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10 Times Michio Kaku Arguments Blew Our Minds

Michio Kaku is an American futurist, theoretical physicist and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the City College of New York. Speaking about The meaning of life. He has written three New York Times Best Sellers: Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics of the Future (2011), and The Future of the Mind (2014).

Michio Kaku was quoted as saying Consciousness-one level is understanding where we are in space. Consciousness two is where we understand our position in society: who's top dog, who's underdog and who's in the middle. And type-three consciousness is simulating the future. And type-three consciousness, only humans have this ability to see far into the future.


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Michio Kaku says that God could be a mathematician: The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.

Transcript--
Some people ask the question Of what good is math? What is the relationship between math and physics? Well, sometimes math leads. Sometimes physics leads. Sometimes they come together because, of course, there's a use for the mathematics. For example, in the 1600s Isaac Newton asked a simple question: if an apple falls then does the moon also fall? That is perhaps one of the greatest questions ever asked by a member of Homo sapiens since the six million years since we parted ways with the apes. If an apple falls, does the moon also fall?

Isaac Newton said yes, the moon falls because of the Inverse Square Law. So does an apple. He had a unified theory of the heavens, but he didn't have the mathematics to solve the falling moon problem. So what did he do? He invented calculus. So calculus is a direct consequence of solving the falling moon problem. In fact, when you learn calculus for the first time, what is the first thing you do? The first thing you do with calculus is you calculate the motion of falling bodies, which is exactly how Newton calculated the falling moon, which opened up celestial mechanics.

So here is a situation where math and physics were almost conjoined like Siamese twins, born together for a very practical question, how do you calculate the motion of celestial bodies? Then here comes Einstein asking a different question and that is, what is the nature and origin of gravity? Einstein said that gravity is nothing but the byproduct of curved space. So why am I sitting in this chair? A normal person would say I'm sitting in this chair because gravity pulls me to the ground, but Einstein said no, no, no, there is no such thing as gravitational pull; the earth has curved the space over my head and around my body, so space is pushing me into my chair. So to summarize Einstein's theory, gravity does not pull; space pushes. But, you see, the pushing of the fabric of space and time requires differential calculus. That is the language of curved surfaces, differential calculus, which you learn in fourth year calculus.

So again, here is a situation where math and physics were very closely combined, but this time math came first. The theory of curved surfaces came first. Einstein took that theory of curved surfaces and then imported it into physics.

Now we have string theory. It turns out that 100 years ago math and physics parted ways. In fact, when Einstein proposed special relativity in 1905, that was also around the time of the birth of topology, the topology of hyper-dimensional objects, spheres in 10, 11, 12, 26, whatever dimension you want, so physics and mathematics parted ways. Math went into hyperspace and mathematicians said to themselves, aha, finally we have found an area of mathematics that has no physical application whatsoever. Mathematicians pride themselves on being useless. They love being useless. It's a badge of courage being useless, and they said the most useless thing of all is a theory of differential topology and higher dimensions.

Well, physics plotted along for many decades. We worked out atomic bombs. We worked out stars. We worked out laser beams, but recently we discovered string theory, and string theory exists in 10 and 11 dimensional hyperspace. Not only that, but these dimensions are super. They're super symmetric. A new kind of numbers that mathematicians never talked about evolved within string theory. That's how we call it super string theory. Well, the mathematicians were floored. They were shocked because all of a sudden out of physics came new mathematics, super numbers, super topology, super differential geometry.

All of a sudden we had super symmetric theories coming out of physics that then revolutionized mathematics, and so the goal of physics we believe is to find an equation perhaps no more than one inch long which will allow us to unify all the forces of nature and allow us to read the mind of God. And what is the key to that one inch equation? Super symmetry, a symmetry that comes out of physics, not mathematics, and has shocked the world of mathematics. But you see, all this is pure mathematics and so the final resolution could be that God is a mathematician. And when you read the mind of God, we actually have a candidate for the mind of God. The mind of God we believe is cosmic music, the music of strings resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace. That is the mind of God.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

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Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is one of the founders of string field theory and a passionate enthusiast of the future, both in the advancement of technology and the future of humanity. These seven awesome clips showcase his genuine love for science and technology - and I am very happy to be able to present them to you.

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Dr. Michio Kaku speaks about how America's poor educational system has created a shortage of Americans who can perform high skilled technology jobs. As a result, America's H-1B Genius visa is used to attract immigrants who are skilled enough to perform these jobs.
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Transcript: So here we are trying to negotiate what might seem nonnegotiable. Why do these things feel so nonnegotiable?

