dimensions if you don’t have
tall buildings you have tall buildings
you need the third dimension so you
don’t say I’ll meet you at the 20th
floor of you know on 7:21 Park Avenue
what time okay this is a full four
dimensions going on there so just I want
to convince you we live in a four
dimensional world for that reason okay
it may be that these four dimensions are
manifest to us but that in fact we are
embedded in higher them in a higher
dimensional space and strength theorists
on the frontier of this exercise are
hypothesizing at least ten dimensions to
account for everything we see in the
universe even if we do not directly
measure those dimensions themselves now
with your permission may I go on a
dimensional journey with you man might
take you on a journey a dimensional
Odyssey Odyssey are you ready yeah okay
so I’m at my desk and the desk is a
surface okay and I start putting pages
down on the desk of tiling them on the
desk and then I run out of room I have
exhausted the two dimensions of the
surface of my desk we have ways of
accommodating this problem and so we
have page organizers that go upwards so
now and I don’t have any more surface
area of the desk I can enter a third
dimension and put pages there if you are
an ant embedded in this two-dimensional
world of the surface of my desk and you
fill up the desk with these sheets of
paper the ants will say there is no more
room and I say yes there is watch me and
I take a piece of paper off the desk put
it in the page organizer and according
to the ant that’s embedded into two
dimensions that page disappeared it
disappeared into a dimension that ant
does not have access to what a brilliant
invention this is you can put
practically an unlimited number of pages
but far more pages above the desk then
on the desk so access to a third
dimension is an extraordinarily useful
storage device for a two dimensional
creature does the ant trust you that
what it cannot see is nevertheless there
we have to then talk to it about this
extra dimension and then it will have to
just trust you yes because watch what
happens next
I now have my three dimensional room and
I’m filling it with boxes now I’ve run
out of space to put the boxes but now an
alien four dimensional alien looks at us
and says
I got this just move it into the fourth
dimension what are you talking about and
the alien comes in reaches in takes one
of the boxes and then the Box disappears
disappears it went into a fourth
dimension and this was captured in the
film Monsters Inc did you guys see the
film these are monsters that work in a
door Factory and they make these doors
and they open the door and it is the
door of the kid’s bedroom or their
closet and they’ve step through and
they’re in the kid’s closet and then
they scare the kid because that’s their
job they’re monsters this okay this
doorway is a portal through the fourth
dimension and then back to the third so
imagine a new storage system we just go
to Home Depot and buy a door and that
door is your portal to a fourth
dimension you open the door put your
boxes close the door you look on the
other side of the door there’s nothing
there so this is what’s going on when
you have access to higher dimensions
wait don’t you have to then talk to
somebody as far as you know if you’re a
scientist and you need data what you
have is something that you had it’s gone
and now a voice says I’ve got this yeah
if that what data if it’s a voice from
the fourth dimension I’m gonna listen to
it so does everything I’m not going to
say I know you’re a lie I if if there’s
a voice coming out of the fourth
dimension and makes one of my boxes
disappear I’m thinking it’s got more
power than I do and more knowledge of
the space-time continuum so I’m going
with it does that mean that in order for
scientists to credit another dimension
with reality with real existence it will
need a testifier from beyond so you need
a dimension plus a dimension dimension
voice demand a dimension a dimensionless
voice yeah that comes from another from
another place now there are things that
happen in quantum physics that kind of
defy our sensibilities like particles
pop in and out of existence they don’t
they defy any rational attempt to
understand it particles can be entangled
with one another a particle can be here
and there’s a barrier and it can
spontaneously show up on the other side
of the barrier at faster than the speed
of light all of this is just mysterious
let me ask you suppose you have a sphere
and I live in a 2-dimensional world and
you take this hollow sphere so it’s a
shell and you pass that sphere through
my two-dimensional universe
how will I describe that I will say this
point just appeared out of nowhere
oops now it’s a circle a small circle
and that circle is getting bigger by the
moment oh my gosh well if we study
maximum size now that circle is just
shrinking it’s shrinking up now it’s a
point now the whole thing disappeared
