Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Future Of The Mind 20140526

And such with that pressing issue right now how he would havwouldhave dealt with that ans really to radical because it seems that it would work and we are in constant growing deficit and the tax is peaking higher and higher into the economy is only exacerbating the problem by giving the greater and greater facility from them to get even the College Scholarships to get drivers licenses without being legal residence and i wanted to ask how the true conservative deals. That would allow people to enter the country legally. And so really i think what reagan did was right, but what happened was the followup to what reagan did never took place. So, you know, that Border Security wasnt provided. Best piece on this is a piece by Peter Robinson who wrote the tear down this wall speech. And Peter Robinson wrote it for the wall street journal a couple years ago. Its titled Something Like what would reagan do on immigration. Its very good. I strongly recommend it. Any other questions . Are yall wiped out . [laughter] its getting late . Andrew, i get the hook . [laughter] my former student . Must be that c i gave him. [laughter] no, he got an a. We werent supposed to talk about that. Right. [laughter] ive been waiting for this opportunity. [laughter] paybacks. Thank you, paul. Thank you very much. [applause] youre watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on cspan2. Next on booktv, michio kaku talks about the latest advances in brain science. He says that our understanding of the brain and Technological Advancements make it possible to now record our memories and dreams. Communicate telepathically and control robots with our minds. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] well, after such a great introduction, i cant wait to hear the speaker myself. [laughter] sometimes all these introductions can backfire. Recently, new York Magazine voted me as one of the 100 smartest people in new york city. [laughter] so i thought, wow, what an honor. But in all fairness, in all fairness, i have to admit that madonna also made that same list. [laughter] and i understand that next year lady gaga is going to push me off the list entirely. [laughter] now, today im going to talk about the future, the future of the mind. And let me say that talking about the future is dangerous. Let me quote from that great philosopher of the western world, yogi berra. [laughter] yogi berra once said, quote prediction is awfully hard to do, especially if its about the future. [laughter] well, im a physicist. We can predict the future of the universe billions of years into the future. So let me quote from that other great philosopher, woody allen. He once said, quote eternity is an awful long time, especially toward the end. [laughter] well, you may say to yourself, what does a physicist know about the mind . What does a physicist know about daily life . Well, we are the ones who invented the transistor. We invented the laser. We helped to assemble the first computer and the internet. We wrote the worldwide web. And along the way, we invented television. We invented radio. Radar, microwaves, xray machines. And dont forget, we created the Space Program and the gps satellite. And we physicists love to make predictions. When we helped to assemble the internet, one physicist predicted that the internet would become a forum of high culture, high art and high society. [laughter] well, today we know that 5 of the internet is pornography. [laughter] but thats because teenage boys log on to the internet. [laughter] just wait until the grandmas and grandpas log on to the internet. Then 50 of the internet will be pornography. [laughter] and, again, you may say to yourself, well, how does physics differ from chemistry or the other sciences . Well, let me tell you a little story. During world war ii once the nazis captured a bunch of american scientists and they called them spies, spies. And so they were about to be executed by firing squad. There was a geologist, a physicist and a chemist about to be shot by the firing squad by the nazis. Well, they lined em up, and then just as they were about to push the trigger, all of a sudden the geologist says, earthquake, earthquake well, chaos broke out, and then in the chaos, the geologist snuck away. Well, now it was just the physicist and the chemist. They were lined up in the firing squad, and then suddenly the physicist said, lightning, lightning well, in the chaos, the physicist sneaks away. Now its just the chemist. So they line up the rifles, and all of a sudden the chemist says, fire, fire [laughter] sometimes it just doesnt pay. [laughter] so anyway, today im going to talk about the future of the mind. Ever since i was a child, ive been fascinated by two things. First, ive been fascinated by outer space, with by the origin of the universe. In fact, thats what i do for a living. Thats my day job. However, ive also been fascinated by inner space, what lurks on your shoulders is the most complex object in the known universe. If we were to create a computer that can simulate the brain, the computer would be the size of a city block. Thats how big the computer would be. Energy would require a Nuclear Power plant to fire it up and a river to cool it down. But your brain operates on 20 watts of power. So when someone calls you a dim bulb, thats a compliment. [laughter] and you dont shield a Nuclear Power plant to energize your brain, just a hamburger is fine. [laughter] so how is it possible . Well, my latest book, the future of the mind, im proud to say is now number one on the New York Times bestseller list. [applause] so im not the only one fascinated by the mind, because the book is now the number one hard cover book in the united states. But my previous book was also a bestseller, physics of the future. In fact, they tell me this is the first time in World History that the word physics entered the New York Times bestseller list. [laughter] and i did it twice. [laughter] in physics of the impossible, i even go 500 years into the future when we have starships, teleportation, maybe even time travel. And i answer the question what happens if you go into a time machine . Go back in time to meet your teenaged mother before youre born and she falls in love with you . [laughter] well, if youre if your teenage mother falls in love with you before youre born, youre in deep do do if that happens. [laughter] so let us talk about the two greatest mysteries in the universe; the origin of the universe and whats sitting on your shoulders. Inner space and outer space. And last year the politicians got wind of the excitement. Weve learned more in the last 510 years about the mind than in all the of human in all of Human History combined. President barack obama last year got wind of this, and in his state of the union address, announced the Brain Initiative. Just like the human genome project changed the course of medicine, giving us a disc with all our genes on it, obama announced the Brain Initiative. With the europeans. 