Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Charlie Rose 20150902

To the hayden planetarium. It put something in my veins. I think it was the universe that called me and not that i called it. Of course, growing up in the bronx, there are not many stars visible anywhere in new york, especially not the bronx at the time. So this guy at the planetarium was magical to me. I did not think it was real. I thought it was a hope. Thed seen this guy from bronx, and this was not it. Therefore it must be a hoax, not knowing of course that it is for training the real guy. Toage 11, i had the answer that annoying question that adults ask children. What do you want to be when you grow up . An astrophysicist. That kind of ended the conversations pretty quickly. Charlie have you ever wanted to write a science diction novel . Neil yes. A storynot i have that is ready to go. I can advise on such as tory, but in terms of Character Development and emotions, i dont have the experience, certainly not writing it. Charlie but you would know a story that would be compelling. Neil i have one in mind right now. Im happy to tell it. The world is at war, ok . The world that we know is at war. Way, notery disruptive with large weapons, but regional battles everywhere, and people are choosing sides, and then an asteroid is discovered. Anrlie tell us what asteroid is. Neil a craggy chunk of rock of varying sizes. There are probably hundreds of thousands of them in our big in orbit between mars and jupiter, mostly. Math, you learn that earth and these asteroids will collide with one another, guaranteed, eventually. So what we want to do is keep track of all the crossing objects and monitor them. Ideally you want to put lojack on them or some. Its 10 00 p. M. , do you know where your killer asteroid is . So we learned there is an asteroid that could render us all extinct. At that moment, everyone who sees other humans as their enemy been come together and see the asteroid as the common enemy. And the technology that has been developed all around the world, its a bit in the future, so they are developing their technology to fight wars. We find we have to assemble pieces of all these technologies. We need different pieces of technology or the deflection device. Charlie so this is real, you could make this as a real possibility. Neil the science would be not only the threat of the asteroid, the Space Mission to deflect it, the tools you would use. If something doesnt exist, you can go into the laboratories. You see the pressure on them to invent something that could work. You have to go to your enemy the invented another piece that comes together to make the whole thing work. Maybe we could have a little piece of the asteroid still hit earth. You have to flood a city or otherwise hollywood doesnt write. In the movie armageddon, they managed to save earth, but pieces managed to hit earth. One decapitated the chrysler building. They were aiming for major human monument. [laughter] most of the earths surface is ocean. What was the last big one that came to earth . N two years ago, one the size of the studio, traveling 40,000 miles an hour collided with the earths atmosphere in russia. Charlie what would have happened if it hit the center of Manhattan Island . That happen to explode about 20 miles up. That is signed up that the energy gets deposited into the atlas ear and dilutes before it reaches the earth surface. Even so, it was enough of a shock wave to shatter every single when he every single window in the near city. Light travels faster than sound. They see the bright light of the explosion, look out the window, the shock waves come, 1600 people were injured. That was a shot across our bow, asking us, how is your Space Program . [laughter] if it happened over manhattan, you have a different problem when you shatter windows, because then the windows fall and they become sharp sabers descending to the street, possibly hurting or killing pedestrians. Charlie has science learned a lot because that happened two years ago . Neil we did not know that was coming until it was too late. That one was not large enough to catch it far enough away. Could we shoot it down or something . Man . Are you a macho blow that sucker out of the sky. The kinder, gentler way is to deflected. Charlie how do you deflected . Theyre interesting plants but all on paper. Nothing has been funded to make this happen. You take the spaceship nearby and just park it there. They will feel one another and want to drift one another because of their mutual gravity, but you dont let that happen. Rockets tottle retro prevent that and the act of doing so slowly toasty asteroid out of harms way. The asteroid out of harms way. If you get good at this, its like shooting full cues. You just knock them out of your way. Charlie that is one of the theories. Neil that is one way to do it, and you can monitor your progress. Here in america, we are good at blowing stuff up, but less good at knowing where the pieces will go. It is very messy when you try to explode the asteroid. You dont know if it will break into two pieces and you have to evacuate oath coast. And it works on paper. The engineers have worked it out. No plan in place. There is no International Collaboration in place to find this. Suppose it is heading for the indian ocean . Advanced the most Space Program at the time, should we pay for it . Should you tax everyone as part handeir gdp and do you that