MICHIO KAKU

Humans won’t survive if we stay on Earth. Michio Kaku explains. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/c/bigthink Up Next ► Michio Kaku: 3 mind-blowing predictions about the future https://youtu.be/tuVuxKTJeBI On Earth, extinction is the norm: 99.9% of species eventually go extinct. Even worse, the laws of physics have destined our planet for destruction. Whether it be from a planet-killing asteroid or the death of our Sun, Earth is doomed. Humanity needs an insurance policy. Ultimately, if we want to survive long-term, we need to inhabit other planets. We are entering a new Golden Age of space exploration, but there are obstacles we must overcome. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/videos/human-survival/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michio Kaku: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read more of our stories on the universe: Earth is the Solar System’s densest planet. It shouldn’t be. ► https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/earth-densest-planet/ One shocking fact about each and every planet in the Solar System ► https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/fact-about-each-planet/ Ask Ethan: Are “super-Earths” really the most common planets in the Universe? ► https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/super-earths-2/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Big Think | Smarter Faster™ ► Big Think The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century. ► Big Think+ Make your business smarter, faster: https://bigthink.com/plus/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want more Big Think? ► Daily editorial features: https://bigthink.com/popular/ ► Get the best of Big Think right to your inbox: https://bigthink.com/st/newsletter ► Facebook: https://bigth.ink/facebook ► Instagram: https://bigth.ink/Instagram ► Twitter: https://bigth.ink/twitter

Living on Mars: A 4-step guide for humans New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Physicist Michio Kaku discusses the main difficulties humans face in colonizing Mars and how to overcome them. He pinpoints the "bottleneck" in our space exploration and how we can turn Mars into a habitable planet by terraforming it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku: Well, the question is, if we’re entering a new “golden age” of space exploration what is the main bottleneck that we face? The main bottleneck has to do with life support and the human. See, we’ve already sent robots to Mars. We’ve already sent objects the size of a bus to the planet Mars, but now we’re talking about humans, which require a whole support network, and so we have to realize that things that we don’t even consider at all with the robots become central and a bottleneck for humans. Humans will have to live in an environment where there’s radiation; where there’s loneliness; where the journey can take two years; where temperatures are below freezing; where the atmospheric pressure is only one percent the atmospheric pressure on the planet Earth, and eventually we want to create a base there. We’re not going to go there just to plant the flag and come back and crow about it, no! We want a self-sustaining planet, a base on Mars that can support people. This means it has to be done in several steps. The first step would be to create a base on Mars with power. Solar power could provide the energy, and lava tubes, underground lava tubes might be able to provide caves by which astronauts could live and create the first outposts underground. That’s the way it was done in the movie 2001 [A Space Odyssey]. The moon base on the moon in that movie was underground, providing a natural barrier to radiation. And then once you have the base set up you have to begin the process of creating a self-sustaining agriculture there. I mean what are you going to eat on Mars? You can’t order a hamburger, because everything has to be shipped from the planet Earth. You want to create an agriculture and this means genetic engineering. This means creating genetically-modified algae and plants that can consume the rich carbon dioxide atmosphere, live in a very cold environment, and thrive. We’re going to have to genetically modify our plants so that we can create an agriculture so that it is self-sustaining on Mars. Then we have to create mining operations. We have to mine the ice. Ice can provide oxygen for breathing, water for drinking, and hydrogen for rocket fuel. And so we have to begin a mining operation so that we have the materials to build cities, materials to build bases, oxygen to breathe, water to drink, and hydrogen for rocket fuel. Then the last step in the process—and this will take maybe another hundred years—is to send satellites orbiting around Mars to begin the process of melting the polar ice caps. This is called space solar power. We have the blueprints already; the problem is cost. But the costs are dropping for sending payloads into outer space—dramatically—and so people are once again dusting off these old plans to create satellites around Mars that can beam energy and begin the process of melting the ice caps. Now, once you raise the temperature of Mars by about six degrees, once the temperature of Mars rises six degrees it becomes autocatalytic, it takes off, it becomes self-feeding, because the more heat you have on Mars the more carbon dioxide you loft into the atmosphere, which creates more greenhouse effect, which allows you to melt even more ice to raise the temperature even more, so you have a positive feedback loop. The question is: can we reach six degrees? That’s the key point. If we can raise the surface temperature of Mars by six degrees we can create this artificial spiral... For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-living-on-mars-a-4-step-guide-for-humans