1 billion, thats billion with a b, not an m, will be devoted to creating a map, a map of the brain. Just think of it. We will have the genome and the connectome, all the neural connections of the mind on a disc. The shortterm goal is to cure Mental Illness. Mental illness has been with us since biblical times. Even the bible mentions Mental Illness. But if we have a connectome and we have the genome on two discs, then in some sense if you die, you live forever. You live forever in some sense because your personality, your memories, your wants and desires are coded inside a disk. So when i was a kid, i was fascinated by telepathy, reading minds, telekinesis, moving objects with the mind, recording memories, uploading memories, photographing a dream. Belief it or not believe it or not, we can do all of the above. And you will see that in todays slide show. But when i was a kid, i used to try to read peoples minds. I tried real hard to move objects with the mind. I finally came to the conclusion that maybe there are two telepaths that walk the surface of the earth, but i wasnt one of them. [laughter] and then this science fiction, of course, its full of telepaths. These are things that we can now do in the laboratory. Things that we can only dream of, we now do in the laboratory. And even recording memories and uploading them. Hollywood is always ahead of us. This is the movie the matrix when even reality, reality itself is a memory uploaded into the mind. So let me ask you a question. Late at night just before you go to sleep, late at night have you ever had that weird sensation that maybe, maybe life is an illusion . Maybe its just a memory uploaded into your mind like the mate matrix, and you are the only one thats real. And in some sense someone is testing you to see whether youre smart enough to figure out youre the only real one. Ever had that weird feeling . Raise your hand if you ever had that feeling. Well, youre crazy. [laughter] you think youre the only one in the universe in give me a break. [laughter] you see, im the only one in the universe. [laughter] im sitting in my bed right now. This is just a memory uploaded into my mind. Im just sitting in my bed all by myself. Well, hollywood, of course, is always ahead of us. And when it comes to uploading memories, no one can do it better than the former governor of california. [laughter] the former governor of california had the memory of being married to sharon stone upholded into his mind uploaded into his mind, and look what happened to him. [laughter] this is total recall. And in total recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the good guy. For 99 of the movie, hes the good guy. You identify with him. Hes the hero. In the last, the last minutes of the film you find out hes actually the bad guy. With good guy memories uploaded. Its the only movie i know where hes both the hero and the villain smugglesly. Simultaneously. And then we have iron man comics and the movies, exso skeletons. We can exoskeletons. We can now do in this the laboratory. In fact, the pentagon realized there are thousands of Wounded Warriors from iraq and afghanistan. They are now connecting the brain directly to a mechanical arm and exoskeleton, bypassing the spinal cord totally. We can now do this in the laboratory. And then why not live our life through an avatar . A surrogate . Surrogates have perfect bodies. Theyre superhuman in strength. Theyre perfect, theyre gorgeous. Why not live our life through a surrogate or an avatar . This could be the future of the Space Program. Outer space is dangerous. Ever see the movie with sandra bullock, gravity . Whoa. Space is dangerous. So why not send a robot into outer space guided by you, and you are in your hot tub in your living room . [laughter] from your hot tub, you mentally control a robot astronaut in outer space. Nasa is looking into this responsibility. Possible. And then i used to dream about telekinesis, moving objects with the mind. This is the movie carrie where a telekinetic is bullied all her life, and finally she cant take it anymore. So at the senior prom, she destroys the entire high school. Whats the lesson here . The lesson here is never take a and then superman, the iconic figure of the comic books. Every kid knows that supermans father died when krypton blew up. But the latest movie has a twist. You see, in the latest movie, supermans father is reduced to a Computer Program. His connectome, his mind, his pathways of the brain are encoded in a Computer Program, and he comes back to life as Russell Crowe. [laughter] Russell Crowe is a hologram, a hologram that has all the memories, personality quirks, all the expressions of supermans father. Is this possible . This could be the end product of president Barack Obamas Brain Initiative. We will have a disk called brain 2. 0. Brain 2. 0 that lives on even after we die. And then the question is, can the mind exist without the body . 200, 300 years ago people thought that the spirit, the soul was different from flesh and blood. Then we have modern science which tells us, no, no, no, no, no. You see, the brain is like hardware. The brain is computer wet ware, and the mind is software. But, you see, if we can put the mind on a discanning call disk called the connectome, this billion dollar project of president Barack Obamas, then in some sense the mind can be separate from the body just as the ancients once thought. But lets talk about science. That was hollywood. Now lets talk about science. Because of physics, we can now peer right into the sinking process syncing process of the mind with mri scans. We can actually see thoughts ricocheting across the mind like a pingpong ball. We can actually see Mental Illness in action. This is a brain scan. On the left is the brain when you tell the truth. The red areas represent blood flow which is very easy to measure with an mri scan. When you tell the truth, nothing happens. But when you tell a lie, ah, yes, when you tell a lie, first, you have to know the truth. Then you have to create the lie. Then you have to calculate the consistency of the lie with all the other lies youve been with telling all these years. [laughter] thats a lot of brain power. Your brain lights up like a christmas tree. And now, if you take a look at the brain, look at it from the point of view of evolution. Our brain is like a museum. Look at the back. The back part of the brain is the most ancient part of the brain. Its called the reptilian brain. When you are in a car accident and you get whiplash back here, sometimes you lose your sense of balance. Because whats back here is the most ancient part of the brain, the reptilian brain with. Then in the