One reason is that we hold certain values and beliefs as sacred. The other side holds alternative values and beliefs as sacred. And if my beliefs don’t match up with yours we have an impasse, we have gridlock.

The question is, can you get out of gridlock, and how do you get out of gridlock? Is it true that you cannot negotiate the nonnegotiable? You can.

The most powerful tool I know on how to negotiate the nonnegotiable is the power of appreciation. What I mean by that, it is the ability to deeply listen to the other side’s perspective not just so that you can argue back but so that they feel heard.

Now this is the hardest thing to do in the world. If you’re a strong Clintonite or Trumpite, to say,
“you know, start by understanding that other side’s perspective”—You’re going to look at me like, “you’re crazy.”

And even if you don’t think I’m crazy, you’re going to try and do it, and let me tell you what I see happen a lot. People try to understand the other side and two minutes later they say, “Oh no, I understand your perspective, but you’re just wrong!”

It’s not a two minute conversation. It’s at least a half hour to an hour.

It’s not, “Yeah, I get it.”

It’s, “No, I don’t get it. Help me understand it. Tell me more. Talk to me.”
That’s the kind of conversation we want, whether it’s in the political sphere or whether it is, you know, an individual negotiating with their spouse.

The moment anybody—with even the most sacred beliefs—starts to feel heard and valued, their arms are going to uncross, they’re going to lean forward and they’re going to say “you get it.” Now the danger is they might then say “so why don’t you come to my side?” you know. But that’s okay. You’ve moved forward. They feel heard. The next most important piece then is to say, “And just as you have your perspective, I have mine. I have my own sacred values. Would you be open to listening to me and to my perspective? I understand we are coming from”—notice the next word. It’s not, “But you’re wrong!”, you know.

And that’s how most of our conversations take place. You look at the political sphere today: “I understand, but…”

I was recently talking with a congressperson. He said, “Look, I went and I talked to a whole group of constituents about this one particular issue, and then I said ‘I understand your perspective,’” which was different than his.

And after he explained why he understood, all of a sudden two minutes later he said, “But.”

And I said to him, “Boy, you lost that whole set of constituents right now. They don’t feel appreciated.”

You want to say, “And.”

“I hear where you’re coming from, and I see the value in your perspective. And I’m letting you know.”
That can start to break through the walls of the sacred.

Once the other side feels truly heard and understood, now they’re much more likely to listen to you.

And you might start sharing a little bit about your own perspective. And instead of saying, “Do you get where I’m coming from,” you can say, “What do you hear me saying?”

And simply by asking that question,
what do you hear me saying?”, it forces the other almost to empathize with your perspective, at least to try and take that stance of understanding. Now success for the other side is accurately reflecting back what you said. Failure is the failure to actually have listened, which allows you to then correct.

“So what do you hear me saying? I’m not sure I’m being clear about why I believe in this candidate and what they stand for. What do you hear me saying?”

So I think step one is for each side to truly understand in a really real way that other side’s perspective.

And it’s true, it’s not just one side understanding the other. Each side has to work to understand the other’s perspective.

Now this can easily turn into a fire when one side says, “You know, you’re crazy. I can’t believe you are my relative—you’re my son, my daughter… Boy, you know, I didn’t raise you the way I wanted to raise you. Your value systems are different than the way I thought they should be. You are wrong for believing what you believe.”

Now that moment in time, that’s the critical moment.

Are you going to respond at that point in time, when the other side is attacking your belief systems, by saying, “F you, no, it’s your fault! You’re wrong!”

Or at that point in time are you going to say, “You know what? Help me understand more.”

This video was done by request from a Space Fan. Hope it's what you had in mind.

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Japanese-American Physicist Michio Kaku discusses Japan's future prospects. In a nutshell.
2011-07-27


Comments disabled due to overwhelming number of ignorant stereotype comments about Japan. Positive stereotypes are still stereotypes, and still ignorant and stupid, especially when you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

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Dr. Michio Kaku returns to Big Think studios to discuss his latest book, The Future of the Mind ( Here he discusses the minds of aliens and animals.