Why Michio Kaku wants to avoid alien contact at all costs New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If advanced alien civilizations do exist, theoretical physicist Michio Kaku asks, why would they want anything to do with us? It would be like an academic talking to a squirrel, he suggests, and he has a great point. Hollywood and science fiction novels have conditioned us for years to believe that aliens either want to hang out on our intellectual level and learn from us... or destroy us. If alien life really does have the technology and know-how to make it all the way here, perhaps we should just play it cool and not assume that we are the top species in the universe. Besides, if we play our cards wrong and go all Will Smith in Independence Day on our smart new neighbors, it could be the end of us. Mankind's biggest folly, Kaku suggests, might just be in its insistence that we are an exceptional species. Michio Kaku's latest book is the wonderful and enlightening The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku: We have this mental image that a flying saucer will circle the White House lawn, land on the White House lawn and give us a bounty of all sorts of technological goodies to initiate an age of Aquarius on the planet earth. Personally, I don’t think that’s going to happen. For example, if you’re in the forest do you go out and talk to the squirrels and the deer? Maybe you do for a while, but after a while, you get bored because they don’t talk back to you because they have nothing interesting to tell you because they can’t relate to our values and our ideas. If you go down to an anthill do you go down to the ants and say I bring you trinkets; I bring you bees; take me to your aunt queen; I give you nuclear energy. So I think for the most part the aliens are probably not going to be interested in us because we’re so arrogant to believe that we have something to offer them. Realize that they could be thousands, maybe millions of years ahead of us in technology and they may have no interest in interacting with us in the same way that we don’t necessarily want to deal with the squirrels and the deer in the forest. Now some people say that we should not try to make contact with them because they could be potentially dangerous. For the most part, I think they’re going to be peaceful because they’ll be thousands of years ahead of us, but we cannot take the chance. So I personally believe that we should not try to advertise our existence to alien life in outer space because of the fact that we don’t know their intentions. Then the other question is what happens if they’re evil? Well, I think the question of evil is actually a relative question because the real danger to a deer in the forest is not the hunter with a gigantic rifle; he’s not the main danger to a deer in the forest. The main danger to a deer in the forest is the developer; the guy with blueprints; the guy in a three-piece suit; the guy with a slide rule and calculator; the guy that’s going to pave the forest and perhaps destroy whole ecosystems. In other words, the aliens don’t have to be evil in order to be dangerous to us, they might not care, they just might not care about us and in the process pave us over. In fact, if you read the novel War of the Worlds the Martians in HG Wells seminal novel were not evil in the sense they wanted to torture us and they wanted to do all sorts of barbaric things to humanity. No, we were just in the way. And so I think that is a potential problem. We could be in the way of a very advanced civilization that simply is not evil but simply views us as we would view squirrels and deer in the forest. So personally I think that we should not advertise our existence when we go into outer spac... For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-michio-kaku-lets-not-advertise-our-existence-to-aliens

Michio Kaku - Trappist-1 Solar System & Listener Questions March 4, 2017 33:54, 1:05:38

NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets around a star about 40 light years away from Earth. All seven could have water, which is key to life like ours, and three of them fall in the habitable zone. Michio Kaku, CBS News science and futurist contributor and physics professor at the City University of New York, joins "CBS This Morning" with more on this new discovery. Subscribe to the "CBS This Morning" Channel HERE: http://bit.ly/1Q0v2hE Watch "CBS This Morning" HERE: http://bit.ly/1T88yAR Watch the latest installment of "Note to Self," only on "CBS This Morning," HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Sh8XlB Follow "CBS This Morning" on Instagram HERE: http://bit.ly/1Q7NGnY Like "CBS This Morning" on Facebook HERE: http://on.fb.me/1LhtdvI Follow "CBS This Morning" on Twitter HERE: http://bit.ly/1Xj5W3p Follow "CBS This Morning" on Google+ HERE: http://bit.ly/1SIM4I8 Get the latest news and best in original reporting from CBS News delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to newsletters HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1RqHw7T Get your news on the go! Download CBS News mobile apps HERE: http://cbsn.ws/1Xb1WC8 Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B --- Delivered by Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King, "CBS This Morning" offers a thoughtful, substantive and insightful source of news and information to a daily audience of 3 million viewers. The Emmy Award-winning broadcast presents a mix of daily news, coverage of developing stories of national and global significance, and interviews with leading figures in politics, business and entertainment. Check local listings for "CBS This Morning" broadcast times.