money to the most able country who can deflect it . Lets say its headed for the United States and we deflected and it fails, now its going to hit europe. Now what do you do . So all these problems. Charlie we could put this in the movie. [laughter] neil you are still thinking hollywood. Charlie what are the most important Unanswered Questions . Neil i have an unorthodox answer for you. This will sound like a copout, but its not. To me, the greatest Unanswered Questions are those questions we dont even yet know to ask. Because they only manifest upon reaching some next frontier of ignorance. What darkwant to know matter is. Its 85 of the gravity of the universe. We dont even have the right to call it dark matter. We have top people working on this with top equipment. But at this moment, we dont know what it is. Charlie what is the most likely answer . Neil i have a preferred answer. Particle physicist what to say it is particle, because they are particle physicist. Is a veryboatswain powerful particle. If youre going to be a particle, that is the one you want to be. [laughter] there is dark energy. The universe is accelerating. We dont know what is causing that. We dont know how you go from organic molecules to animated life. Lifelessu go from organic molecules, organic chemistry, to self replicating life . Charlie we dont know that either. These are great questions. We have top people working on it [laughter]. [laughter] i will put you on my speed dow if you want to know the latest. We should call it dark gravity. Charlie thats one of the big questions. Neil dark energy, we dont know what that is. Charlie what is the big bang . Neil the beginning of the universe. Charlie i know that. [laughter] it was smaller and hotter for every day you turn the clock back. You run the clock all the way back and you learn the entire universe was in the same place at the same time, and at extremely high temperatures. Trillion is the highest number anyone has any comfort with, but the temperature was much hotter than that. It thing is unstable and explodes. So you have the birth of our universe. I meant astrophysicist, so i care about the dna, but all those are very real questions that exist with us today. For answers to those, you just start dishing out the nobel prizes. I want to know what questions we are not even intellectually mature enough to ask yet. They will reveal the l after we answer these questions we just on the table. Energy was discovered in 1998, 17 years ago. It is still a big mystery. Charlie who discovered it . Neil two teams are measuring supernova out to the farthest regions of the galaxy. Candle,e a standard measuring time and distance in the universe. They are potent in their ability to measure the expansion rate of the universe and the size of the universe. Andteams, one in california one on the other coast, were working on the same problem and arrived at the same answer and they shared the nobel prize. Charlie are we alone . Neil my best guess is that the universe is teaming with life. Life might be much rarer. Charlie why is that . Neil here is the argument. You have the timeline of the earth. 4. 5 billion years. Put this planet out there, and some planets are far yesterday born yesterday. Here is a dart at the timeline. Hitsof the time the dart earth, there is only a single cell life. Then we have something called the cambrian explosion of life. Oxygen is like rocket fuel for complex life. Life now has Carte Blanche to become complex because the system can support it. Now you get limbs and detectors like eyes and sensors. Its a Stunning Development in the fossil record of life on earth. You will have complex life. So that is a smaller piece of the total timeline. You throw the dart will you find intelligent life . Hit thathe last little we define as intelligent. To say were going to land right at that moment where what we call intelligent has arisen . The curiosity rover on mars is the size of an suv. Surface has rampant evidence that there was running water. What i mean that evidence, i mean really awesome evidence. There are riverbeds, dry meandering riverbeds. If you fly over the midwest, and you look at the things that flood waters and longtime rivers have done, grand canyon kind of inks, you see all these telltale features on mars. Anytime we take a photograph of its surface. Charlie but we could have known that without going there . Neil the resolution is very hard to pick up. You want to get close. The new can savor then you can see ridges and valleys. We are pretty sure it was water, but certainly a liquid. To meander, it means a river was there or some time. You dont meander overnight. Its a very slow thing. Not only that, there are dry lake thats where you see salt deposit at the bottom. How do you get salt deposits . You get that from standing water that had minerals deposited in it. When there is no water left, you get a salt lake. Fly over utah, thats what Salt Lake City is sitting next to. Charlie should we go to mars . Neil i want to go, yes. Charlie it is feasible and doable . Neil we have clever engineers. I have no doubt they will figure out all the technological parts. It is money. It is only ever money, at all times. Charlie are you disappointed we dont do more in space . Neil the curiosity part of me is distant on it, but the politically astute sodomy fully understands why that is the case. The politically astute side of me fully understands why that is the