0:00:00.968,0:00:04.968
I'm thrilled to be talking to you[br]by this high-tech method.

0:00:06.167,0:00:08.079
Of all humans who have ever lived,

0:00:08.103,0:00:12.712
the overwhelming majority[br]would have found what we are doing here

0:00:12.736,0:00:15.196
incomprehensible, unbelievable.

0:00:15.760,0:00:18.753
Because, for thousands of centuries,

0:00:18.777,0:00:21.712
in the dark time[br]before the scientific revolution

0:00:21.736,0:00:23.544
and the Enlightenment,

0:00:23.568,0:00:26.536
people had low expectations.

0:00:26.560,0:00:29.576
For their lives,[br]for their descendants' lives.

0:00:29.600,0:00:31.442
Typically, they expected

0:00:31.466,0:00:35.913
nothing significantly new[br]or better to be achieved, ever.

0:00:36.847,0:00:41.831
This pessimism[br]famously appears in the Bible,

0:00:41.855,0:00:46.069
in one of the few biblical passages[br]with a named author.

0:00:46.093,0:00:49.724
He's called Qohelet,[br]he's an enigmatic chap.

0:00:50.173,0:00:54.458
He wrote, "What has been is what will be,

0:00:55.133,0:00:58.200
and what has been done[br]is what will be done;

0:00:58.736,0:01:01.434
there is nothing new under the sun.

0:01:02.140,0:01:06.355
Is there something of which it is said,[br]'Look, this is new.'

0:01:06.379,0:01:10.434
No, that thing was already done[br]in the ages that came before us."

0:01:11.427,0:01:16.299
Qohelet was describing a world[br]without novelty.

0:01:17.252,0:01:20.530
By novelty I mean something new[br]in Qohelet's sense,

0:01:20.554,0:01:23.172
not merely something that's changed,

0:01:23.196,0:01:26.696
but a significant change[br]with lasting effects,

0:01:26.720,0:01:28.895
where people really would say,

0:01:28.919,0:01:30.895
"Look, this is new,"

0:01:30.919,0:01:33.093
and, preferably, "good."

0:01:34.061,0:01:38.918
So, purely random changes aren't novelty.

0:01:38.942,0:01:44.149
OK, Heraclitus did say[br]a man can't step in the same river twice,

0:01:44.173,0:01:46.990
because it's not the same river,[br]he's not the same man.

0:01:47.307,0:01:51.399
But if the river is changing randomly,

0:01:51.423,0:01:53.819
it really is the same river.

0:01:54.311,0:01:55.764
In contrast,

0:01:55.788,0:02:00.399
if an idea in a mind[br]spreads to other minds,

0:02:00.423,0:02:03.204
and changes lives for generations,

0:02:03.228,0:02:04.728
that is novelty.

0:02:05.395,0:02:08.323
Human life without novelty

0:02:08.347,0:02:11.974
is life without creativity,[br]without progress.

0:02:12.498,0:02:15.990
It's a static society, a zero-sum game.

0:02:16.712,0:02:20.038
That was the living hell[br]in which Qohelet lived.

0:02:20.419,0:02:23.537
Like everyone, until a few centuries ago.

0:02:24.228,0:02:28.833
It was hell, because for humans,

0:02:28.857,0:02:32.958
suffering is intimately[br]related to staticity.

0:02:32.982,0:02:35.831
Because staticity isn't just frustrating.

0:02:36.442,0:02:38.442
All sources of suffering --

0:02:38.466,0:02:42.740
famine, pandemics, incoming asteroids,

0:02:42.764,0:02:46.272
and things like war and slavery,

0:02:46.296,0:02:51.797
hurt people only until we have created[br]the knowledge to prevent them.

0:02:52.631,0:02:56.934
There's a story in Somerset Maugham's[br]novel "Of Human Bondage"

0:02:56.958,0:02:58.744
about an ancient sage

0:02:58.768,0:03:03.831
who summarizes the entire[br]history of mankind as,

0:03:04.529,0:03:06.073
"He was born,

0:03:06.097,0:03:08.517
he suffered and he died."

0:03:09.296,0:03:11.010
And it goes on:

0:03:11.034,0:03:15.853
"Life was insignificant[br]and death without consequence."

0:03:16.268,0:03:21.173
And indeed, the overwhelming majority[br]of humans who have ever lived

0:03:21.197,0:03:24.977
had lives of suffering and grueling labor,

0:03:25.001,0:03:28.315
before dying young and in agony.

0:03:29.493,0:03:33.704
And yes, in most generations

0:03:33.728,0:03:37.886
nothing had any novel consequence[br]for subsequent generations.

0:03:38.728,0:03:45.452
Nevertheless, when ancient people[br]tried to explain their condition,

0:03:46.103,0:03:50.412
they typically did so[br]in grandiose cosmic terms.