Michio Kaku - Listener Questions & SETI

Michio Kaku shares one of the most humiliating event in his life. Michio Kaku is a Japanese-American futurist, theoretical physicist and popularizer of science. Kaku is a professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York. Michio Kaku Videos - Does the universe have a purpose or meaning | Michio Kaku vs Richard Dawkins Debate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmkrI-K7yBo Fastest way to reach Mars in 20 minutes at no cost - Connectome https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj36ECOLKAY

Michio Kaku - Voyager Probe

Michio Kaku explains the main reason that will be a key factor in determining which countries will be poor and which will be rich in near future. Countries which only rely on commodities like oil is getting cheaper and cheaper every year but those who depend on intellectual capital, the power of the mind is becoming more and more precious. http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/10/09/emerging-and-developing-economies-much-more-optimistic-than-rich-countries-about-the-future/ http://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/poverty-the-past-present-and-future http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/06/07/what-makes-countries-rich-or-poor/

Why are we wasting money on Mars Project? It certainly doesn't come cheap. It's hard to calculate a total price tag, but over the 48 years that NASA has been launching missions to Mars, Americans have spent a significant sum. The Viking missions alone cost nearly $1 billion — in 1970s dollars. The twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity cost a total of about $1 billion to build and operate as well. Curiosity, as the Mars Science Laboratory rover is known, is over budget at $2.5 billion. But at the end of the day as Professor Kaku Says; its like an insurance plan for humanity that will help us sustain when earth will no longer be habitable. Some other articles regarding exploration of mars and its pros and cons - http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/30/science/la-sci-mars-science-cost-20120730 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/552655.stm http://theconversation.com/of-course-space-exploration-is-worth-the-money-42926

Extra dimensions—beyond length, width, height—seem like the stuff of science fiction. What would extra #dimensions be like? Click here to watch more interviews on extra dimensions http://bit.ly/1QxfSnf Click here to watch more interviews with Michio Kaku http://bit.ly/1xZfbxV Michio Kaku is an American theoretical physicist, the Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics in the City College of New York of City University of New York, a futurist, and a communicator and popularizer of science. He has written several books about physics and related topics; he has made frequent appearances on radio, television, and film; and he writes extensive online blogs and articles. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, Physics of the Impossible (2008) and Physics of the Future (2011). Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CloserToTruth Join our Facebook community: https://www.facebook.com/CloserToTruthTV/ Click here to buy episodes or complete seasons of Closer To Truth http://bit.ly/1LUPlQS For all of our video interviews please visit us at www.closertotruth.com Closer To Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

Anyone who expresses a more definitive response to the question is claiming access to knowledge not based on empirical foundations. This remarkably persistent way of thinking, common to most religions and some branches of philosophy, has failed badly in past efforts to understand, and thereby predict the operations of the universe and our place within it. To assert that the universe has a purpose implies the universe has intent. And intent implies a desired outcome. But who would do the desiring? And what would a desired outcome be? That carbon-based life is inevitable? Or that sentient primates are life's neurological pinnacle? Are answers to these questions even possible without expressing a profound bias of human sentiment? Of course humans were not around to ask these questions for 99.9999% of cosmic history. So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it. http://www.templeton.org/purpose/essay_Tyson.html More videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsZ-mvIH7xo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/purpose-of-the-universe-neil-degrasse-tyson-christian-de-duve-video_n_2246472.html