case. We had other priorities. There was the civil rights movement, the cold war with the soviet union, campus unrest. We did it because we were at war , that was an act of war, essentially, without the weapons. If we were not at war, the motivation to go to the moon, we tell ourselves we went to the moon because we are doors and it is in our dna. That might be true, but the people who write the checks dont care about these law statements. Is your security at risk . We will spend any amount of money to protect that. Should we create that kind of urgent the again for Something Like going to the moon . Say, i joke about it, i let me go to china and with to the head of china, leak a memo that says you want to put military bases on mars, but dont tell anybody. That memo shows up in the pentagon, and we will be on mars in 10 months. One month to design, build, and find a space craft, and ninemonth to get there. That is how motivated i think he will be because thats how motivated we were back in the 1960s. I dont want to go to mars for military reasons. I think theres a strong economic reason one can make or. Its a little more subtle and it takes slightly longer than the proverbial elevator ride you have to save up for your member of congress. I voted for my representation in congress. Fornt them to listen to me longer than an elevator ride. If youre going into space in a big way, tourist dons to the moon, visiting asteroid, science johns on mars, there might be military activities, all of this to accomplish this will require ancing the space onto your the space frontier. You will have these discoveries writ large weekly if not daily in your newspapers. That infuses a culture of inquiry, expiration, and innovation. When you come from a culture of innovation, stuff gets solved. Your whole mindset is different. Charlie do you believe we have lost the culture of innovation . Yes, it has been gone since we stopped going to the moon. Charlie what about Silicon Valley . Neil that is a great culture of innovation. Problemse world has that are bigger than can be solved just waiting for your next app. We have problems in transportation, housing, poverty, disease, energy, climate. These are huge problems. If we all sit down and play with our apps, they are not going to get solved. The headline was, tyson attacks entrepreneurs. Charlie so what did you mean . What i mean is, to bask in the pleasures of your next app will hide from you the fact that there are larger problems that need to be solved. Charlie all these people who want to create some kind of vehicles in space neil somebody has got to do that. Whether or not they wilson c, you want money there trying to do it. I have had students say one day i want to work for spacex. They are the smartest kid in the class. , aant to invent a new car new transportation system. I want to invent the next rocket. That is the influence that infuses into a culture when you go into space in a big way. Charlie are we losing the race the bryce lines the brightest minds insufficient quantity as others in sufficient quantity as others . Neil the focus tends to be on the brightest units, to get them interested in science so they will invent nothing to aid the world. Be theill always smartest kids in the class, so im not worried about them. Im worried about the rest of everyone else who is given the freedom to say to themselves and to others, i was never good at ha. H, ha ha science is not for me, im into this other stuff. Suppose i said to any other person, i dont read because i was never good at nouns and verbs. I stick to sign. You would laugh me out of the room. These are fundamental parts of the lysacek. Civilization ever since there has been civilization. To separate yourself from one or the other and wayne to be informed, as the good dr. Sagan said, that is a combustible , especially if that kind of ignorant is wielded by people in power. For me, it is sufficient for me to say let us spread and appreciation of science to everyone. Intelligentlyote on issues that involve scientific principles. Is notu can know who telling the truth and who is. Charlie do we have that many scientific deniers in our country . Neil there are some of those. Dare i implicate some elements of journalism in this, because there is this journalistic egos ethos. Obligation isic to give equal column space to all sides, or half to one of each side. If someone says the earth is round and someone says the earth is flat, at some point, you are going to make a judgment, that the earth is flat people are just let out wrong. I think journalists are really smart people and highly educated and curious. They had the curiosity that kids have that they still have as a dull. Have, butat thing to at some point, invest your brain energy to recognize when something is fringe. To say but im sorry this, but you are a journalist. Neil dont apologize. I host a talk show, so i agree that i am a journalist. The only part of the question we who. Answer is who moved the black hole . There is not an answer to that. Charlie do we know what is at the bottom of the black hole . Do a primer on this for me. Its a region of space where matter has collapsed to such density that the gravity as matter collapses and gets and it getsenser, harder and harder for you to escape. At some point, this blob of matter has condensed so significantly that for you to you would have to travel faster than the speed of light. Which means light