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Transcript -- I love to watch science fiction movies but I cringe -- I cringe whenever I see a depiction of the aliens. First of all the aliens speak perfect English. Not just British English. They speak perfect American English. And obviously they're a human inside some kind of monkey suit. I mean we have Hollywood special effects, right. So why can't we get better aliens. And then the aliens think just like us. They're territorial. They want to conquer. They want resources. They want -- they see humans as inferior. But you see, that's only a byproduct of our evolution. Look at other animals in the animal kingdom. Some animals are not territorial, okay. They don't have to conquer. We have other paradigms in the animal kingdom which are totally different form the way our brain is constructed. But when we look at aliens in the movies we're basically projecting our own consciousness in aliens. Our fears, our desires are projected and they are a mirror of who we are, not a mirror of who they really are.

For example, if we take a look at a bat or a dog, the dog's brain is mainly interested in smells. It's swirling in a universe of smells while a bat's brain mainly is concentrated on sonar, on detecting clicks and echoes. Same thing with the dolphin brain. Their consciousness is totally different from our consciousness because they see things differently than us because of their evolutionary history. For example when we see a cat and the cat comes up to us and tries to purr next to us, we say to ourselves, Oh, nice cat. The cat is being affectionate. No. The cat is not being affectionate. It's simply rubbing his hormones on you and saying, I own this human. This human is mine. I'm marking my territory. This human feeds me twice a day. I've trained him.

So a cat sees the universe totally different than we do and yet we impose our thinking on an alien. Now on the question of intelligence. If these aliens are more intelligent than us, how would they be more intelligent? In the book I say that one of the main ingredients of intelligence is to predict the future. The ability to simulate today so we see tomorrow. And that requires a high level of intelligence to be able to understand the laws of nature, the laws of people. What is the most likely outcome of a future event. That requires intelligence. If they are more intelligent than us they will see the future much better than us. They will see outcomes that we cannot foresee. They will simulate scenarios that we cannot even dream of. They can outwit us every time.

Think of a safecracker. A safecracker may have a low IQ, may have dropped out of elementary school. But the safecracker can simulate the future much better than a cop can and that's why he can rob banks and get away with it. And so in other words, the criminal mind is not necessarily stupid because it has low IQ. It's quite well adapted for what it does. And what it does is to simulate the future of a crime. Now think about when we encounter intelligent life that is more intelligent than us. They may see the world totally differently. Their world may be a world of smells, a world of sounds rather than a world of eyesight like our brain is constructed. And most important, they may be able to see the outcome of future events much better than us. They'll be able to actually run circles around us because they see the future.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton

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Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains the basics of String Theory in this clip from his Floating University lecture.

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We'll have to recalibrate everything -- the age of the universe, the age of stars, the distance to the stars, the basic structure of modern electronics, the GPS, nuclear weapons -- all of that would have to be recalibrated and rethought ...

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Dr. Michio Kaku explains one theory behind déjà vu and asks, Is it ever possible on any scale to perhaps flip between different universes?

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Psychologist Kevin Dutton presents the classic psychological test known as the trolley problem with a variation. Take the test and measure your response on the psychopathic spectrum. Dutton is the author of The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success (

Transcript--
We all know about the psychopath's enhanced killer instinct, their finely tuned vulnerability antennae. But it may surprise you to know that there are some situations in
which psychopaths are actually more adept at saving lives than they are at taking them.
So let me give you an example of what I mean by that, okay?  Imagine you've got a train and it's hurtling down a track.  In its path, five people are trapped on the line and cannot escape. Fortunately, you can flick a switch, which diverts the train down a fork in that track, away from those five people, but at a price. There is another person trapped down that fork and the train will kill them instead. Question:  Should you flick the switch?

Now, most people have little trouble deciding what to do under those circumstances; though, the thought of flicking the switch isn't exactly a nice one, the utilitarian choice as it were, killing just the one person instead of the five represents the least worst option,
okay.

But now let me give you a variation. You've got a train speeding out of control down a track and it's gonna plow into five people on the line.  But this time you are standing behind a very large stranger on a footbridge above that track. The only way to save the people is to heave the stranger over.  He will fall to a certain death, but his considerable bulk will block the train, saving five lives.  Question. Should you flick the switch?

Now we've got what we might call a real dilemma on our hands, okay.  While the score in lives is precisely the same as in the first scenario, five to one, one's choice of action appears far trickier.  Now why should that be?  Well, the reason it turns out, all boils down to temperature, okay?