"Science is the engine of prosperity. You can ignore science as much as you want. You will just be poor." - Dr Michio Kaku Subscribe to Think Inc. → http://bit.ly/33tJYEN World-renowned physicist Dr Michio Kaku, with the help of Think Inc., visited Australia in June 2014, captivating the public with his superhuman ability to comprehensively communicate complex scientific concepts and advancements (both current and future) to audiences across all degrees of interest in science, from professional to personal to casual. He was joined by Derek Muller (aka Veristasium) who hosted the show. These are some of the highlights of his Melbourne talk, filmed at MCEC on June 6th, 2014. Dr Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string theory (which proposes to revolutionise the way we understand the physical world). He is also the author of critically acclaimed books such as Parallel Worlds (2004), Physics of the Impossible (2008), and most recently the bestselling The Future of the Mind (2014). ABOUT THINK INC. Think Inc. is a community of individuals on a mission to expose the true face of modern society. Armed with ideas, we defy the stale conventions of learning by shifting the world’s attention to global ideas, while opening minds. We’re not on the fringe. We are trendsetters with the power to shift perceptions and reshape the face of the mainstream. In 2014, Think Inc. launched with the mandate of creating a community where ideas can be shared, challenged, voiced and became a champion of democratising ideas. On this foundation, Think Inc. has grown into a powerful collective. CONNECT WITH US Join our mailing list → http://bit.ly/think-sign-up Check out our store → http://bit.ly/ao-think-store Website: https://thinkinc.org.au/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ThinkInc.org.au/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thinkincAU Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkinc/ LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/company/think-inc.-events

Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku on NASA’s discovery of liquid water flowing on Mars. Watch Lisa Kennedy Montgomery on Kennedy.

Michio Kaku on the Science of Dreams New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michio Kaku describes how our prefrontal cortex disengages as we dream, thus suppressing the fact-checking component of our consciousness. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku: There’s a whole lore about dreaming. In fact, Sigmund Freud wrote a book called The Interpretation of Dreams which many people think is the foundation of psychoanalysis. Well scientists now have looked at Freudian psychology and the brain using all these modern techniques. And first of all we realize that perhaps Sigmund Freud wasn’t totally wrong. There are many textbooks which simply dismiss Freudian psychology calling it nuts. That is nothing but the sexual fantasies of a repressed Venetian scientist of the last century. But now we realize there’s more to it. First of all the unconscious mind. We can actually see the brain in motion and we realize that much of the activity is totally unconscious. Just like what Freud predicted. And Freud also said there is the ego, the id and the superego, that we are in a constant battle with our desires and our conscious. And we see that now with brain scans. The ego is basically your prefrontal cortex. That is who you are. When you wonder where am I anyway. Well, you’re right there. You are sitting right behind your forehead. And then your desires. We see the pleasure center right there at the center of the brain. That is the libido. We see where the pleasure center is located. And then your conscience is right behind your eyes. The orbital frontal cortex right behind your eyes is where your conscience is. And so we actually see that in motion. If you were to see a chocolate cake you would see these three parts of the brain going zippity back and forth like a ping pong ball because you’re constantly debating the pleasure of eating a chocolate cake versus how fat you’re gonna become and all the sugar and the calories that you don’t really need. So we see the beginnings of Freudian psychology coming out of brain scans. And now dreams. Freud had a whole collection of interpretation of dreams. Scientists have looked at and said, “Nonsense.” Now we understand the physiology of the dreaming process. And we realize that it comes at the back of the brain, the very primitive part of the brain and that certain parts of the brain are shut off when you dream. First of all your prefrontal cortex is basically shut off, it’s quiet. Your orbital frontal cortex that is your conscience is also shut off. But that part of the brain is your fact checker. The part of the brain that said, “Hmmm, that’s not right. Something’s wrong” is right behind your eyes. That’s shut off. What is active when you dream is your amygdala. Now what does your amygdala govern? Fear and emotions. And so right then you know that when you dream the active part of the brain is not the fact checker, not the rational brain – it’s the emotional brain, the fearful brain that is active when you dream. And then there’s some superstition called lucid dreaming where you can actually control the direction of the dream. Well that superstition last year became science fact. At the Max Planck Institute in Germany they were able to show once and for all that lucid dreaming is testable, reproducible – it is real. And here’s how they did it. They took a person who was about to go to sleep and told them that when you dream clench your right fist and then clench your left fist. Now when you dream you are paralyzed. You cannot move when you dream. Otherwise we’d be able to carry out all sorts of horrible things and destroy ourselves. So we are paralyzed when we dream. But when this person went into a dream state you can clearly see that the brain initiated orders to clench your right fist and your left fist. In other words, ... For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-on-the-science-of-dream