middle is the monkey brain, the brain of emotions. The brain of social hierarchy, hunting in a pack, forming coalitions, understanding the intentions of other people. Thats the center of the brain. Then the front of the brain is the thinking brain; that is, the brain of humans. Now that we have brain scans, we can its old wives tales to see whether these old wives tales about the mind are true or not. For example, many people, many parents when they look at their teenage children are thoroughly convinced that teenagers are brain damaged. [laughter] yes, teenagers are brain damage damaged. You can actually see that with brain scans. Its amazing. The prefrontal lobe is not fully normed in teenagers. Formed in teenagers. So the next time you argue with your teenager, you know hes brain damaged. [laughter] another old wives tale is that when a man talks to a pretty girl, he starts to act stupid. Well, its true. You look at a brain scan of a man talking to a pretty girl, and blood drains from the prefrontal cortex. [laughter] men act retarded. Stupid. Its absolutely true. You can see that with brain scans. So old wives tales can now be tested against science. And then if you were to cut the brain horizontally, you have two hemispheres. On the left and the right hemispheres, and different parts of the mind are connected to different parts of the body. If you electrified this part of the brain doesnt hurt at all. The brain has no pain sensors. The brain cannot feel pain. If you hit the part of the brain with electrodes, then your opposite hand moves. You hit this with electricity, then this part of your hand moves. It turns out that in epileptics we have to cut the connection between the left and the right hemispheres. And then something bizarre. Manager mysterious begins to happen. When you cut the connection between the left and the right hemisphere, gradually two personalities begin to emerge, two different minds in the same brain begin to emerge. We see this. All of a sudden you want to do one thing with your hand, and then your other hand goes like this, okay . In one documented case, one half of the brain was an atheist. The other half of the brain was a believer. Now, in the future im sure that were going to find a brain such that one half is republican [laughter] and the other half is democrat. And can you imagine going to the polling booth and you have to hit the switch with . And all of a sudden theres this struggle, theres a struggle between the left and the right over pulling down the switch . [laughter] yes. This could actually happen because we now have brain scans. Not just superstitions about the mind. Now, in the old days, back in the 1950s, you had to put on this awkward helmet. You looked like a refugee from star trek. All these electrodes. Now, we dont do that anymore because we have computers. Computers allow us to decipher all this mishmash of radio that comes out of the mind. In fact, in the future these brain scans will be sexy. The upper left, children can now play video games mentally. They put on a headband. The headband picks up radio from their mind, and they control an avatar inside a video game. On the right is what is happening in japan. In japan you put a headband on your head at a party, and it has two ears on it. When you talk to someone whos interesting, the ears go with like this. When you talk to a dud, a real loser, then your ears go like that. [laughter] and so with this headset you will know ahead of time the youre going to go home alone at night. [laughter] and i think im going to give these to my students in college. I will see all my students. If their ears go like then i will say f, f, f. [laughter] oh, theres an a here. Theres another a, okay . So you can doe this now do this now. This has gotten the attention now of Apple Computers and microsoft. Theyrlooking into this. And the lower left, maybe one day you will simply control your laptop by thinking. The headset will pick up radio from the brain, computers will decipher the signal and move the cursor. You can already type, we can already type by the power of the mind, because computers can now decipher what you are thinking about. And one day it could be sexy. All of a sudden fashion models, people that are at the forefront of high fashion will start to wear these things as well. Itll be fashion be bl to control computers this way. In fact, in the future one day when you walk into a room, you may mentally turn on the lights, mentally set the thermostat, mentally turn on the tv, mentally call for the car and mentally drive the car just by thinking about it. This is my colleague, stephen hawking, the great mossologist. Hes now cosmologist. Hes now lost control of his fingers. He can only blink, thats all he can do. But, you know, were physicists. What we did was we put a chip in his right glass. Next time you see stephen on television, look at his right frame. Theres a chip in his glass. That chip picks up radio from his brain, converts it to signals that operate a laptop computer. So this is how stephen now communicates with the world. But not just a laptop, why not an exoskeleton . This is whats being done at brown university, Duke University. They put a chip right on top of the brain. It doesnt hurt, because the brain doesnt have think pain accept to haves have any pain sensors. Then this chip is connected to a laptop which then controls a wheelchair. This gentleman here had a stroke. He is a vegetable. Finish he cannot scratch his nose, he cannot talk, he cannot do anything but blink. Blink is the only thing he can do. At brown they put a chip in his brain connected to a computer. He can now surf the web, he can read email, write email, play video games, do crossword puzzles, operate his wheelchair, operate household appliances. Anything you can do on a computer he can also do, and he is totally paralyzed. And weve now connected, also at brown university, this paralyzed woman through a mechanical arm. She also is totally paralyzed. He can only blink she can only blink. And when you connect her to a mechanical arm, she could pick up cocacola for the first time in years and scratch her nose. And they asked her what do you, how do you feel . And she blinked, and she blinked and spelled out the words i want robot legs next. [laughter] well, thats coming next. Pause the pentagon because the pentagon got wind of this. And they realize, oh, my god, think of all the Wounded Warriors from iraq and afghanistan with no arms, no legs. What is our country doing for our veterans . Well, what were doing is create l mechanical arms. Mechanical arms that are so sensitive you can pick up an egg without breaking it. You can fist bump, you can hive five, you can hand highfive. You can handshake. That is how delicate these arms are built at Johns Hopkins university. And not only that, but cleat exo complete exoskeletons are next. We