cannot escape. If light cannot escape, you are not getting out of this place. Whole. Threedimensional how known how long have we known about the black hole . Einstein could have predicted it with his own equations, but he didnt, interestingly enough. Charlie why not, because he wasnt interested enough . Hawking,quote stephen ask him directly over dinner. Stephen hawkings response was, you cannot think of everything. [laughter] charlie what about time travel . Some walle may be physics we have yet to discover that will prevent you from going back in time. Maybe there is a law of physics we have yet to discover that will declare without hesitation that thou shalt not go backwards in time. Because if you do, and you prevent your parents from theing one another, unlike terminator series where you have to kill people so that they dont mate, all you have to do is prevent them from meeting or prevent them from having sex. That is really all you have to do. Them have sex 10 minutes later than that otherwise would have, they will give birth to a completely different hearse and. If you go back and prevent your parents from meeting one another, you would never have been born, to have been lived to go back in time to prevent your parents from meeting one another. So you have this paradox. It is a causality paradox. Said, we have no shortage of interesting ways to go forward in time. We can speed you up, you go very fast and time ticks more slowly, not just your law. Your physiology, everything about you will tick more slowly. You will age more slowly than your twin here on earth. You come back, you will be younger than your twin. So you have effectively gone into the future. That is one way to do it. Fields, theynal rtray this in the film interstellar. Satellites that are farther away from earths center than we are, their time ticks at a different rate than ours does. Satellite tick faster than clocks on earth, but they send you the correct time. We knew in advance about einsteins general relativity. So the satellites are precorrected for this time change by formulation of einsteins general area of relativity. Otherwise the times would separate from one another and you could not use gps satellites to tell you anything but where you are on earth surface. So this is real and it works. Charlie tell me this thing about dust. There was a 60 minutes profile about dust and chemistry. Ofl not everybody comes out 60 minute profiles better than when they went in. [laughter] but thanks for your interest in my life and work. Charlie but staying with this idea, the composition of the earth and dust and what is within the human body. The basic fundamental things are the essence of science and your work and others. Neil the single greatest gift that astrophysicists that astrophysics has brought civilization is the discovery k in 1957 by four authors no movies are made about them because there are four of them, not just one. We romanticize the lone researcher burning the midnight oil. This is for scientists working for a decade to get this result. They realized that the elements on the periodic table, that you might remember from chemistry class, oh their origin to thermonuclear fusion in the core s of stars. If the only state in stars, that would not be interesting, but these particular stars happen to explode and scatter this enrichment across the galaxy. Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, all these elements scattered into gas clouds that then collapsed and formed next generation star systems, one of which was ours. So the very ingredients that comprise life are traceable to stars. They gave their lives billions of years before we arrived. So we are not only figuratively, but quite literally, stardust. Charlie finally this. The notion of you, do you have things you want to accomplish beyond being at the end of a phone with somebody who asks a question and you give credibility to whatever their project is by giving them direction . Neil people have seen me on tv in so many ways, shapes, and sizes. Someone asked me who is my agent. My agent must be the universe because there is no human being there who is doing this. Wasof my favorite quotes uttered by horace mann, an educator, who said, be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity. I want that on my epitaph. I want that on my tombstone. Be ashamed to die until you have scored some victory for humanity. Neil that can be on any level. That can be raising kids who are responsible. That is a very broadly defined victory. Im not the first to say this. At least leave the world a little better off for you having lived in it. Why not . Lean up your mess and after youve cleaned up the room that you just lived in, maybe leave a flower behind. Leave it a slightly better place. Eachwe can all celebrate of our existence in this world and not lament it or regret it. There is so much in the world that regresses civilization. It is sad. I wonder how far we would be were it not for such forces that operate in this world. Charlie thank you for coming. A pleasure having you. E. O. Wilson is here. Hes one of the worlds most distinguished biologist and naturalist. He has written 30 books and is a Professor Emeritus at harvard university. His new book grapples with some of lifes most fundamental questions. Im pleased to have e. O. Wilson back at this table. Welcome. Tell me how you came to the meaning of human existence or go e. O. over a long, long route. I