Outer Space, Inner Thoughts: How to Empower With Science

Speaker 1 (00:08):

Welcome to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.

Alexander McCaig (00:26):

Hello, everyone and welcome to TARTLE Cast. You are here for another episode with a special guest, Avi Loeb also known as Abraham Loeb. He is one of the world's top theoretical physicist specializing his early years on special terrestrial plasmas and then ones that are outside of the planet, did some work with the Israeli Defense Research, and then found himself studying black holes after the fact of catching some object in the sky and analyzing the data. So we're going to dive into it. Avi, thank you so much for joining us here on show.

Jason Rigby (00:58):

Yes, thank you.

Avi Loeb (00:59):

Thanks for having me.

Alexander McCaig (01:01):

So I want to kick this off to start. You wrote the book Extraterrestrial. Fantastic by the way, congratulations. I've never written a book. I don't even know what that feat of strength looks like. Not only so much was it the function of looking at data itself, and the idea of extraterrestrial civilizations whether alive or dead, but this is frankly more of a thought experiment in my mind. The fact that you actually challenging the psyche of individuals across the globe.

Alexander McCaig (01:33):

Ones that are in the scientific community and ones outside of it. Through that challenge that we can actually reinforce those thoughts, those evolutive thoughts with data that backs it up. I think that's fundamentally the most important part that we can remove the dogmas, remove the biases and really just observe and analyze what we have found that's directly in front of her eyes. Is that right?

Avi Loeb (01:55):

Right. Well, science is a learning experience. It's work in progress and it's a response of humans to evidence. Science is guided evidence, not by prejudice and we've seen it over and over again. The surprising thing is that many scientists are not guided by evidence, they're guided by prejudice. That's unfortunate that because you would expect them to carry that torch of let's pay attention to anomalies, let's discuss them, let's be open-minded, but instead on many occasions, scientists are guided by maintaining an image and by improving their chances of getting honors and awards.

Avi Loeb (02:36):

That's unfortunate because the way I see science is the continuation of my childhood curiosity and basically I'm willing to make mistakes but that's part of a learning experience. Kids are admirable because they don't care if they get bruised. I mean, they put skin in the game. They learn about the world without prejudice. Why can't we maintain the same attitude as adults? It's really strange. You give adults a tenure in academia and you would expect them not to worry about their job prospects. So instead they worry about their image rather than saying, "Okay. Now, we are free to think and openly and pay attention to the most unusual evidence that we get."

Avi Loeb (03:18):

That is not the case. The public is more open-minded, I would say based on the reaction to my book. And when I decided to write the book, I told the publisher my main goal is to get a person somewhere in the world excited about science and if that person decides to become a scientist as a result of reading the book, I will be satisfied. I got an email a few weeks ago from a woman in Malawi that said that the book is great and I'm thinking of becoming an astronomer.

Avi Loeb (03:49):

I told her that would be fantastic if she were to become a graduate student at Harvard for example. I encouraged her to apply. I'm already satisfied having such emails. I got it from a number of people. Every day I get a dozen of them of people that are excited and why would science be boring? There are so many things we don't know. It's an exciting endeavor to be part of.

Alexander McCaig (04:20):

You state a really good point. And the way I look at it is the law of squares and I know you made a quote about this in the book is that if you've essentially got someone excited about astronomy or physics or astrophysics, you've essentially doubled the thought power towards that specific endeavor. And if you can double that thought power towards an endeavor that doesn't have ego, it's open, honest testing and going through that path of learning and using data to support that, you've done something beautiful in this world. And they'll share that behavior with their offspring, their friends and everybody else around them.

Avi Loeb (04:51):

Yeah. There is another aspect to it, which is the public cares about the question are we alone? Are we the smartest kid on the block? When the public cares about the question, scientists have an obligation to attend to the public's interest because the public fund science, but instead a lot of scientists prefer to be on a pedestal lecturing the public, feeling superior to people that were not admitted to academia. And that's a self-inflicted wound where the academia is regarded as the occupation of the elite.

Avi Loeb (05:23):

I find that unfortunate because the way I see science is like part of life. For example, a pipe gets clogged in my home and a plumber comes over, I try to figure out the problem and fix it together with a plumber and there is no difference between that challenge and being confronted with scientific evidence trying to figure out what it means. Science is a way of life. It's thinking about evidence and trying to figure out how to interpret it and how to make sense of it.