are going to bypass the spinal cord for these people. Think of the people who are injured because of car accidents, strokes, football accidents on the football field. Hundreds of them, thousands of people who are parly or partially or fully paralyzed. Were going to make sure they walk again by bypassing the spinal cord. Now, at Duke University theres one scientist from brazil. Hes creating this exoskeleton for somebody who is totally paralyzed so that he can start the world cup soccer games in brazil. So the next time you watch the International Soccer cup games in brazil, they will be initiated by somebody who is a vegetable, totally paralyzed, with an exoskeleton. And in japan theyre looking at surrogates, avatars like the movie, avatar. In the movie you are in a pod, and you control mentally another being. This is now japan where we have a robot connected to a man with electrodes, and he controls the robot. This could be the future of police work, firemen, emergency work. People put their lives on the line for dangerous jobs. Why not have a robot do it . And it could also be the future of education. Surrogates will one day be in the classroom. This is a surrogate. It shows the picture of somebody who is sick in bed. The teacher looks at the surrogate and sees face of pupil who is sick in bed, and the pupil in turn sees an image of the teacher while the student is sick. Remember when we were young, we used to play hookie . Those were the good old days, right . [laughter] theyre gone. Isnt the future wonderful . Well never be able to play hookie bicep. [laughter] because the teacher will always know every single day theres a surrogate right there in that chair. And the brain is connected to the eyes. So why not use the eyes as a direct way to input information in the brain . This is the future of the internet. The future of the internet is to be in your contact lens. You blink, and you go online. And who are the first people to buy internet contact lenses . College student taking final examinations. My students want internet contact lenses. Vice president joe biden, so he never says anything goofy again. [laughter] and valentines day. Think of all the romeos who are tongue tied that cant say roses are red, violates are blue. Violets are blue. Think of all the romeos who cant get a poem off the ground for their loved one. In the future, all the tonguetied romeos will have beautiful words emanating from their mouths right out of a poetry book because it is right outside of a poetry book. Nasa is interested in this because astronauts in outer space, they have to see the blueprint. Theyre in outer space, for gods sake, and theres no blue print. Theyll see the blue print right there in your, right there in your eyes. These glasses, these contact lenses, by the way, will also recognize peoples faces. So when you bump into somebody, youll always know who they are. How many times have you been at a conference like this, and you bump into somebody, and you say i though this person, i know this jim, john, jake, who is this person . In the future your contact lens will say its jim, stupid. [laughter] you want to see his complete biography, you see him every time theres a meeting here at rainy day books. And lets say youre looking for a job. Youre at a cocktail party, and you know theres some very important people at that cocktail party, but you dont know who they are. In the future, you will know exactly who to suck up to at any cocktail party. [laughter] husband and wives will connect their contact lenses together. How many times has the husband or the wife gone shopping and bought the wrong thing . Go back and return that apple, the apple is rotten. In the future be, youll see what your husband or wife is seeing, and youll say, no, no, no, dont buy that apple, no, no, buy this instead. And so surrogates will repair damaged reactors like in fukushima, put out fires, explore outer space, and you will be in a hot tub mentally controlling all these gadgets. So computerized prosthetics could enhance the human body. And next is uploading memories. This was once considered science fiction, but now we do it. Last year at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and also in los angeles they took a mouse, trained a mouse to drink water there a bottle, and then they recorded the memory in the hippocampus. The hip to be campus is that red thing in the middle of the brain. They recorded that memory. Later the mouse forgot. But then they reinserted the tape recorder back into the hippocampus and, bingo, the mouse remembered. This is the first time in World History finish just last year that we recorded a memory and played it back, uploaded that memory into a mouse. Next, primates. Very soon now were going to record memories of a monkey perhaps eating a banana, record it and can then shoot it back in, and the monkey will remember everything that it forgot. Next, alzheimers patients. We are going to create a brain pacemaker for alzheimers patients. Thats the shortterm goal. Were going to create a butt beton. You push the button, and the memory of who you are, who your children are, where you live, where you left your keys will be inserted back into your mind. And who knows . Even beyond that maybe youll push a button, and youll insert the memory of a vacation that you never had. [laughter] or if youre a college student, think of all the courses you flunked in college. Maybe well be able to upload some of that information. And workers who get laid off because of technology, maybe theyll upgrade their skills not by going to a community college, but by simply uploading the memory. So the hippocampus is the gateway to memory. Now, when the hippocampus is damaged like in a stroke, then you cannot form longterm memories. Theres a sad case of a guy named mr. [inaudible] his hippocampus was damaged in surgery. When you greet him, he would say, hello, hello, how are you, how are you . And then he would forget. He would forget that he met you and start all over again. Hello, hello, how are you . And he would do this for decades, for decades he would repeat the same memory over and over again. Late in life he saw himself in a mirror, and he was shocked to see an old man in the mirror. And he said that cant be me, im a young man. Im young. And then he would forget the memory of seeing himself as an old man, and hed go back to saying, hello, hello, how are you . This is so bizarre that two hollywood movies were created about him. One is 50 first dates with drew barrymore, and the other one is groundhoggroundhog dayl murray. And then the question is can you photograph a thought . Now, normally you would say, that, whats more ephemeral, fleeting than a thought . Well, adversely at berkeley, where i got my ph. D. Years ago, we can actually do it. You put somebody in a brain scan. The brain scan converts the image in you have mind into 