started my career as an evolutionary biologist. I actually invented that term. That is another story, very interesting. In the course of studying every aspect of the biology of ants, i became interested in the broad subject of social behavior. The biological origin of social behavior. Entitled book sociobiology and so on and other related books. This led me to Human Behavior inevitably. After all, we are social animals. And eventually it just seem logical, or i found myself positioned to think about some of these questions that philosophers and even religious scholars have largely abandoned. Where do we come from, what are we, and where are we going . Charlie and what does it mean to be human . E. O. i think we are approaching a time now where the appropriate disciplines of science have large enough and are moving enough in the right direction so the restconnect with of humanitys to create a much better picture of who we are and where we ever had before. I would like to refer to it, what is happening or will happen shortly as the new enlightenment. Charlie define the new enlightenment. Define what it might be. Primarily in the late 17th and throughout the 18th century, philosophers and scientists, they didnt call them that at that time, but those who recalled actual philosophers were in agreement. They were learning so much so fast, that in short order, we would be able to combine a list knowledge and come to understand humanity in the light of the knowledge we could acquire ourselves. It was time to step back and say what have we learned and what do we make of it . The old enlightenment faded away because of two developments. One was the romantic period of literature. It came to dominate a lot of english language. Also it was that science could not deliver, not in the early 1800s. This promise of actually contributing something fundamental to the question, what is the meaning of human existence . That faded away. We had to wait for two centuries. Centuries, i think we are ready to answer those questions again with a lot more confidence. Charlie also much more challenging, because science has roared ahead and challenged traditional definitions of what it means to be human. E. O. that is exactly right. T isnt just science i think we are close to finding the grail, but not just any science. For example, you will get nowhere if you ask an astrophysicist or of honor. You ask a chemist. Colleagues are just too far removed from what we need to know about where humans came from, where they fit in the earths fauna and flora as a species that evolved from something less human into our present self glorified form. Charlie so where do we find the answers . E. O. let me list five disciplines where we are finding the answers. A couple of these may surprise you. We are finding them in evolutionary biology. Which is advancing with the help of genetics, molecular genetics. The next one that is contributing big time is brain science. Now thee that is interest andmense intensity of research. The third one of course, as anyone would want to list, would be paleontologist and archaeology. They sort of segue into each other. Surprises,the two Artificial Intelligence and robotics. These are the branches of science and technology which are attempting actually to understand how the human brain just what thereby evolution has produced. Charlie there are people who are scared about the consequences. Does that bother you . E. O. not in the least. I just had the opportunity of meeting with six of the key robotics and Artificial Intelligence. We arranged for a roundtable discussion on the present status of those subjects. In my case, we were bringing in biological diversity. How is this going to affect the Living Environment of the world will we start filling it up with robots and changing our Consumption Patterns and so on . The answer is, because this became an ancillary subject. Are the robots going to take over . That is a great story, and hollywood loves a great story. So they tell the story over and over again. The short answer is no, because we have control. Allow evengoing to advanced humanoid robots charlie youre saying we can control it so we will not allow it, we understand the danger of it and therefore we will put a barrier e. O. we havent even begun really to understand how the emotional centers that are the core of our human nature, how they work. But in the last 10 years, we have made a lot of rock rest. E. O. rapid progress. But that being the case and understanding were just beginning to find out where all ,hose unconscious centers are the airy we call the conscious mind, were not likely to be able to duplicate or try to duplicate that in robots. But if we were to try to duplicate it, we are certainly not going to give the robots the chance to evolve. Notlie if we could, we are going to give it to them. But here is the question. That is very nice to say, but there is probably somebody out there somewhere who says i dont particularly want to follow e. O. Wilsons definition of where we should let the robots evolve too. I want to see how far we can take it. E. O. you are right. Of the the mantra technoscientific age. There will be doha altering of any Scientific Investigation or potentially there will be no any technology because it is our human nature to want to explore and keep exploring always. But there is a big difference between the Mad Scientist who has invented a great new neutron bomb in his