Case one represents what we might call an impersonal dilemma.  It involved those areas of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, the posterior parietal cortex, in particular, the anterior para singular cortex, the temporal pole and the superior temporal sulcus - bit of neuroanatomy for you there - primarily responsible for what we call cold empathy, for reasoning and rational thought. Case two, on the other hand, represents what we might call a personal dilemma.  It involves the emotion center of the brain known as the amygdala, the circuitry of hot empathy.  What we might call the feeling of feeling what another person is feeling.
Now, psychopaths, just like most normal members of the population, have no trouble at all with case one.  They flick the switch and the train   diverts accordingly.  Killing just the one person instead of the five.  But, this is where the plot thickens.  Quite unlike normal members of the population, psychopaths also experience little difficulty with case two.

Psychopaths, without a moment's hesitation are perfectly willing to chuck the fat guy over the rails, if that's what the doctor orders.  Now moreover, this difference in behavior has a distinct neural signature.  The pattern of brain activation in both normal people and psychopaths is identical on the presentation of the impersonal moral dilemma, but radically different when things start to get a bit more personal.

Imagine that I were to hook you up to a brain scanner, a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, and were to present you with those two dilemmas, okay.  What would I observe as you went about trying to solve them?  Well, at the precise moment that the nature of the dilemma switches from impersonal to personal, I would see the emotion center of your brain, your amygdala and related brain circuits, the medial orbital frontal cortex for example, light up like a pinball machine.  I would witness the moment in other words when emotion puts it money in the slot.

But in psychopaths, I would see precisely nothing.  And the passage from impersonal to personal would slip by unnoticed. Because that emotion neighborhood of their brains, that emotional zip code has a neural curfew.  And that's why they're perfectly happy to
chuck that fat guy over the side without even batting an eye.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

Sometimes our brain sees things in two different ways. We found the best 12 illusions to test your brain, just try to see them from a different angle!

What do you see?

● 12 ILLUSIONS THAT WILL TEST YOUR BRAIN


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● 10 Signs You Are A Genius (That Have Nothing To Do With Intelligence)



Ambiguous illusions that will test your brain are pictures or objects illusions that generally present the viewer with a mental choice of two interpretations, each of which is valid.

Often, the viewer sees only one of them, and only realizes the second, valid, interpretation after some time or prompting. When they attempt to simultaneously see the second and first interpretations, they suddenly cannot see the first interpretation anymore, and no matter how they try, they just cannot encompass both interpretations simultaneously - one occludes the other. The Necker cube is a well known example; another instance is the Rubin vase.

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So what's Mind oddities all about? It's about wonderful brain stuff & other curiosities.

Featuring fun quirky videos for your entertainment. A fresh new video every week. Either Mind games, Brain Workouts, Personality Tests, Logical Thinking, Math Tricks Or Optical illusions.

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Theoretically, there could be people and planets made out of antimatter rather than matter, but where are they?

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Dr. Michio Kaku addresses this question: What is the most dangerous technology?

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Finally got around to doing a Michio Kaku compilation and it turned out great. Please enjoy these seven brain hurting moments with one of the founders of string field theory Michio Kaku.

Theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku discusses Leslie Kean's new book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record.

Air date: Monday August 23, 2010

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The theoretical physicist believes that gravity is an emergent phenomenon, not the elemental force that Newton and Einstein theorized it to be. He thinks it is the result of patterns of complex, microscopic phenomena.

Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson. Several large experimental groups are hot on the trail of this elusive subatomic particle which is thought to explain the origins of particle mass. Note: There is an updated view of the Higgs at

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider say the particle outlined in July 2012 looks increasingly to be a Higgs Boson (God Particle). - Michio Kaku, Professor of Theoretical Physics explains.

Michio Kaku on Parallel Universe with visuals
2001 interview on BBC

A parallel universe is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality co-existing with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a multiverse, although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality. While the terms parallel universe and alternative reality are generally synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term alternative reality that implies that the reality is a variant of our own. The term parallel universe is more general, without any connotations implying a relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe where the very laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no Laws of Motion – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality and a concept between both fantasy world and earth.


- Michio Kaku -

- Parallel Universe -

- 12 Dimensions -

- Hyperspace -

- The Multiverse -

- Dark Matter -

- White Holes -

- String Theory -


Is this the truth I don't know

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The physicist explains why other universes in the mulitverse could have many more dimensions—and could comprise Einstein's Mind of God.