30,000 dots. Now, thats an mri machine today. Very awkward. You cant brain scan yourself every day. But on the right is the worlds smallest mri machine. Its only this big. It uses supercomputers to compensate for a weak magnetic field. And according to the laws of physics, how small can you make a huge mri machine . The answer is according to the laws of physics, we can make an mri machine this big. Your cell phone will have more computer power than a University Hospital today. Your medicine cabinet will have more medical knowledge than a University Hospital today. So heres how we do it. We take the brain, put it in an mri scan, and the computer spits out 30,000 dots. Each dot represents electrical activity of the brain. Then a Software Program analyzes it and prints out a picture. These are some of the first pictures of a thought. On the left is steve martin. This, next to it is the image of steve martin as seen through your brain. Its not perfect, because its only 30,000 dots. A picture may have a million pixelings. But, hey pixels. But, hey, the fact that we can do this at all is amazing. This is a picture of an elephant, a person in an airplane and then the computer image generated by the a computer. Then what you do is put this person in an mri machine, and you have him go to sleep. Now, when he sleeps, he dreams. And the Computer Program just keeps on going. Some of the first crude pictures of a dream came out last year. In the future you may wake up, push a button ask see the dream that you and see the dream that you had the previous night x. Then in germany they did something amazing. According to old wives tale, some of us have lucid dreaming abouts. We are conscious when we dream. We can actually change the course of a dream. We know we are dreaming while we are dreaming. This is called lucid dreaming. Now, how many people in this audience have ever experienced any dream, even once, where you knew you were dreaming . Look at that. Well, it turns out that this old wives tale is true. In germany last year, they brain scanned a lucid dream e and he controlled the direction and he controlled the direction of his dream, and we followed it with an mri scan. It is absolutely true. So maybe one day Leonardo Dicaprios movie, inception, is not so far fetched after all. And then the big one, Mental Illness. This is why president barack obama and the European Union want to dump a billion dollars to find out how the brain is miswired. It turns out, for example, that many of our leading figures actors, actresses, composers, musicians have suffered from bipolar disorder. On the upper left, for example, is margo kidder. She became famous as lois lane. However, several years ago they found her homeless, stark naked, hiding behind garbage cans. And it was revealed that she suffers from bipolar disorder as many actresses and thames actors suffer. And famous actors suffer. We can now brain scan these people. And we now cannot cure them, but we understand how Mental Illness forms to a degree. Skids friendics, for example schizophrenics, for example, hear voices. If you want to see a schizophrenic, go downtown. See the homeless, and youll see people talking to themselves. That is classic schizophrenia. And when you brain scan these people, you find something very interesting. The left part of your brain generates voices. You talk to yourself. We all talk to ourself all the time. But the front part of your brain, the conscious brain, is aware of it. In these people when they have voices racing through their mind, the left part of their brain lights up. But the front part of the brain is unaware of it. In other words, they are talking to themselves without their permission or their knowledge. No, if you one day heard a voice inside your brain that was outside of your conscious control, youd think youre going crazy, right . Well, thats what we have here. We can actually see that now in these people. And we can now even go into history. Joan of arc was perhaps one of the most legendary figures in all of ancient history, a teenager who changes the course of a war, changes the course of european history because she said she talked to god. Were not sure, but it turns out that if you have epileptic lesions in your brain, some of them, about 1020 , become hyperreligious. You see ghosts, demons everywhere. We think that perhaps the prophets, the prophets of old got hit on the held, and they began to see on the head, and they began to see ghosts, demons everywhere. Everything joan of arc suffered there this and we think joan of arc suffered from this. And you can actually induce this artificially. You can put on a helmet duplicating this effect, and you feel that youre in the presence of god. This is called the god helmet where you put on a helmet, and you feel that youre in the presence of god. So scientists, being scientists, decided to put a nun and an atheist inside the god helmet to see whether they could change their belief. For the atheist they chose Richard Dawkins. [laughter] so Richard Dawkins, the atheist biologist, he put on the helmeted, and then a nun put on the helmet. And they asked, did this change your religious belief . And Richard Dawkins says, no, hes still an atheist. And they asked the nun, does this change your belief, the fact you could induce religious feeling . And she said, no. You see, god created us with a telephone, a telephone in our brains so that we can communicate with god. So the scientists were unable to change anyones religious beliefings. Some days you cant win. [laughter] and then the question is, what about super genius . What about people who are off scale . Have fantastic photographic memories . Artistic and mathematical abilities . Be it turns out that there was a boy who had a bullet go through the left temporal lobe. There was a man who dove into a swimming pool, hit the left side of his head on the bottom of the pool and afterwards both of them became super mathematical geniuses. This has now been documented, acquired savant behavior. Now tonight, after todays talk, do not pick up a hammer [laughter] and do not hit yourself on the left temporal lobe. Thinking your going to become a genius afterwards. [laughter] however, some of these people have photographic memories that we have analyzed. This gentleman here, for example, takes the helicopter ride over manhattan and draws the entire vista of the manhattan harbor, the new york harbor, from memory. He did it for hong kong, london and new york city. When you go to jfk airport and you land at the American Airlines terminal, look up and you will see, you will see this drawn from memory by this man who had one helicopter ride over manhattan. How do you do this . If they can do it, we can do it. Were not that different from these people. So how is it . Well, were not sure, but one theory is that when you have a memory, we used to think that