Avi Loeb (05:57):

Most of the time we are not sure. It's work in progress. So my point is the emperor has no clothes. This is how the sausage is made. Most of the time we are not sure.

Alexander McCaig (06:08):

Listen, I've been to a sausage factory. It's not pleasant, all right?

Avi Loeb (06:13):

Well, scientists should not pretend that they know much more than they actually do. Very often they maintain a view that is traditional, that is conservative. My point is that extraordinary conservatism leads to extraordinary ignorance.

Jason Rigby (06:30):

Sure.

Alexander McCaig (06:31):

Yeah. It's exaggerated both ways. Go ahead.

Jason Rigby (06:35):

I had a question. I think one of the main themes in your book is humility. How do you see that? Especially when it comes to the scientific community, how do you see humility, a lack of humility and then what would you view technology as? And what we're working on and moving for the future if we displayed humility?

Avi Loeb (06:54):

Right. So let me first explain where it comes in my personal history. I was born on a farm. I collected eggs every afternoon. I arrived at the academic community as a scientist by a combination of circumstances that eventually got me to a tenured appointment at Harvard in a non-conventional path. I always thought about going back to the farm. I don't regard my current position in academia as a great privilege because being on a farm and being close to nature is more rewarding than having those exchanges with people that try to feel superior, relative to other people and so forth.

Avi Loeb (07:39):

But that was my starting point, and that's why I'm quite different than my colleagues because of my history and I've been always trying to help young people, students or postdocs that come from unprivileged backgrounds to succeed in science. 80% of my students over the past decade were women and underrepresented minorities. Almost all of them. There is a reason for that. Many of them just come to me. I don't need to do extra work.

Avi Loeb (08:11):

The other thing I wanted to emphasize is that by doing astronomy, I got a sense of how big is the stage that we stand on. The universe is huge. We are such an insignificant part of it. We can enjoy being spectators, but we don't play a central role. That's the one thing to recognize. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle argued that we are at the center of the universe. And that flattered the ego of many people. And for a thousand years, humanity believed that we are at the center that there are spheres around us and that's what the stars are and so forth.

Avi Loeb (08:50):

Then Copernicus and Galileo, they looked at data and realized that in fact the Earth is probably moving around the sun. We are not at the center. That made a lot of people upset and they put Galileo in house arrest. But that only maintained their ignorance and the Earth continue to move around the sun. We know that for sure now. But beyond that, we are not central in any other sense. The Earth sun system is very common. Things we find in our backyard exist everywhere. It's around every star. You get a sense of modesty from not having privileges in the universe.

Avi Loeb (09:31):

We're not privileged in any way. There are lots of systems that share the same circumstances as we have. Also, we live for such a short time. Just one party in 100 million of the age of the universe. So we are sort of like actors that are put on a stage without a script. We don't know what the play is about, but we witness only a tiny bit of the play. One part in a hundred million. How dare we contemplate that we are major players in that play. We don't even know what the play is about. So my point is rather simple. Why don't we check if there are other actors out there? See, if there are other civilizations. It's the minimum you can do to try and figure out what the play is about.

Alexander McCaig (10:24):

If you don't mind me interjecting.

Avi Loeb (10:26):

Yeah.

Alexander McCaig (10:26):

The moment you do look for another actor, and Carl Jung said the same thing. Now, you actually have a comparative analytic, a data point where you can truly compare a human being in what we perceived as the intellectual pinnacle against somebody else. And they would have to come from another area. I got to say that a lot of your character, I think also stems from the remembrance of your grandfather, if I have this correct. He stood up and he talked back to the Nazi orators at the time and he said, "No, that's not true. I was actually there while you were actually skipping out on the draft. If I remember correctly, that's what was said.

Avi Loeb (11:04):

Right, yes.

Alexander McCaig (11:05):

That attitude has obviously translated into your life and then into your scientific work. And also the way you've written this book. It's not something that people are used to because it's so forward, it's so honest that when you call people out, it shakes them up. And if you look at these individuals that are in tenured positions that do have these 40-year cycles that they go through, that's where the stagnation occurs. It's that conservatism. It's almost like they moved into a position of retirement before retiring.