Question: Are there only three dimensions in other universes or could there be more? (Submitted by Andre Lapiere)Michio Kaku:  Andre, we believe, though we cannot yet prove, that our multiverse of universes is 11-dimensional. So think of this 11-dimensional arena and in this arena there are bubbles, bubbles that float and the skin of the bubble represents an entire universe, so we're like flies trapped on fly paper.  We're on the skin of a bubble.  It's a three dimensional bubble.  The three dimensional bubble is expanding and that is called the Big Bang theory and sometimes these bubbles can bump into each other, sometimes they can split apart and that we think is the Big Bang. So we even have a theory of the Big Bang itself.  Now you ask a question what about the dimensions of each bubble.  Well in string theory—which is what I do for a living; that's my day job—In string theory we can have bubbles of different dimensions.  The highest dimension is 11.  You cannot go beyond 11 because universes become unstable beyond 11.  If I write down the theory of a 13-, 15-dimensional universe it's unstable and it collapses down to an 11-dimensional universe. But within 11 dimensions you can have bubbles that are 3 dimensional, 4-dimensional, 5-dimensional.  These are membranes, so for short we call them brains. So these brains can exist in different dimensions and let's say P represents the dimension of each bubble, so we call them p-brains.  So a p-brain is a universe in different dimensions floating in a much larger arena, and this larger arena is the hyperspace that I talked about originally. 
Also remember that each bubble vibrates, and each bubble vibrating creates music.  The music of these membranes is the subatomic particles.  Each subatomic particle represents a note on a vibrating string or vibrating membranes. So, believe it or not, we now have a candidate for the Mind of God that Albert Einstein wrote about for the last 30 years of his life.  The Mind of God in this picture would be cosmic music resonating throughout 11-dimensional hyperspace.
Recorded September 29, 2010Interviewed by Paul Hoffman

Question: Are there only three dimensions in other universes or could there be more? (Submitted by Andre Lapiere)Michio Kaku:  Andre, we believe, though we cannot yet prove, that our multiverse of universes is 11-dimensional. So think of this 11-dimensional arena and in this arena there are bubbles, bubbles that float and the skin of the bubble represents an entire universe, so we're like flies trapped on fly paper.  We're on the skin of a bubble.  It's a three dimensional bubble.  The three dimensional bubble is expanding and that is called the Big Bang theory and sometimes these bubbles can bump into each other, sometimes they can split apart and that we think is the Big Bang. So we even have a theory of the Big Bang itself.  Now you ask a question what about the dimensions of each bubble.  Well in string theory—which is what I do for a living; that's my day job—In string theory we can have bubbles of different dimensions.  The highest dimension is 11.  You cannot go beyond 11 because universes become unstable beyond 11.  If I write down the theory of a 13-, 15-dimensional universe it's unstable and it collapses down to an 11-dimensional universe. But within 11 dimensions you can have bubbles that are 3 dimensional, 4-dimensional, 5-dimensional.  These are membranes, so for short we call them brains. So these brains can exist in different dimensions and let's say P represents the dimension of each bubble, so we call them p-brains.  So a p-brain is a universe in different dimensions floating in a much larger arena, and this larger arena is the hyperspace that I talked about originally. 
Also remember that each bubble vibrates, and each bubble vibrating creates music.  The music of these membranes is the subatomic particles.  Each subatomic particle represents a note on a vibrating string or vibrating membranes. So, believe it or not, we now have a candidate for the Mind of God that Albert Einstein wrote about for the last 30 years of his life.  The Mind of God in this picture would be cosmic music resonating throughout 11-dimensional hyperspace.
Recorded September 29, 2010Interviewed by Paul Hoffman

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Like many physicists, Michio Kaku thinks our universe will end in a big freeze. Unlike many physicists, he thinks we might be able to avoid this fate by slipping into a parallel universe in the same way that Alice entered the looking glass to enter Wonderland.

Dr. Michio Kaku returns to Big Think studios to discuss his latest book, The Future of the Mind ( Here Dr. Kaku discusses Asperger syndrome, autism, savants, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton... and the characters on CBS' The Big Bang Theory.

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Transcript - If you watch the Big Bang Theory on CBS television you see these clueless nerds who are doormats when ti 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 dived 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.

Just how big is the Universe and what is Earths place in it?

This video, produced for the Hubble travelling exhibition Our Place in Space, zooms from the venue of the exhibition in Venice, Italy, out through the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Local Group and into the cosmic web. This way the video gives an impressive impression on the size of the Universe and defines our place in space.

