November 3, 2016 10:26 pm

Friday, Neil Tyson and Brian Greene explore the nature of reality

What if I told you that the most mind-bending subject discussed in Friday’s podcast with theoretical physicist Brian Greene is not the hypothesis that the universe in which we live is a simulation? Or even that physicist Greene, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and guest philosopher David Chalmers don’t reject the idea as merely the plot of a good science fiction movie like The Matrix.

After all, as Chalmers explains to Neil and co-host Maeve Higgins, any evidence that we may discover that would prove otherwise could be just another element within the simulation.

It’s not the idea that, rather than a god, the creator of our entire universe could be a pimple faced 15-year-old kid from the future who’s playing his advanced, future version of “The Sims” and raining down death and destruction upon us whenever he got bored, because, as Chalmers points out, it would go a long way to explaining some of the actions of gods in the Old Testament.

And it’s not the idea that Schrödinger’s cat can be simultaneously fully dead and fully alive according to the math of quantum mechanics.

Nor is it the concepts of quantum tunneling and teleporting electrons, parallel universes and the multiverse, Planck’s constant, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and string theory.

No, at least for me, what’s amazing is that Chalmers, co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, thinks that quantum mechanics, which still confounds many of the smartest minds on the planet, may help us find a role for consciousness in the physical universe.

Make up your mind for yourself.

Join host Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-host Maeve Higgins, Chuck Nice, Bill Nye and guests Brian Greene, David Chalmers and Stephon Alexander for “Is Our Universe a Simulation?” at 7pm EDT November 3, right here on our website, or on iTunesPodcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, Stitcher and TuneIn. All-Access subscribers, remember that you can listen commercial-free (no video for this one) at the same time.

That’s it for now. Keep Looking Up!
–Jeffrey Simons