Avi Loeb (11:33):

Exactly.

Alexander McCaig (11:34):

We can't really learn.

Avi Loeb (11:36):

It's even worse than that because it's not retirement, it's actually trying to amplify their voice and get honors and awards. A retired person relaxes and doesn't do much, but many of those people are trying to pursue honors and awards. And they do that by creating echo chambers of younger people that repeat what they say and so forth. But coming back to your very good point, in my book, I discussed the Nazi regime not just in the context of my personal history and the fact that I exist because my grandfather dared to leave Germany before the holocaust, but also from the point of view of Winston Churchill that wrote an essay about the search for extraterrestrial life, how exciting it would be in 1939. And then he was drafted to become the prime minister of England during the Second World War.

Avi Loeb (12:36):

If we just imagine how a different reality would have turned out if there was no war. We wasted so many resources. So many people died in that war for no good reason. Nothing good came out of it. We went full circle after wasting huge amount of resources. If the same resources were to be spent on the search for life, in particular Winston Churchill's essay would have been published and people would pay attention and would use the same resources to search for that, for intelligence out there perhaps you would know the answer by now.

Avi Loeb (13:13):

It just shows you how non-intelligent we are in the sense of... I mean, in two ways. One we are wasting a lot of resources on non-productive goals, basically fighting each other. But more importantly and that was the underlying theme of the Nazi regime. We're trying to feel superior relative to each other. That's the basis for racism. A lot of academic activities where people try to demonstrate that they are smarter than someone else.

Alexander McCaig (13:46):

Well, I mean it happened in Harvard with the eugenics studies they did back in the day, and that was readily adopted by the Nazis. And then that carried over into how they looked at Jewish people.

Avi Loeb (13:54):

Right, right. So the point is that it makes no sense whatsoever. Most of our DNA is quite the same and also in the big scheme of things, if you look at the universe at large, all the differences we have among us are really minuscule. They are not significant. So my point is when you look at the universe and you absorb what it tells you, basically says that feeling superior relative to each other makes no sense. Wasting our resources on fighting each other makes no sense. Let's work together towards a better future.

Avi Loeb (14:27):

That's what an intelligent species will do. Unfortunately, we don't get that message because we keep getting stuck in the mud. And by the way, a lot of people say, "Why think about space?" We have a lot of problems at home. Well, guess what. If you focus on your problems at home, you're doing most of the time the wrong thing. Maybe if you get a better perspective about the universe, you will behave differently. It's just like Oscar Wilde said, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

Alexander McCaig (15:00):

Right. What you talk about... And congratulations to you for this, and I'm not trying to float your ego or anything, many astronauts that go to space and look at Earth as a third party, that's when their perspective changes. And lucky for you, for your status of thought that you have, the way you think your perspective, you were able to garner that by keeping your feet on the ground and actually looking out. And that's a very difficult thing to do, and that takes a lot of self-awareness.

Alexander McCaig (15:29):

When you talk about bringing us all together and using essentially the macrocosm above us to help us refine the microcosm of who we are as an individual, that will act as our gut check, our guiding principle using that data to say, "Hey, let's level some things out here because this is telling you that the ego is not that important, that fading over a border is not that important." Or saying that someone is different or having to feel superior, because that sun is far more powerful. This universe is far more old. So for you to say that you have all the answers and your average 78-year lifespan on this planet, just looking at that data alone tells you that your perspective is biased, it's skewed. It's not right. It's illogical.

Avi Loeb (16:13):

Exactly. I got this message by the way by raising two daughters. When they were infant, they tended to think that they are the smartest and that they're the center of the world. But then when they went to the kindergarten, they got a better perspective about their place. Then obviously knowing about your neighborhood is extremely important. You want to know that there is a smarter kid on the block. And if there is, you become more modest. But you can't pretend to be the smartest without even looking. That's my basic point.