0:03:50.794,0:03:53.601
Which was the right thing to do,[br]as it turns out.

0:03:53.625,0:03:57.420
Even though their actual[br]explanations, their myths,

0:03:57.444,0:03:58.982
were largely false.

0:03:59.744,0:04:01.807
Some tried to explain

0:04:01.831,0:04:05.363
the grimness and monotony of their world

0:04:05.387,0:04:10.228
in terms of an endless cosmic war[br]between good and evil,

0:04:10.252,0:04:13.097
in which humans were the battleground.

0:04:13.637,0:04:17.858
Which neatly explained why their own[br]experience was full of suffering,

0:04:17.882,0:04:20.017
and why progress never happened.

0:04:20.728,0:04:23.407
But it wasn't true.

0:04:24.212,0:04:26.379
Amazingly enough,

0:04:26.403,0:04:29.125
all their conflict and suffering

0:04:29.149,0:04:34.569
were just due to the way[br]they processed ideas.

0:04:35.125,0:04:39.367
Being satisfied with dogma,[br]and just-so stories,

0:04:39.391,0:04:41.835
rather than criticizing them

0:04:41.859,0:04:48.327
and trying to guess better explanations[br]of the world and of their own condition.

0:04:48.696,0:04:53.339
Twentieth-century physics[br]did create better explanations,

0:04:53.363,0:04:55.546
but still in terms of a cosmic war.

0:04:55.570,0:05:00.863
This time, the combatants[br]were order and chaos, or entropy.

0:05:00.887,0:05:06.144
That story does allow[br]for hope for the future.

0:05:06.986,0:05:08.177
But in another way,

0:05:08.201,0:05:10.993
it's even bleaker than the ancient myths,

0:05:11.017,0:05:14.791
because the villain, entropy,

0:05:14.815,0:05:18.418
is preordained to have the final victory,

0:05:18.442,0:05:23.323
when the inexorable laws of thermodynamics[br]shut down all novelty

0:05:23.347,0:05:26.480
with the so-called[br]heat death of the universe.

0:05:26.982,0:05:31.125
Currently, there's a story[br]of a local battle in that war,

0:05:31.149,0:05:35.093
between sustainability, which is order,

0:05:35.117,0:05:38.474
and wastefulness, which is chaos --

0:05:38.498,0:05:41.561
that's the contemporary take[br]on good and evil,

0:05:41.585,0:05:44.895
often with the added twist[br]that humans are the evil,

0:05:44.919,0:05:47.052
so we shouldn't even try to win.

0:05:47.585,0:05:48.776
And recently,

0:05:48.800,0:05:50.848
there have been tales[br]of another cosmic war,

0:05:50.872,0:05:55.053
between gravity,[br]which collapses the universe,

0:05:55.077,0:05:58.490
and dark energy, which finally shreds it.

0:05:58.514,0:05:59.720
So this time,

0:05:59.744,0:06:03.156
whichever of those cosmic forces wins,

0:06:03.180,0:06:04.330
we lose.

0:06:05.157,0:06:10.137
All those pessimistic accounts[br]of the human condition

0:06:10.161,0:06:12.470
contain some truth,

0:06:12.494,0:06:14.422
but as prophecies,

0:06:14.446,0:06:17.517
they're all misleading,[br]and all for the same reason.

0:06:17.962,0:06:22.267
None of them portrays humans[br]as what we really are.

0:06:22.688,0:06:25.100
As Jacob Bronowski said,

0:06:25.124,0:06:29.045
"Man is not a figure in the landscape --

0:06:29.069,0:06:31.847
he is the shaper of the landscape."

0:06:31.871,0:06:33.022
In other words,

0:06:33.046,0:06:37.498
humans are not playthings[br]of cosmic forces,

0:06:37.522,0:06:40.661
we are users of cosmic forces.

0:06:41.093,0:06:42.863
I'll say more about that in a moment,

0:06:42.887,0:06:47.434
but first, what sorts[br]of thing create novelty?

0:06:48.022,0:06:51.172
Well, the beginning[br]of the universe surely did.

0:06:51.196,0:06:54.268
The big bang, nearly 14 billion years ago,

0:06:54.292,0:06:57.680
created space, time and energy,

0:06:57.704,0:06:59.212
everything physical.

0:06:59.609,0:07:01.712
And then, immediately,

0:07:01.736,0:07:05.307
what I call the first era of novelty,

0:07:05.331,0:07:08.135
with the first atom, the first star,

0:07:08.159,0:07:09.675
the first black hole,

0:07:09.699,0:07:11.373
the first galaxy.

0:07:11.833,0:07:15.000
But then, at some point,

0:07:15.024,0:07:18.283
novelty vanished from the universe.