http://www.singularityweblog.com/michio-kaku-future-of-the-mind/ Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, bestselling author, acclaimed public speaker, renowned futurist, and popularizer of science. As co-founder of String Field Theory, Dr. Kaku carries on Einstein's quest to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into a single grand unified theory of everything. You will not be surprised to hear that Michio Kaku has been on my guest dream-list since I started Singularity 1 on 1, and I was beyond ecstatic to finally have an opportunity to speak to him. During our 90 min conversation with Dr. Michio Kaku we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why he shifted his focus from the universe to the human mind; his definition, classification and ranking of consciousness; his take on the Penrose-Hameroff Orch OR model; Newton, Einstein, determinism and free will; whether the brain is a classical computer or not; Norman Doidge's work on neuro-plasticity and The Brain That Changes Itself; the underlying reality of everything; his dream to finish what Einstein has started and know the mind of God; The Future of the Mind; mind-uploading and space travel at the speed of light; Moore's Law and D-Wave's quantum computer; the Human Brain Project and whole brain simulation; alternatives paths to AI and the Turing Test as a way of judging progress; cryonics and what is possible and impossible...

Michio Kaku: The Supergenius New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michio Kaku on what makes a supergenius. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku: If you watch the "Big Bang Theory" on CBS television you see these clueless nerds who are doormats when it comes to the opposite sex, right. And you realize is there any basis in reality? First of all none of my friends are like that and all my friends are physicists, right. Well there is a kernel of truth and that is some of these individuals may suffer from something called Asperger’s Syndrome which is a mild form of autism. These people are clueless when it comes to social interactions. They don’t look you in the eye, for example. And yet they have fantastic mental and mathematical capabilities. We think, for example, that Isaac Newton had Asperger’s. The greatest scientist of all time was very strange. He had no friends to speak of. He could not carry a decent conversation and yet here he was spitting out some of the greatest theories in the history of science. Calculus. The Universal Law of Gravitation. The Theory of Optics. And we think he had Asperger’s Syndrome. Now Asperger’s Syndrome is a mild form of autism and in autism we have what are called savants. That is people that have an IQ of maybe 80 but have incredible mathematical and musical abilities. In fact, some of these individuals can hear one symphony and just play it by memory on a piano. Other people could be in a helicopter, have a helicopter ride over Manhattan, see the entire New York harbor and then from memory sketch the entire harbor. In fact, if you want to see it go to JFK Airport in New York City and you will see it as you enter the international terminal. So what is it about these people? Well, first of all a lot of them had injuries to the left temporal lobe. One individual had a bullet as a child go right through the left temporal lobe. Another person dove into a swimming pool and injured very badly the left temporal lobe. And these people wound up with incredible mathematical abilities as a consequence. And so what is it about their brains? Well Einstein’s brain has actually been preserved. Einstein when he died had an autopsy in which case the pathologist stole the brain without permission of the family. He just realized that he was sitting next to something historic, took the brain, took it home with him, and it was sitting in a jar in his home for decades. He even drove across the country with the jar inside his trunk. And there’s even a TV special where you can actually see the cut up brain of Albert Einstein. And you realize first of all the brain is a little bit different. You can’t tell by looking at it that it’s so remarkably different but you realize that the connections between the prefontal cortex and the parietal lobe – a connection that is accentuated in people that do abstract reasoning is thickened. So there definitely is a difference in the brain of Einstein. But the question is did it make Einstein or did Einstein make this change of the brain? Are champions born or are they made? That still is not known because people who exercise mental abilities, mathematical abilities, they can thicken that part of the brain themselves. So we know that people who do well in mathematics, brain scans clearly show that their brains are slightly different from the average brain. So in conclusion, we’re still children with regards to understanding how this process takes place. Tonight don’t go home and bang yourself on the left temporal lobe. We don’t know how it works. We just know that in a tiny fraction of these cases people with injury to the left temporal lobe, some of the become super geniuses. Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton

Michio Kaku on Reading Minds, Recording Dreams, and Brain Imaging New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the great questions in all of science is where consciousness comes from. When it comes to consciousness, Kaku believes different species have different levels of consciousness, based on their feedback loops needed to survive in space, society, and time. According to the theoretical physicist, human beings' ability to use past experiences, memories, to predict the future makes us distinct among animals — and even robots (they're currently unable to understand, or operate within, a social hierarchy). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: MICHIO KAKU: In the entire universe, there are two great unsolved problems. The two greatest problems in all of science, first of all, is about the very big. It's about the origin of the universe. Why did it bang? Why do we have an expanding universe? And I personally work on something called the multiverse, which we think is the dominant source of theories that gives us the universe before creation itself-- the multiverse. But there is also the mystery of inner space, not outer space. And that's the human mind. Where does consciousness come from? And I think that in my book, The Future of the Mind, I try to make a stab at what is consciousness? First of all, let me explain my theory. I have my own theory of consciousness. I think consciousness is the sum total of all feedback loops necessary to create a model of yourself in space, in society, and in time. Now, I'm a physicist. We like to measure things and quantify things. I think there is a unit of consciousness. If consciousness is a sum total of all feedback loops necessary to create a picture of yourself in space, in society, and in time, then the unit of consciousness is a thermostat. A thermostat has one unit of consciousness, because it has one feedback loop-- measures temperature. Now, a plant has maybe five units of consciousness, because plants have to regulate temperature. They have to regulate humidity, the direction of gravity, when to sprout. So there are maybe five or so feedback loops in a plant. Then we go to alligators. The alligators are masters of the back part of the brain. And then you have maybe several hundred feedback loops that govern space. That's what alligators are very good at. Their brain, if you look at the parts of the back of the brain, we, too, have the reptilian brain that governs our understanding of space, where we are in space. And then, going forward in time, evolution gave us the monkey brain, the center of the brain, the limbic system. And the limbic system, in turn, governs society. It governs where we are with respect to our elders, our children, other human beings. Pack mentality, wolves, all of them have a developed central part of the brain, the monkey brain. And then the front part of the brain is what distinguishes us from the animals. It is the temporal brain that constantly simulates the future. Animals don't do that. In fact, animals don't even have much of a memory. When you look at a brain scan of what is the brain doing when it's thinking, thinking hard? What is the brain doing? You find out that the prefrontal cortex is active, and it is accessing memories of the past. You see, animals don't do that. Animals have not much of a memory. They don't see the future, because there's no necessity to see the future. There's no necessity to have much of a memory. In fact, the purpose of memory could be to simulate the future. Animals don't need it. Why didn't the dinosaurs become intelligent? Well, they didn't need to become intelligent, because we humans sometimes overexaggerate the importance of intelligence. Intelligence is not necessary to live in the forest, but we are maladapted to live in the forest. We don't run very fast. We can't fly. Our skin... For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-consciousness-michio-kaku

Michio Kaku: Are Robonauts Better Than Astronauts? Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michio Kaku on why robots make better astronauts than humans. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Michio Kaku: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku: When you saw the movie Surrogates you said, “Well, that’s science fiction” when Bruce Willis has a mechanical robot who is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Handsome with superpowers and you put your consciousness into the robot. So you go into a pod. Your body ages. Your body is strapped to a pod but you mentally control an avatar, a surrogate who has superpowers, perfectly formed and has all your abilities. This sounds like science fiction, right? Or the movie Avatar where again you’re put inside a pod and you control an alien being on another planet breathing poisonous air. Is that possible? The answer is definitely yes. In Japan scientists at Honda Corporation have made a robot called ASIMO. It’s one of the most advanced robots ever made. ASIMO, the size of a young boy, can run, walk, climb up stairs and even dance. In fact he dances better than me. I’ve been on science specials with him and he out-dances me every time. Honda Corporation has now taken a worker, put on an EEG helmet and have him control the robot. So it’s now possible that you can have a surrogate. This could be the future of the space program. Why is outer space not opened up for tourists? Because of a dirty four letter word that begins with C – cost. It costs ten thousand dollars to put a pound of anything in near Earth orbit. That is your weight in gold. Think of your body made out of solid gold. That’s what it costs to put you in near Earth orbit. To put you on the moon costs about a hundred thousand dollars a pound. And to put you on Mars is about a million dollars a pound. So you’re talking about your weight in diamonds to go to the planet Mars. Why not put a surrogate? Because it’s life support. Life support that makes things so expensive in outer space. You see, robots don’t have to breathe. They don’t have to eat. They don’t bellyache. And most important, they don’t have to come back. So why not put surrogates on Mars, surrogates on the Moon and you the astronaut can just take a breather and go into your living room and mentally communicate with a robot on the Moon. This would be by far the cheapest way to have a permanent Moon base and that would be, to you the astronaut, communicating with a surrogate by radio.