Alexander McCaig (16:43):

No, I think it's a fantastic point. But it's not just astrophysics. It's not just black holes. What you're talking about translates into every aspect of all of our lives. The reason anybody could pick up your book and listen to material or watch us talking right now is because it translates to them and where they're in their life at this moment. It's something that it's tangible they can work with. If you're saying, "Hey, use the data. Slow down. Be deductive. Be that Sherlock Holmes. Observe these things." You can actually elevate yourself by looking at the data. And this is something we are trying to champion, and the fact that you're championing it in astrophysics is something phenomenal.

Avi Loeb (17:20):

Well, thank you. But that was the main reason why I wrote the book and I participated in so many interviews since it appeared because I wanted to convey this message to the public. My publicist said the book is a bestseller. You're doing a great job. I said, "That's not really my goal." Even if the book would sell 100 copies, my main point is to convey my message. And it's all about that. I wouldn't risk getting this backlash from my colleagues if the message was not that important. I think it's important for humanity as a whole. And that's worth all the bruises that I'm getting as a result of what people are saying on Twitter and other social media outlets.

Alexander McCaig (18:07):

Well, listen. We're here with all the bomb. We'll like massage it on you. We'll make sure you're all healthy. You're fine. No one is going to be wailing on you over here. And I want to make sure that we don't miss this. I know you've probably talked about it a million times. Can we just talk about Oumuamua for other individuals that don't know who you are, they're listening this for the first time. We're in over 200 countries here any way that people are listening to this. So I want to make sure that that part of that aspect of the story, that catalyst is translated.

Jason Rigby (18:32):

And can we start September 6, 2017, the significance of that date.

Avi Loeb (18:36):

Right. Well, it was October 19th, 2017. And that's when a telescope in Hawaii called Pan-STARRS on the Mount Haleakala in Maui discovered the first object that came from outside the solar system near Earth. The name that was given to it was Oumuamua which means the scout in the Hawaiian language. At the time of discovery, the object was already receding away from us. Sort of like a visitor that is living out of the front door into the dark street. But there was some data collected on it and it showed that this object was quite weird, nothing like we have seen before from objects in the solar system itself.

Avi Loeb (19:23):

The first guess was that it must be a comet. But then we didn't see any cometary tail. There was no gas or dust around it. That was easily decided based on the first observations. Then as the object was tumbling over eight hours, its brightness changed by a factor of 10. We saw this object because it reflected sunlight. And it changed by a factor of 10. It means that the area of the object projected on the sky changes by a factor of 10 as it's stumbling.

Avi Loeb (19:58):

So it means that it's at least 10 times longer than it is wide projected on the sky. And the best fit to the variation in the amount of light reflected was that of a pancake shaped object at a 90% confidence. So you can think of it as a piece of paper tumbling in the wind, very thin and long. Then this object showed an excess push away from the sun that cannot be explained by the rocket effect from evaporation because we haven't seen any gas. And the only explanation that came to mind is the reflection of sunlight is pushing it.

Avi Loeb (20:34):

And indeed the force that was pushing it declined inversely with distance squared as you expect for reflected sunlight. There was another object discovered in September 2020 that was given the name 2020 SO discovered by the same telescope. It also showed an excess push away from the sun as a result of reflecting sunlight and no cometary tail, but then a few weeks later, the astronomers that discovered it with the same telescope concluded that it came from Earth in 1966. It was the rocket booster from a lunar lander mission.

Avi Loeb (21:12):

We know that it had very thin walls and that's why it had a large area for its mass, so it could have been pushed by reflecting sunlight. So we know that we produced that object artificially. The question is who produced Oumuamua?

Alexander McCaig (21:31):

I'm going to test this here for a second because I've thought about it a lot. You did work with the Israeli Defense Research, correct?

Avi Loeb (21:38):

Yes.

Alexander McCaig (21:39):

And when I read it, it sounded to me a lot like a railgun the work you used to do. So I'm going to move a projectile very quickly using electromagnets. I'm just assuming here.

Avi Loeb (21:50):

Well, I would-

Alexander McCaig (21:53):

You don't have to share if you don't-

Avi Loeb (21:53):

The technology is closer to a light sail, which I worked on later on in 2015-'16.