0:07:18.307,0:07:22.442
Perhaps from as early[br]as 12 or 13 billion years ago,

0:07:22.466,0:07:24.506
right up to the present day,

0:07:24.530,0:07:29.585
there's never been any new kind[br]of astronomical object.

0:07:29.609,0:07:33.990
There's only been what I call[br]the great monotony.

0:07:34.807,0:07:39.545
So, Qohelet was accidentally[br]even more right

0:07:39.569,0:07:42.410
about the universe beyond the Sun

0:07:42.434,0:07:44.736
than he was about under the Sun.

0:07:45.156,0:07:48.827
So long as the great monotony lasts,

0:07:48.851,0:07:51.414
what has been out there

0:07:51.438,0:07:53.406
really is what will be.

0:07:53.430,0:07:54.982
And there is nothing out there

0:07:55.006,0:07:59.034
of which it can truly be said,[br]"Look, this is new."

0:07:59.646,0:08:01.637
Nevertheless,

0:08:01.661,0:08:05.828
at some point during the great monotony,

0:08:05.852,0:08:09.537
there was an event --[br]inconsequential at the time,

0:08:09.561,0:08:11.760
and even billions of years later,

0:08:11.784,0:08:15.172
it had affected nothing[br]beyond its home planet --

0:08:15.196,0:08:20.951
yet eventually, it could cause[br]cosmically momentous novelty.

0:08:21.277,0:08:24.586
That event was the origin of life:

0:08:25.102,0:08:28.204
creating the first genetic knowledge,

0:08:28.228,0:08:31.085
coding for biological adaptations,

0:08:31.109,0:08:33.109
coding for novelty.

0:08:34.243,0:08:38.067
On Earth, it utterly[br]transformed the surface.

0:08:38.091,0:08:41.495
Genes in the DNA[br]of single-celled organisms

0:08:41.519,0:08:43.417
put oxygen in the air,

0:08:43.441,0:08:45.299
extracted CO2,

0:08:45.323,0:08:48.299
put chalk and iron ore into the ground,

0:08:48.323,0:08:54.347
hardly a cubic inch of the surface[br]to some depth has remained unaffected

0:08:54.371,0:08:56.299
by those genes.

0:08:56.942,0:09:02.347
The Earth became,[br]if not a novel place on the cosmic scale,

0:09:02.371,0:09:03.838
certainly a weird one.

0:09:04.236,0:09:07.458
Just as an example, beyond Earth,

0:09:07.482,0:09:11.990
only a few hundred different[br]chemical substances have been detected.

0:09:12.411,0:09:15.866
Presumably, there are some more[br]in lifeless locations,

0:09:15.890,0:09:17.739
but on Earth,

0:09:17.763,0:09:21.294
evolution created billions[br]of different chemicals.

0:09:21.843,0:09:24.905
And then the first plants, animals,

0:09:24.929,0:09:29.738
and then, in some ancestor[br]species of ours,

0:09:29.762,0:09:31.595
explanatory knowledge.

0:09:31.936,0:09:34.944
For the first time in the universe,[br]for all we know.

0:09:35.413,0:09:40.601
Explanatory knowledge[br]is the defining adaptation of our species.

0:09:41.149,0:09:44.244
It differs from[br]the nonexplanatory knowledge

0:09:44.268,0:09:46.506
in DNA, for instance,

0:09:46.530,0:09:48.306
by being universal.

0:09:48.330,0:09:52.354
That is to say,[br]whatever can be understood,

0:09:52.378,0:09:55.044
can be understood[br]through explanatory knowledge.

0:09:55.068,0:09:58.871
And more, any physical process

0:09:58.895,0:10:01.776
can be controlled by such knowledge,

0:10:01.800,0:10:04.688
limited only by the laws of physics.

0:10:05.228,0:10:08.999
And so, explanatory knowledge, too,

0:10:09.023,0:10:11.956
has begun to transform[br]the Earth's surface.

0:10:12.792,0:10:18.117
And soon, the Earth will become[br]the only known object in the universe

0:10:18.141,0:10:23.556
that turns aside incoming asteroids[br]instead of attracting them.

0:10:24.300,0:10:27.713
Qohelet was understandably misled

0:10:27.737,0:10:31.632
by the painful slowness[br]of progress in his day.

0:10:32.109,0:10:36.395
Novelty in human life[br]was still too rare, too gradual,

0:10:36.419,0:10:39.125
to be noticed in one generation.

0:10:39.149,0:10:41.093
And in the biosphere,

0:10:41.117,0:10:44.825
the evolution of novel species[br]was even slower.

0:10:45.140,0:10:47.688
But both things were happening.

0:10:48.029,0:10:54.458
Now, why is there a great monotony[br]in the universe at large,

0:10:54.482,0:10:58.219
and what makes our planet buck that trend?

0:10:58.902,0:11:03.905
Well, the universe at large[br]is relatively simple.