the memory decays with time. It gets old. It wears out and disappears. We dont think that anymore. We now believe that forgetting is a very complicated biochemical process. In these people their brain records, but the forgetting mechanism is broken. They have forgotten how to forget. Therefore, they remember everything. You can ask them what were you doing in 1954 at 4 00 in the afternoon on may 2nd . And they will tell you what they were doing at that time. Amazing. And then we have the other question of as aspergers syndr. True genius from isaac newton. Isaac newton, hands down, is the greatest scientist who ever lived. Einstein said that. And he was a very strange person. He couldnt have small talk. He couldnt chitchat with you. Hed be horrible at a dinner conversation. You would not want to invite isaac newton for dinner. And if you wanted to see somebody with aspergers syndrome, just ask the Big Bang Theory on cbs television. Asaspergers people are strange. They dont make eye contact, theyre klutzy with conversations, theyre clueless when it comes to wisdom, like on the Big Bang Theory. But yet, some of the greatest nobel Prize Winners suffered from aspergers syndrome. And then there is true genius of modern times, Albert Einstein. Did you know that we have einsteins brain . When einstein died in 1955, the doctor who did the autopsy kidnapped the brain. Without anyones permission, he took the brain home and kept it in a cooler for 30 years. It was sitting in his living room underneath some books for 30 years. One day he drove across country and put einsteins brain in a mayonnaise jar. Einsteins brain went through a lot of problems over decades because this man said this is a piece of history, and he cannot cremate him. And he took it home, but he didnt know what to do with it. Now its at princeton university. And in my book i even have a chapter analyzing the greatest brain of modern times. But what about Sigmund Freud . Well, believe it or not, we can now reanalyze Sigmund Freudian psychology from a modern point of view. Sigmund freud, many people think he was a crackpot, crazy. Super ego, id, unconscious mind, how do you measure those things . Now we can. With brain scans you can actually see that there is a Pleasure Center at the center of the brain. There is ally bid be doe a libido, a part of the brain that governs pleasure just like freud said. In fact, if you take a mouse and hook electrodes to the Pleasure Center and hooked electrodes to a telegraph key, the mouse will hit the telegraph key twice a second until it starves to death. So they went to dogs, cats and even up to a dolphin. They hooked a dolphin up to the Pleasure Center so that when a dolphin swam forward, it would hit an electrode that stimulated his Pleasure Center. Well, the dolphin would hit the electrode twice a second until the dolldolphin realized, i am dying. I will die. I am starving to death. Then the dolphin stopped, went out, grabbed some food and came back. [laughter] and hit himself again. Dolphins not stupid, after all. [laughter] and then the question is, what is consciousness . You know, so many people have written about this thing called consciousness. 20,000 papers have been written about consciousness. Never in the history of science have so many written so much to produce so little. [laughter] i have a new theory of consciousness that i put in the book. I dont have time to get boo it, but i believe that animals have consciousness. Our consciousness is different there imagines. But, yes, even dogs from animals. But, yes, even dogs, cats, i say, are conscious. And, in fact, how many people in this room have a cat at home, right . Raise your hand. When you come home, the cat comes up to you and purrs and goes right up to your leg, and you say, oh, kind putty tat, thats a nice how affectionate, right . Wrong. If you were to scan the brain of the cat, the cat will be thinking, this human is mine. [laughter] i own this human. Im going to put my hormone on this humans leg so other cats cannot come on my territory. In fact, i trained this human. This human feeds me twice a day. Good human, good human. [laughter] okay . Thats whats going on in the cats consciousness. And why are cats loners . Why do they come up to you and purr next to you and then disappear all by themselves . Because theyre descendant from the wildcat. The wildcat is a solitary hunter. They do not hunt in packs at all. Theyre used to being alone just like fred that garre bow. They want to be alone. How many people in this room have a dog, raise your hand . Whoa, even more. Went you come home, the dog slobbers all over you. Why . Because the dog thinks that you are a dog. Except you are top dog. Youre the alpha dog. They are the underdog. Because dogs are pack animals. They hunt in groups. Theres a pecking order. A very rigid who eats first . The alpha male. Who eats last . The delta male. And thats why dogs are, quote, mans best friend, because they actually think that you are a dog. And why do dogs like to be with people . Because theyre pack animals. They like to hunt in groups. I think, however, that the lowest state of consciousness is a thermostat. One unit of feedback. Thats what i call one unit of consciousness. Even thermostats, i believe, are conscious. The unit of consciousness is a thermostat. A flower has maybe ten units. It registers water, sunlight, gravity, moisture, carbon dioxide. So a flower may have ten units of consciousness. And then as i said before, the back of your brain is the reptilian brain. It understands space. It knows where it is located. It knows where the prey is, but not much more. So thats level i consciousness. Space, it understands its location in space. Then level two consciousness, the monkey brain, located at the center of your brain. This is the brain of emotion. The brain of social hierarchies the brain of the pecking order. And then, number three, what makes us different . We see the future. Animals to not. Animals have no conception of tomorrow. They dont plan for tomorrow. When it gets cold, they hibernate because its instinctive. When it gets cold, we pack our bags, we winterize our home, we fret about, you know, all sorts of things. We see the future. We day dream. We plan, strategize. Animals dont. Animals have no conception of time, that is no conception of tomorrow. If this theory is correct, i have to explain everything about the mind, including things as ephemeral as humor. You may say to yourself, humor so spiritual, so much out there that youll never be able to explain it in a theory of consciousness. I dont think so. Why is a joke funny . A joke is funny because you hear manager, and then you complete the editing. Your brain is a prediction machine. It constantly predicts the ending. You have no choice. To when you hear a joke, your brain completes the ending. And then when you hear the actual