Alexander McCaig (22:00):

I thought if it's a pancake shape and it's flipping over and over and over, it reminds me a lot of a dynamo. So if this object moved through electromagnetic fields, close to suns, close to planets, it's essentially moving its polarity, flips it over and over creating a charge. As it would move closer to the sun, this was my thought, that it's actually increasing that charge which gives it that increase in acceleration that would be standard deviations away from what it should be. That was my thought. [crosstalk 00:22:31] If I had a magnet polarized both sides. Do you see what I'm saying?

Avi Loeb (22:33):

Yeah. That's an interesting thought. I haven't explored that. My idea was that it's just reflecting sunlight like a light sail, a very thin piece of material. It could be the surface of a spacecraft that was torn apart. But at any event, nature doesn't make thin films like that. And the main point was whether it's artificial or natural. All these weird properties that it had which I described in my book and there are more of them. For example, it came from a special frame of reference, the local standard of rest. And that's very unusual. Only one in 500 stars is in that frame as this object was.

Avi Loeb (23:19):

There are lots of peculiar facts about it. Perhaps your idea is something interesting to examine. I should say the scientific community, I published it as a scientific paper and there was a lot of pushback from the scientific community to the artificial origin. But in terms of alternatives, there were four suggestions that were made, and all of them contemplated something that we've never seen before. For example, a cloud of dust particles very loosely bound 100 times less dense than air.

Alexander McCaig (23:51):

It's already absurd. It already sounds absurd.

Avi Loeb (23:54):

Well, the object gets heated by hundreds of degrees as it gets close to the sun. And such a cloud would not maintain its integrity given the very low material strength. There was a suggestion maybe it's a hydrogen iceberg, a chunk of frozen hydrogen and then when it evaporates, we won't see the cometary tail because hydrogen is transparent. The problem with that is that hydrogen evaporates very quickly and such an object would not survive the journey. We showed that in a scientific paper.

Avi Loeb (24:22):

Then there was a suggestion, maybe it's a nitrogen iceberg. Again, the size we are talking about is of a football field. And that kind of a nitrogen iceberg can be produced if you chip off the surface layer of a planet like Pluto. The problem with this suggestion that we wrote in a paper a couple of weeks ago is that the mass budget is huge. The surface layer of Pluto is a small component in the solar system. Even if you imagine that you chip off the surfaces of all Pluto around other stars, it turns out that you need more mass by a factor of 100 more mass than the mass you have in stars altogether.

Avi Loeb (25:06):

So it doesn't make much sense. Then there was a suggestion maybe it's a piece of debris left over from disrupting a bigger object when it passes close to a star. And the problem with that is very few objects pass sufficiently close to a star to be disrupted by the tidal force of the star. Even if that happens, you usually get a cigar-shaped objects, fragments rather than pancake shape. So all of these natural origin suggestions that attended to the anomalies of Oumuamua, all of them contemplated something that we've never seen before.

Avi Loeb (25:39):

And my point is simple. If it's something we've never seen before, why not contemplate also an artificial origin. Let's collect more data about future objects that are as weird because we will learn something new no matter what. Even if it's natural, we're talking about factories that make such objects that we've never imagined before to collect data. And the best way to examine the nature of such objects is to send a spacecraft that will cross intercept their trajectory and take a close-up photograph because they say a picture is worth a thousand words. In my case, the picture is worth 66,000 words, the number of words in my book.

Alexander McCaig (26:23):

Then you'd have to time it, right? It's like, "Okay, now we know the object is coming. We got to launch this thing right now." So you got to be on point with that. I just thought in a comical sense, say you were a highly evolved extraterrestrial civilization. You wouldn't want to create something that moves through space that is actually burning up a fuel. You'd want something that essentially collects into perpetuity. I think it'd be albeit comical if someone was so evolved that they're like, "Well, if we're looking at it and it's like what's the point of it? Why don't we just float around and see everything?" So this thing just flips around floating and just checking. It doesn't matter where it goes because they're like, "We just get to collect information."

Avi Loeb (27:00):

That's interesting. That's an interesting idea. I should say that most of the junk we find in space will probably be billions of years old because most of the stars formed billions of years before the sun. So if they had technological civilizations like ours, those predated us by billions of years. So there could be a lot of debris out there. Actually, it's a much better approach to do space archaeology because in the past we were searching for signals. And that's just like trying to have a phone conversation. You need a counterpart to be alive.