this will be completely freaky to a
two-dimensional being but it makes
complete sense if you live in three
dimensions and you passed a sphere
through my universe so who is to say
that some of the mysterious things we
are describing accurately but don’t
otherwise make sense makes sense in a
higher dimension and these are just the
manifestations of higher dimensional
phenomena
in our world and that’s an aspect of
what these higher dimensional physicists
are trying to establish at this point
out I want to totally blow their minds
if I can if I may but you got to stay
with me on this okay we’ll roll Upper
East Siders so you got this you ready
okay
these are not all Upper East so haha era
suspiciously um Upper East Side people
littering the room okay but you got to
stay with me okay a point has no
dimensions there’s no height width depth
so it has zero dimensions a line has one
dimension length okay a square has two
dimensions so the height and width a
cube has three dimensions
Pike with depth we got this now follow
me a line is one dimensional but it’s
bounded by two zero dimensional things
those are the points one dimension
bounded by two zero dimensional points
a square is two dimensions bounded by
four one-dimensional sides a cube is
three dimensions bounded by six
two-dimensional sides so in other words
the dimensions of your sides are going
up your line is bound by zero
dimensional points your square is bound
by two-dimensional lines I mean by by um
by one dimensional size the cube is
bound by two dimensional squares okay
so we going up to four six two points
four sides of a square six sides of a
cube and each side is one dimension less
they’re squares on the sides of the cube
they’re lines on the side of a square
they’re dots on the sides of a line
let’s go up to a four dimensional cube a
four dimensional cube has eight sides a
regular cube has six sides we’re going
up by two a four dimensional cube has
eight sides and each of those sides is a
three dimensional cube one dimension
down from itself in the same way each
side of a three-dimensional cube is a
two-dimensional square so when you get
to four dimensions the sides are three
dimensional surfaces and you can take
this all the way up and our brains can’t
picture what we call a hypercube in some
circles our tesseract
we can’t picture a volume bounded by
three-dimensional cubes what does it
even mean this is because we evolved in
the plains of Africa just not wanting to
get eaten by a lion
our neuro synapses are ill-equipped to
do to do the distance on this and this
is why we invent mathematics that can
take us there
well the mathematics can help us imagine
it but if we want to credit it with
reality then you have to design an
experiment that somehow touches your own
world yes yes so you can invent
something that you can’t see if it has
testable consequences in ways that you
can see that’s perfectly allowed not a
problem oh and by the way there’s some
people that say you cannot prove a
negative
some people like coming after so you
generally won’t hear a scientist say
that it’s others like philosophers and
people who like criticizing scientists
but who are not scientist so that you
can’t prove a neck we kind of do that
all the time ok
but we don’t use the word proof we
demonstrate without any further
discussion that the negative is true
okay so here’s an example there’s a cave
there is there a bear in the cave I
don’t know I’m not going in to find out
okay I’m going to set up cameras and see
if a bear comes out okay
so I set up the cameras all throughout
summer no bear goes in and out but then
I
okay then I take down the camera maybe a
bear went in there to hibernate so
here’s what you do you set up powder
outside of the cave something that will
record a footprint and you just monitor
this month after month after month after
month do it for 12 months look up in the
charts how often a bear has to eat and
how long would take a bear to die for
not eating if the period of time you
waited is long enough so that there are
no footprints you conclude that there is
no bear in that cave I just demonstrated
a negative sufficient enough for me to
no longer pose that question and go on
to another problem but if you were so
distracted that it’s not a formal proof
of a negative then you could just keep
sitting there wondering while the rest
of us decode the nature of the universe
if we have a was the last bear in the
cave but I guess let’s see oh by the way
maybe the cave is not a closed cave you
might have a rear way have a back door
yeah okay that’s possible I suppose
that’s possible
so then the assumption that there’s no
bear in the cave would be wrong but I’m
or the cave could have a cave and that
cave could have another cave you see
there is just so much to worry about
right and so you will sit there you’ll
sit there arrested by your own capacity
to doubt an experimental reality yes
well like I said the rest of us go and
keep making discoveries well we