Michio Kaku on the Evolution of Intelligence New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink Join Big Think Edge for exclusive video lessons from top thinkers and doers: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michio Kaku on the evolution of intelligence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICHIO KAKU: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, as well as New York University (NYU). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: Michio Kaku:  Some people think that intelligence is the crowning achievement of evolution.  Well if that’s true there should be more intelligent creatures on the planet Earth.  But to the best of our knowledge we’re the only ones.  The dinosaurs were on the Earth for roughly 200 million years and to the best of our knowledge not a single dinosaur became intelligent.  We humans, modern humans, had been on the Earth for roughly a hundred thousand years.  Only a tiny fraction of the 4.5 billion years that the Earth has been around.  So you come to the rather astounding conclusion that intelligence is not really necessary.  That Mother Nature has done perfectly well with non-intelligent creatures for millions of years and that we as intelligent creatures are the new kid on the block. And so then you begin to wonder how did we become intelligent?  What separated us from the animals?  Well there are basically three ingredients – at least three that help to propel us to become intelligent.  One is the opposable thumb.  You need a tentacle, a claw, an opposable thumb in order to manipulate the environment.  So that’s one of the ingredients of intelligence – to be able to change the world around you. Second is eyesight.  But the eyesight of a predator.  We have eyes to the front of our face, not to the side of our face and why?  Animals with eyes to the front of their face are predators – lions, tigers and foxes.  Animals with eyes to the side of their face are prey and they are not as intelligent – like a rabbit.  We say dumb bunny and smart as a fox.  And there’s a reason for that.  Because the fox is a predator.  It has to learn how to ambush.  It has to learn how to have stealth, camouflage.  It has to psych out the enemy and anticipate the motion of the enemy that is its prey.  If you’re a dumb bunny all you have to do is run.  And the third basic ingredient is language because you have to be able to communicate your knowledge to the next generation. And to the best of our knowledge animals do not communicate knowledge to their offspring other than by simply communicating certain primitive motions.  There’s no book.  There’s no language.  There’s no culture by which animals can communicate their knowledge to the next generation.  And so we think that’s how the brain evolved.  We have an opposable thumb, we have a language of maybe five to ten thousand words.  And we have eyesight that is stereo eyesight – the eyesight of a predator.  And predators seem to be smarter than prey.  Then you ask another question.  How many animals on the Earth satisfy these three basic ingredients.  And then you come to the astounding conclusion – the answer is almost none.  So perhaps there’s a reason why we became intelligent and the other animals did not.  They did not have the basic ingredients that would one day propel us to become intelligent. Then the next question asked in Planet of the Apes and asked in any number of science fiction movies is can you accentuate intelligence.  Can you take an ape and make the ape intelligent.  Well, believe it or not the answer could be yes.  We are 98.5 percent genetically equivalent to a chimpanzee.  Only a handful of genes separate us from the chimps and yet we live twice as long and we have thousands of words in our vocabulary.  Chimps can have maybe just a few hundred.  And we’ve isolated many of those genes that separate us from the chimpanzees.  For example the ASP gene governs the size of the crane, cranial capacity so that by monkeying with just one gene you can literally double the size of the brain case and t... For the full transcript, check out https://bigthink.com/videos/the-evolution-of-intelligence