Avi Loeb (27:36):

We can't have a phone conversation with the Mayans for example. The Mayan culture is gone but we can find about it from archeological digs by finding relics they left behind. The same should apply to space. We have been using the wrong approach in the past and we were looking for counterparts that are still alive. There may be a short window of opportunity for that because the kind of signals we are seeking are similar to the signals that we are producing. Maybe that's a very short phase in the history of technological civilizations. They either die, become dead civilization or they move on to technologies that at the moment we don't even notice.

Alexander McCaig (28:21):

I thought about that. So my uncle works for SETI and he was originally the interplanetary protection officer for NASA, that OG men in black. His name is John Rummel. So when I think about that and I think about searching for radio noise or if you're using the 21 centimeter or wave I think it was for hydrogen before it becomes ionized, looking back into cosmic radiation, looking for signal, when I think of advanced civilizations, I think that advanced sentience is silence, not so much noise. I think just looking at how we've developed into more and more noise is actually taken away from our evolution. And I think if you look at something that is evolutive, they wouldn't have pollution like we have with our cars and they certainly wouldn't have pollution of radio signals. [crosstalk 00:29:05]

Avi Loeb (29:06):

I completely agree and I actually wrote the scientific American essay during the pandemic that I called social distancing on a cosmic scale. Basically, the idea is that a very advanced civilization might decide not to interact with any lower level civilization, because it will degrade their quality of life.

Alexander McCaig (29:29):

You're on it. You're on it.

Avi Loeb (29:31):

They would build a cocoon and just get everything they need inside. The point is we can still learn about them because they need to throw their trash out and we could be just like investigative journalists that go through the trash cans for celebrities in Hollywood in order to find the details about their private lives. So we can look at the space trash this way.

Alexander McCaig (29:55):

Well, I wonder what I'd find in your trash can.

Jason Rigby (30:00):

I know in 2022, the Rubin Observatory in Chile is going to be opening up, I was reading, And these large telescopes. What are some of the things that we as humans can get behind? How can we get behind these new technologies and why is it so hard to get funding?

Avi Loeb (30:18):

Right. So that Rubin Observatory data set will become eventually publicly available, so one can go through it. Now, they cannot store all the data. There is a huge amount of data. They basically scan the sky and record everything, but they can't really keep all the data on computers. So whatever they keep, it would be wonderful if people will go through it and not just look for the standard astrophysical sources that we are used to or the transient.

Avi Loeb (30:51):

Just to give you an example. Usually, astronomers search for objects that move roughly like comets or asteroids in the solar system at the speed that is a percent of a percent of the speed of light. A very small speed. Tens of kilometers per second relative to the speed of light. But one can imagine that if there are pieces of technology out there, that they don't necessarily move at that speed. You could imagine things moving closer to the speed of light and it could be even smaller. At the moment if something would move at a fraction of the speed of light across the sky, the astronomers will just dismiss it.

Avi Loeb (31:29):

They would think it's a cosmic ray that is hitting the detector or something else unusual. They wouldn't suspect that it's an astronomical object on the sky. So having the data available for people to look for weird things in it, I think is extremely important. Simply because there is no agenda behind taking the data, it will just be scans of the sky. Of course, there will be the SpaceX communication satellites appearing in the data as well, because they reflect sunlight and that's a major issue that we will need to remove those streaks of light associated with those. But other than that it would be a wonderful data set.

Avi Loeb (32:17):

The sensitivity of the Rubin Observatory will be much greater than the Pan-STARR telescope that was used to discover Oumuamua. We could find one object like Oumuamua every month. And in principle, you can detect such an object on its approach to us a year before it comes close. That gives enough warning to send a spacecraft that will intersect the trajectory of such an object just like OSIRIS-REx which was a mission to intercept an asteroid called Bennu.

Avi Loeb (32:51):

In fact, it landed on the surface of that asteroid. They took a sample that will be returned to Earth. So imagine if we were to land on a piece of technology from outside the solar system, we could search for the label made on Planet X.

Alexander McCaig (33:08):

See, I like that. It may be China, it may be Planet X, whatever it might be.

Jason Rigby (33:11):

That would be awesome.