ending, its different, and then you love, and thats why things are funny. For example, let me give you an example. Teddy roosevelts daughter was one of the gossip mongers of the white house. She loved gossip. And shes famous for saying, quote if you have nothing good to say about other people, then please come sit next to me. [laughter] w. C. Fields was asked a question about young people, educating young people. And he was asked a question are you in favor of clubs for young people . And w. C. Fields said, am i in favor of clubs for young people . Yes, but only if kindness fails. [laughter] and then the bible bible says, well, the point is [laughter] well, the bible says do can unto others as you would have them do unto you. Except do it first. [laughter] now, why are these, quote u funny . Because when you hear the expression that your mother taught you that if you dont have anything nice to say about somebody, then dont say anything at all, right . You complete the dots. You have no choice. Your brain is a prediction machine. But then when the punchline is, then come sit next to me, its funny because you didnt expect that. So id say even humor can be understood in my theory of consciousness. Now, were running out of time, so ill skip the discussion of robots other than to they saw robots are level one. Robots are like alligators. Theyre not much more intelligence than alligators. Slowly, were beginning to create emotional robots, but robots today are still pretty stupid. The most advanced robot is built in japan. He can run, walk like a little boy. He can even dance. In fact, he dances much better than me. Ive been on a number of tv specials with him, he dances better than me every time. So i interviewed for bbc, the creator of the worlds most advanced robot, and i asked the inventer how smart, how smart is the worlds most advanced row got . And he said on row robot . He said on camera, my creation is as smart as a cockroach. A retarded cockroach. [laughter] a lobotomized, stupid, retarded cockroach. [laughter] and let me wind up by saying that, yes, president barack obama has this Brain Initiative to create brain 2. 0, a copy of the brain to understand why its miswired, high do we have Mental Illness. But if we can understand the wiring of the brain, then perhaps we will also have a form of immortality. Then the question is when you die, will youly forever . Well, to paraphrase bill clinton, it all depends on how you define the word you. [laughter] are you wet ware and software . If so, when you die, you die. Or are you information . If so, then information can double every 18 months. This is moores law. This is the rate at which computers are growing, growing in sophistication. But ever see these old tapes of Mission Control . According to this chart, they were 64 processors, dinosaurs. Your cell phone today has more computer power than all of nasa in 1969. In fact youre not going to put me on one of those rocket ships and send me out with one cell phone. Its criminal. We were sending humans into outer space. And the internet as a consequence will become a brain matter. We will send emotions, memories. Can you imagine teenagers on facebook sending the email should come experience of their first date, senior prom called it on the internet . The movies would have total not just a flat screen, total emotional content. And perhaps in the far future now we are talking the next century if we have a disk with your memories and thoughts perhaps we could send it into her space. In fact we could send it on a laser beam at the speed of light. This may be the way to explore the galaxy to explore the universe. So now let me close on a note and then i will take some questions from the audience and then i will sign your books. Remember after i sign your books you can go to ebay and make money and auction them off. [laughter] when i was a child i had a role model and idolized Albert Einstein and my favorite einstein story is this when einstein was an old man he was tired of giving the same talk over and over again so one day someone came up to him and the chauffeur said professor, i am a part time at your. Ive heard your speech so many times ive memorized it. So why dont we switch places. I will be the great einstein and you can take a rest and be my chauffeur. He liked the joke so they switched places. This went along until one day a mathematician in the back asked a very difficult question and he thought th of the game is over t the chauffeur said the question is so elementary that even my chauffeur can answer it for you. [laughter] [applause] i would be happy to take questions and then sign your book. You can make the questions as hard as you want and afterwards, please line up in an orderly fashion and i will try to sign as many as i can and we will have pictures taken as well. So, people are going to line up and we have microphones in the audience. So here is your chance to talk back. Im not sure how far reaching you think that the effects are going to be on japan and the islands and the rest of the pacific. The question is fukushima and how long we will experience the meltdowns in japan. We have the answer, 40 years. According to the utilities, it will take about 40 years to begin the process of dismantling the reactor, and the accident is sent over at all. A small earthquake starting all over again. Again. You will realize that the reactor is so radioactive that one cannot even get in for more than just a few minutes at a time. They are not smart enough to work in the hig higher radiation fields and total failure. Theyve made a parody to create the robots that can turn the screw and use a hammer and that can use the saw. So the next thing they are going to do is insert the cameras into the water to see where the melting is. We dont even have a picture. And the water. The radioactive water built up. When you visit a fukushima, you see all of these tools in the radioactive water into the agony is unending. So just remember that it will take 40 years to clean up nuclear accident. For japan after world war ii. They were sold for unlimited power. But there is a price. There is a price you have to pay and that is that you so your soul to the devil and move onto the other questions you have and go onto the next person. Yes. Next. I just want to thank you for coming by to kansas city and i wanted to ask you such an inspiration that you started at such a young age and of all of the people that youve met him at the viewfinder that being the standard about everyone starting very young or do you see someone that maybe came in at an older age wanting to switch over . It does help to be young. I interviewed about 500 in my time. I have a radio show that goes out to 140 across the stations and i always ask them the question when did it start and they always say the same thing. When i was ten it was a telescope, a microscope. Everything