we need we have time for one more
question in your career as a scientist
if there is one question that you wish
to address what would that science
question be yeah okay so I’m going to
give an answer but then I want your
permission to give you a kind of a
cop-out answer
I’ll give both a full answer and then a
cop-out answer that my full answer is I
wonder if in fact the human intellect is
sufficient to actually decode the full
operations of this universe in which we
live and it’s not specifically an
Astrophysical question it’s just more we
are in intelligent species because we
we don’t have the benefit of another
species to compare ourselves with
against whom we might fail miserably and
so when we compare ourselves to chimps
we sit up righteously and say we have
poetry and the Hubble telescope and
philosophy and the trim just stacks
banana stacks boxes to reach a banana
yet there’s only 1% difference in our
DNA but then you’ll say what a
difference that 1% makes and I would say
maybe that 1% DNA difference corresponds
with an equally small difference in the
intelligence between a chimp and humans
and you say I can’t believe that no no
well imagine some other species that
visits us that’s 1% along on that same
scale smarter than us consider the
smartest chimp does what our toddlers
can do and there’s no way you will
explain to a chimp all of dinner ready
at 6:30 if you pick up some sub juice on
the way home that the simplest human
thoughts are inconceivable to a chimp
and their talents are about what our
toddlers can do so let’s get back to
this 1% smarter alien that we’ve
discovered corresponding this analogy we
now say what would we look like to them
well they would roll Stephen Hawking
forward after combing the human species
and they’d say this one is slightly
smarter than the rest because he can do
astrophysics calculations in his head
like little Timmy over here
but who just came home from preschool Oh
Timmy you just composed three sonnets
isn’t that cute let’s put it up on the
refrigerator door oh you just derived
the fundamental law of calculus isn’t
that kid put it up on the refrigerator
their simplest thoughts would transcend
our deepest thoughts and maybe they to
them it is obvious what dark matter is
and dark energy maybe to them particles
popping in and out of existence is a
trivial exercise in their understanding
of the multi-dimensional space-time
continuum and we are here groping at the
sides of a wall not knowing how tall
wide or deep it is because we have the
limits of the human physiology evolved
off the plains of Africa just to try to
understand the entire universe
so I lose sleep on that question each
night so that’s my way did you almost
say at the beginning of that answers
that you are wondering where you may be
something of a mysterious you you’re not
sure I’m not sure the world is so the
universe is so complicated that it may
be more complicated than we can ever
fathom
no that’s the hubristic way to say it
it’s not how I said it okay how did you
say it again we might not be smart
enough okay not you eristic if you’re
hubristic you would say we are smart but
the universe is just really complicated
that’s not what I said
well I said we might not be smart enough
to figure out a universe that could be
trivial to the brain of a more
intelligent species okay so check your
hubris at the door otherwise you’re you
will not bask in the cosmic perspective
that so much of this discussion brings
upon us so may I now give you my comp
out answer my cop-out answer is I think
often about the questions we do not yet
know to ask because discoveries
yet to come but when they arrive we’ll
put us in a new Vista a new place to
stand enabling us to see questions
undreamt of and unimaginable when I
again lay awake at night I ponder what
kinds of questions lay beyond our reach
because the questions that we even know
how to pose they’re there those are not
even interesting to me anymore because
we knew how to ask the question I want
to know the question that is beyond
everyone’s reach and by definition I
can’t because we haven’t gotten there
yet but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t
that sounded like a coda to me I got a
save I can hear the orchestra playing
today huh can man offer a better coda
yes and then we’ll let you go but we
don’t have long sorry we went long try
not to ever forget that the history of
this exercise this beautiful exercise
where we find out where we fit in this
great unfolding of cosmic events and
phenomenon that the larger grows the
area of knowledge the bigger that area
grows just remember so – grows our
perimeter of ignorance it may be that as
much as we think we know as much as we
know we know as much as the more things
that we ultimately learn for all we know
we could be steeped in the center of
infinite ignorant which then provides job security forever for scientists
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