Alexander McCaig (33:13):

We consider those data sets. There's no reason at all. There's no prohibitive reason because even... I'll just give us our own plug. TARTLE, we have the ability to ingest any data a person wants to put on there. So if the Rubin Observatory was like, "Hey, we are low on funding. We do want to get this stuff out there." They have the ability to link up that satellite data and actually share it through the marketplace to everyone across the globe.

Avi Loeb (33:35):

That will happen. You will just need to know how to use the data.

Alexander McCaig (33:39):

Correct.

Avi Loeb (33:40):

This is data obtained from a telescope on the ground and that will eventually become publicly available. I should say in terms of funding, that's a separate question that was asked before about why is it difficult? Well, the funding reflects the priorities of the mainstream in science and in this case, in astronomy. If the mainstream is not embracing this search for technological signatures, then such a search will not get funded.

Avi Loeb (34:16):

I think it belongs to the mainstream because we are currently, for example... Just to give you an example. We're searching for the nature of the dark matter. That's most of the matter in the universe. There are experiments trying to check if it's one type of particle or another type of particle. There are observations of the sky trying to infer some signatures about the dark matter. There were hundreds of millions of dollars invested in those searches. It's a search in the dark because we don't really know its nature.

Alexander McCaig (34:48):

No pun intended.

Avi Loeb (34:49):

Right. The search for technological relics is actually better founded because we know that we exist. So our imagination is guided by what we know about us. We know that the conditions on many billions of other planets are similar to what we have here on Earth. So I think it makes perfect sense to invest at least as much money in the search for technological relics. People say, "Well, there is no extraordinary evidence." But that was the case with gravitational waves. Before we invested $1.1 billion in LIGO, there was no evidence, direct evidence for detecting gravitational waves because you didn't reach the threshold of sensitivity that is required.

Avi Loeb (35:34):

But once LIGO achieved that in 2015, the first event was detected and then after that a lot of other events were found. And the Nobel Prize was awarded for that. But it required an investment of at least $1 billion before we reached the level of sensitivity where we can find a lot of events associated with gravitational waves. I think the same way about the searching for technological fingerprints of other civilizations that you need to reach some threshold sensitivity and look at the right thing.

Avi Loeb (36:07):

Why would that be less funded than the search for dark matter? It actually has you know more appeal to the public and it has much bigger influence on society. Any answer to this question. Who cares whether the dark matter is an Axion or a weakly interacting massive particle? It wouldn't change our lives. But if we know that Oumuamua was a technological relic, it would have a huge impact.

Alexander McCaig (36:31):

You're exactly right. Super symmetry big whoop, right? No big deal. When I think about this, if you say that this is for the public, well, we've afforded the ability for the public to actually donate towards organizations they care about through the marketplace. So if we listed any of those radio telescopes, whatever it might be, any of those not-for-profit organizations that are trying to do this research, and they want to get that information out there, all these people in all these countries across the globe can decide outside of the politics of higher education and everything else that's going on to say, "Why don't we put our money towards this? Why don't we do that?"

Avi Loeb (37:09):

That would be wonderful. Actually Joe Rogan had the same idea when I was interviewed on his podcast. I would be delighted to lead such an effort funded by the public.

Alexander McCaig (37:21):

We can, no joke, have that set up. Not a problem. We already have structured that into our systems. That's how we view the future. And if you want to champion that, if you want to be a torchbearer like your grandfather was like you are and you wish everybody else would be, then let's do that.

Avi Loeb (37:34):

Yeah, I'll be glad to. It's a subject that is very dear to my heart. When you speak with me, what you see is what you get. I'm not pretending. I'm not manipulating anyone and I'll be glad to lead such a project if the funding is there.

Alexander McCaig (37:50):

That's super exciting. That's the difference between coercion and education. And taking the approach of education is the one that will actually help us. And when I go back to this quote I found in your book, page 126 in case anyone's wondering, you said, "With insufficient care, diligence, and applied intelligence, humans have proven themselves all too comfortable with ending the lives of their fellow human beings." And then you continue, "We must exercise greater care, diligence, and applied intelligence in the preserving of our civilization. Only in this way can we save ourselves."

Alexander McCaig (38:24):

So that's the type of empowerment we look for. And the fact that you are saying something like this, massive kudos to you. You're going up against tough communities, very entrenched groups. And the fact that you have such a strong spine and you're so sure of what you're doing, I can't even tell how much we respect that. And everybody that listens to this will respect that very, very deeply.