0:11:04.370,0:11:06.403
Stars are so simple

0:11:06.427,0:11:09.823
that we can predict their behavior[br]billions of years into the future,

0:11:09.847,0:11:13.402
and retrodict how they formed[br]billions of years ago.

0:11:14.061,0:11:16.370
So why is the universe simple?

0:11:16.759,0:11:22.535
Basically, it's because big,[br]massive, powerful things

0:11:22.559,0:11:26.723
strongly affect lesser things,[br]and not vice versa.

0:11:27.617,0:11:29.982
I call that the hierarchy rule.

0:11:30.006,0:11:33.236
For example, when a comet hits the Sun,

0:11:33.260,0:11:35.728
the Sun carries on just as before,

0:11:35.752,0:11:37.950
but the comet is vaporized.

0:11:38.657,0:11:40.514
For the same reason,

0:11:40.538,0:11:47.109
big things are not much affected[br]by small parts of themselves,

0:11:47.133,0:11:48.910
i.e., by details.

0:11:49.609,0:11:52.672
Which means that their overall behavior

0:11:52.696,0:11:53.846
is simple.

0:11:54.165,0:11:57.561
And since nothing very new[br]can happen to things

0:11:57.585,0:11:59.323
that remain simple,

0:11:59.347,0:12:04.652
the hierarchy rule,[br]by causing large-scale simplicity,

0:12:04.676,0:12:07.347
has caused the great monotony.

0:12:08.473,0:12:11.910
But, the saving grace is

0:12:11.934,0:12:15.316
the hierarchy rule is not a law of nature.

0:12:15.918,0:12:18.831
It just happens to have held[br]so far in the universe,

0:12:18.855,0:12:20.117
except here.

0:12:20.141,0:12:25.093
In our biosphere,[br]molecule-sized objects, genes,

0:12:25.117,0:12:28.172
control vastly disproportionate resources.

0:12:28.615,0:12:31.511
The first genes for photosynthesis,

0:12:31.535,0:12:34.282
by causing their own proliferation,

0:12:34.306,0:12:37.821
and then transforming[br]the surface of the planet,

0:12:37.845,0:12:42.303
have violated or reversed[br]the hierarchy rule

0:12:42.327,0:12:46.414
by the mind-blowing factor[br]of 10 to the power 40.

0:12:47.390,0:12:51.672
Explanatory knowledge[br]is potentially far more powerful

0:12:51.696,0:12:53.331
because of universality,

0:12:53.355,0:12:55.712
and more rapidly created.

0:12:56.157,0:13:00.881
When human knowledge[br]has achieved a factor 10 to the 40,

0:13:00.905,0:13:03.865
it will pretty much control[br]the entire galaxy,

0:13:03.889,0:13:05.817
and will be looking beyond.

0:13:05.841,0:13:08.268
So humans,

0:13:08.292,0:13:12.958
and any other explanation creators[br]who may exist out there,

0:13:12.982,0:13:17.894
are the ultimate agents[br]of novelty for the universe.

0:13:18.343,0:13:21.002
We are the reason and the means

0:13:21.026,0:13:27.006
by which novelty and creativity,[br]knowledge, progress,

0:13:27.030,0:13:32.535
can have objective,[br]large-scale physical effects.

0:13:33.514,0:13:36.363
From the human perspective,

0:13:36.387,0:13:40.593
the only alternative[br]to that living hell of static societies

0:13:40.617,0:13:45.204
is continual creation of new ideas,

0:13:45.228,0:13:48.309
behaviors, new kinds of objects.

0:13:48.728,0:13:50.862
This robot will soon be obsolete,

0:13:50.886,0:13:54.900
because of new explanatory[br]knowledge, progress.

0:13:56.204,0:13:59.410
But from the cosmic perspective,

0:13:59.434,0:14:04.188
explanatory knowledge[br]is the nemesis of the hierarchy rule.

0:14:04.752,0:14:07.486
It's the destroyer of the great monotony.

0:14:08.379,0:14:13.545
So it's the creator[br]of the next cosmological era,

0:14:13.569,0:14:15.085
the Anthropocene.

0:14:15.966,0:14:19.339
If one can speak of a cosmic war,

0:14:19.363,0:14:22.768
it's not the one portrayed[br]in those pessimistic stories.

0:14:22.792,0:14:27.506
It's a war between monotony and novelty,

0:14:27.530,0:14:30.962
between stasis and creativity.

0:14:31.633,0:14:33.664
And in this war,

0:14:33.688,0:14:38.016
our side is not destined to lose.

0:14:38.593,0:14:45.395
If we choose to apply our unique[br]capacity to create explanatory knowledge,

0:14:45.419,0:14:47.394
we could win.

0:14:48.175,0:14:49.325
Thanks.

0:14:50.095,0:14:56.595
(Applause)