that mommy and daddy, after ten he began to ask what is beyond that mommy and daddy and event we get this existential shock, this ape if any realizing how huge and glorious and splendorous that universities and the kids just eat it up and want to know everything about physics and chemistry and why the sun shines. They want to know everything. And then it is all over. [laughter] what is the greatest destroyer . The greatest detroiter is Junior High School. We are born wondering where did i come from. Until we hit Junior High School and then it is crashed. All of those that we have to memorize the useless facts and figures that dont amount to anything. All of a sudden we are called there by our friends and all of a sudden its hard to get a date and they are kicking in so it is difficult and so in high school you have this pyramid where you have the Beautiful People there is a pure edit high school. They never tell you that. [applause] they are the leaders of innovation when they were in high school. I was wondering you mentioned that you could take a chip of someones memory and insert it a so that they can remember it again. So it may be someones memory may be to another persons brain so there is controversy over doing Something Like this because memories are personal and meant to be for a single person. How do you think the public will respond and how do you think of this new technology . What are the ethical implications of being able to insert not just to memories but false memories. Courses you never shut, deeds you nevedc wouldnever have becos you never experienced it al bowy uploaded we think in the future. There are big ethical considerations because what happens if a criminal gets this and uploads the memory of a crime that you never committed . The legal Justice System depends upon eyewitness accounts. You can tamper with peoples memories. Therefore this has to be regulated. If we get to the point that we can insert full memories into the mind then they have to be labeled but this memory is false. This vacation that you never had that its fun anywabut its funl experience a vacation. We have to regulate it to make sure that they are labeled false memories so that you dont confuse what is real and what is false. And for people that worry about security, some people think in the future they might be a cia agent would record your memories. That isnt going to happen because in order to attack into the mind you have to put a probe either on top of the brain which is painless or put a helmet on top of the brain. The radio signal is so that it is less than a background in the radio signals. So the lesson is that you have to be right up to the persons brain in order to record things. So the problem isnt privacy because someone will record your memories. Its that you may willingly make a memory that is recorded but then someone else sells it. So that as a whole othe is a wha that will play out in the years. But remember right now we can only record one at a time just Like Software [inaudible] the question is about aspergers syndrome. First of all, we think that it is a mild form of autism and a certain fraction of people with autism begin to develop this enormous mathematical artistic ability. Not all artistic children but a good fraction of them began to excel in certain directions but they might have an iq of 88 he. They may be a totally retarded to be confined to the institutions so how is that possible clicks of the ne . The new way of thinking is that it is damaged. People have these mathematical powers without having to have a low iq. These people are functional. Newton was a member of the parliament during his lifetime and so we are beginning to understand that autism is not inevitably linked. It may be possible to induce this kind of behavior and we think that it is a form. They have many Silicon Valley engineers have a higher rate than the average population. We have a long way to go before we fully understand autism and aspergers but now that we have brain scans we can see that it is different than the average. I was curious what your thoughts were on the subject and how its related to the theoretical physics. There is in my book i have a chapter on the quantum consciousness which is the most bizarre form of consciousness in all of science. For something to exist, somebody has to look at it. Somebody has to make an observation. Before you observe something, there are principles that could exist in all possible states. When you look at it it assumes one state. Therefore, the observer determines existence. But observation requires consciousness. Conscious people make the observation. This is the greatest paradox in all of science is the problem. If i have a cat in a box and i dont open the box, the cat could be dead or alive so how does this discredi describe thet you cannot observe . We added them together so it is neither dead nor alive until you open the box. Now, einstein this is stupid. I mean how can you be neither dead nor alive at the same time . Well he was wrong. It could be up or down. It could be here or there at the same time. So this is the greatest paradox in all of science. How do you resolve the fact that you could have dead cats and life can simultaneously exist in another state before you make the observation. And if you ever find the solution to the puzzle, tell me first. Nobel Prize Winners debate this question. There is an alternative. The alternative vision is that the universe splits in half. In one universities alive and the universe is keep splitting. The answer is possibly yes, possibly yes if the theory is correct and that the universe splits then perhaps in one universe the king is still alive. Lets take one last question because i have to get to signing your books and i have to get to work photographs. My question was if you could put someones thoughts onto a disc could you build them than a rot body and put them in their and they could live out their days in a robot body . If you could put the mind onto a disc of the question is can it then be put into a robot clicks and then you would have superpowers. This is something that cannot be ruled out if one day this is part of the future we put all of our pathways of the brain onto the disc and put this into a robot, the robots could be perfect. The robots could be handsome, beautiful, superhuman but the power looks just like us except the superpowers. This is something however i should point out it is 100 years away so we are not going to see in our lifetime however it is something that you cannot rule out. The fact that maybe we will live our lives as a surrogate and that is what the movie starring bruce willis was all about. In that world, people preferred to live in superhuman bodies. They dont want to go back to being human anymore. They prefer to be superhuman. And because it is a hollywood movie he messes it all up