Avi Loeb (38:45):

Well, thank you. I think a sign of intelligence for our civilization is for us to work together, to make the future better rather than fight each other, rather than try to feel superior relative to each other, and that includes world politics, superior relative to other nations, to other ethnic groups and so forth. Instead of doing all this nonsense, let's work together towards a better future. That will get everyone is inspired. That comes together with the message that we should look at the bigger picture because just imagine them looking at us and saying, "Oh, look at them. They're not really worth our attention. They're not behaving very intelligently." So let's try to behave more intelligently. Maybe then they will pay attention to us.

Alexander McCaig (39:32):

Right. And that's going to take a big part of dropping our egos and admitting to the things that we do not know, and stepping up to saying this is what we do now. And knowing where that line sits. And then coming together, unifying the globe, not in some crazy socialist, economic sense or anything like that, just coming together as human beings in the sense of life, preserving life and then searching for more of it, I think that's where we take those next steps.

Avi Loeb (39:57):

Exactly. And that was Churchill's message back in 1939. I think this is the biggest most inspiring subject that we can use to promote us to a better future. The Apollo mission attracted the attention of the public people who were inspired. But that's just going to the moon. Just think about the change to our society if we were to find that we're not alone and moreover we're not the smartest kid on the block. And that if we copy a technology from some piece of equipment on the sky that will carry us a million years into our future, instead of developing the same technology ourselves, just think of the implications.

Alexander McCaig (40:43):

I agree. I mean, look at what Velcro did for us.

Jason Rigby (40:47):

Just simple, yeah.

Alexander McCaig (40:47):

Yeah. Velcro, Teflon, fiber optics. Even the ball bearing.

Avi Loeb (40:54):

By the way, my point from the beginning was that if you were to present a cell phone to a caveman who is used to playing with rocks, the caveman would say it's just a shiny rock. Now, we should learn from that example and be a little bit open-minded in that.

Alexander McCaig (41:13):

And you have to be open-minded to the fact that there are things that could be outside of your perspective of reality, what you think actually exists. So it's no longer that shiny rock. It's now something that can actually propel us forward in our evolution as a species. No, I think that.

Jason Rigby (41:28):

I want to make sure that we're respectful your time. What is the best way someone can look at your work? Is this your fifth or sixth book, you've written?

Alexander McCaig (41:36):

Oh, well it depends how you count. But if you count scientific books, it's the eighth.

Jason Rigby (41:41):

The eighth book?

Alexander McCaig (41:42):

So I have another book about to come out in two months and it's a textbook of more than a thousand pages.

Jason Rigby (41:48):

Oh, wow. Okay.

Avi Loeb (41:49):

It's titled the Life in the Cosmos. It addresses the same issues, but it's a textbook with equations and it's geared towards people that practice science. So together with that, I have eight books and I have about 850 scientific papers. And more than 150 essays in scientific American and other outlets. I should say, the last 12 months were very productive for me because nobody barged into my home office unexpected and I didn't have to travel to work. So I could focus on creative work, and that's what I've been doing. Every morning, I jog at 5:00 AM in the company of rabbits, birds, ducks and wild turkeys. I enjoy it very much.

Alexander McCaig (42:50):

I don't want to be too philosophical, but it's almost like you're dropping back to your time on the farm, but still being in the main line. Do you know what I mean?

Avi Loeb (43:00):

Exactly. You got it.

Alexander McCaig (43:00):

It's all about that state of mind. So I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. I know we had to generalize a lot of things because there's so much to talk about. There's essentially so much data. We'd love to have you back on. Let's push this forward. If you guys want help with channeling funding from the world into these projects that are so important, we are here to do that. We are here for the evolution of people through data, and data is going to do that for us. So Avi, thank you again for coming on. I'm sure, Jason enjoyed this just as much.

Jason Rigby (43:31):

Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I appreciate your humility and your courage.

Avi Loeb (43:36):

Thank you. I had a great time. It was a pleasure to work with you.

Alexander McCaig (43:39):

All right. Well, let's talk soon.

Speaker 1 (43:48):

Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?