private laboratory and teams of scientists working that are needed to produce the or artificialots intelligence of any kind to communicate and to go through Natural Selection. I think those who make up the good stories for us in hollywood dont appreciate exactly what Natural Selection and artificial selection are. I thought, here we go, the revered e. O. Wilson has decided to say we are creating the way werento trying to design human life. That is what i thought you were going to say. Glad you brought that up because it raises the whole issue of the importance of the humanities, which you might have noticed, i touch on in a chapter called the all important influence of the humanities. Consider that rational abilities and rational process and the engineering and technology that emerges from that, nevertheless is not human, a fundamental human quality. The degree of capacity is unique a humans, what makes us distinctive species and gives humanity to us may i use the word metaphorically, what are soul is, is in our emotions. And were not going to tinker with souls. That is the core we are trying to save. I did not mean that it is impossible. Im just saying that if we do settle down before we wreck this planet, were going to come to understand that its the conglomerate and complex interaction of our emotional process that makes us distinctive and is the core of our humanity. Charlie our emotional process. And what advances are remaking in terms of that emotional process . E. O. just studying. Are landmarks in the sense that neurobiologists, you cannot really tell where they are from one month to the next, they are moving so rapidly. They have succeeded in locating quite a few centers for emotion and also centers for subconscious decisionmaking. The idea is to learn about this as thoroughly as possible. It can be judging distance and orientation, the quick learning process, and what centers that ,s, but center by center linkage by linkage, we are beginning to get a map of the mind, and then we will be able to map the emotions and moved to the next phase. There is a nice term that is being used, and that is whole brain emulation. Emulate the human brain, but not try to exactly duplicated. What is the difference, if we emulate it, where would we go if we emulate the human brain that would be different if we try to duplicate it . E. O. thats a very good question, sir. Emulation means that the computing that depends upon decisionmaking, that has emotion like components to it, is one of the goals of it of Artificial Intelligence. Technologykind of that isbeing developed secondary in importance to digital or binary models. Fix called nero more orphics. , we will that in time have those robots. The goal i believe is that we will have Computers Smart enough to perform the obvious complex tasks we want them to perform on the surface of mars and the middle of volcanoes and so on. But we want them also to be able to make judgments that are. Ppropriate for human need that is about as far as i think we would want to take it. Charlie lets assume you were thinking of doomsday. ,s it more likely to come somehow what we do to the planet, or are we going to unleash something beyond our comprehension which will have a velocity of change that we never imagined . E. O. both. It is a race amongst doomsdays as to which will come first. In other words, now we are above critical level in the concentration of the planet change components of the atmosphere. And scientists who are experts on this subject, the real scientists wonder and worry that there is some kind of a Tipping Point that could be catastrophic in nature. Damage,uld do massive catastrophic damage with a Tipping Point that we didnt anticipate well enough. We are allowing the potential cause of that to go on and on, so we should be careful about climate change, because that could create a catastrophe. Way is by the means of whimper. Day conservation of conservation of the biosphere. 1000et species slip away times faster than before humans came. Because we dont know what would happen with the biosphere. Winduld mean we would just down to a less controllable, less interesting, and less productive planet, and that would just be a dark age that we could never emerge from. Charlie ok, dr. Wilson. Tell me, what is the meaning of human existence . E. O. let me just answer with a couple of general statements, which i think carry the meaning of the meaning. History makes no sense without prehistory. Prehistory makes no sense without biology. Human existence is a result of a long series of evolutionary and cultural events. The cultural starting primarily when agriculture was discovered. It has led up to what we are today. The meaning then is the actual history, the epic that goes all the way back to the origin of our biological imperatives. , let usould say ,onsider that human beings are above all, a biologicals bcs in a biological world. That we live in a razor thin withinf the atmosphere which life can exist, and to which we as a species are exquisitely well it acted. Well adapted. When we get this understanding of where we are, what we are, and where we came from, we will be better prepared to decide where we are going. Charlie e. O. Wilson, thank you. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Scarlet signs of stability. A today slump, the dollar advances. Mp sent the searching for a ceo. The pressure is growing on twitter. To first. Im coming to you live