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What's beyond silicon? There have been a number of proposals: protein computers, DNA computers, optical computers, quantum computers, molecular computers.

Even if science is able to teleport humans across large distances, would the teleported human really be the same person or just an exact replica? What would happen to the soul?

Question: If quantum teleportation could teleport a whole human, would that transported human really be the same person or just an exact copy? (Submitted by Matthew Miossec)Michio Kaku:  Matthew, you ask one of the most embarrassing and deepest theological questions at the merger, at the area where physics and philosophy collide.  At the present time we can only teleport photons, particles of light and atoms like cesium and rubidium.  That is it for the present time.  However, in the coming years we do expect to be able to teleport molecules, maybe water, carbon dioxide.  After that who knows? Maybe even DNA, maybe organic molecules. 
Now to teleport a human raises all the ethical questions that you mentioned, because the original first of all has to be destroyed in the process of quantum teleportation.  So if get Captain Kirk, zap him across the room, you have now seen Captain Kirk die.  You've seen his atoms fall apart, but here is this other Captain Kirk on the other side of the room who has the same bad jokes, who has the same character, all the personality quirks as the original Captain Kirk.  So the imposter says, No, I'm real. I have the memories, the personality, the quirks. I am Captain Kirk.  Well you just saw the original die and if you believe in a soul that soul went to heaven or maybe the other place, but that person is dead, so who is this imposter over there?  Does the imposter have a soul? 
So it raises the question are we nothing but information?  Is the soul, the essence of who we are, nothing but information?  Well I'm a physicist.  We don't know the answer to that.  All we're saying is: it is physically possible to teleport an entire human being across the room or maybe onto Mars.  It is physically possible to do that and it raises a valid question.  What happened to the soul if your original copy died and somebody out there has all your memories?  What does that mean?  And the answer is we don't know.
Recorded September 29, 2010Interviewed by Paul Hoffman

Question: If quantum teleportation could teleport a whole human, would that transported human really be the same person or just an exact copy? (Submitted by Matthew Miossec)Michio Kaku:  Matthew, you ask one of the most embarrassing and deepest theological questions at the merger, at the area where physics and philosophy collide.  At the present time we can only teleport photons, particles of light and atoms like cesium and rubidium.  That is it for the present time.  However, in the coming years we do expect to be able to teleport molecules, maybe water, carbon dioxide.  After that who knows? Maybe even DNA, maybe organic molecules. 
Now to teleport a human raises all the ethical questions that you mentioned, because the original first of all has to be destroyed in the process of quantum teleportation.  So if get Captain Kirk, zap him across the room, you have now seen Captain Kirk die.  You've seen his atoms fall apart, but here is this other Captain Kirk on the other side of the room who has the same bad jokes, who has the same character, all the personality quirks as the original Captain Kirk.  So the imposter says, No, I'm real. I have the memories, the personality, the quirks. I am Captain Kirk.  Well you just saw the original die and if you believe in a soul that soul went to heaven or maybe the other place, but that person is dead, so who is this imposter over there?  Does the imposter have a soul? 
So it raises the question are we nothing but information?  Is the soul, the essence of who we are, nothing but information?  Well I'm a physicist.  We don't know the answer to that.  All we're saying is: it is physically possible to teleport an entire human being across the room or maybe onto Mars.  It is physically possible to do that and it raises a valid question.  What happened to the soul if your original copy died and somebody out there has all your memories?  What does that mean?  And the answer is we don't know.
Recorded September 29, 2010Interviewed by Paul Hoffman

The co-founder of Field String Theory explains why the universe has 11 dimensions rather than any other number.

Question: Why are there only 11 dimensions in the universe rather than something higher? (Submitted by John Menon)
Michio Kaku: I work in something called String Theory, that's what I do for a living. In fact, that's my day job. I'm the co-founder of String Field Theory, one of the main branches of String Theory. The latest version of String Theory is called M-Theory, M for membrane. So we now realize that strings can coexist with membranes. So the subatomic particles we see in nature, the quartz, the electrons are nothing but musical notes on a tiny vibrating string.
What is physics? Physics is nothing but the laws of harmony that you can write on vibrating strings. What is chemistry? Chemistry is nothing but the melodies you can play on interacting vibrating strings. What is the universe? The universe is a symphony of vibrating strings. And then what is the mind of God that Albert Einstein eloquently wrote about for the last 30 years of his life? We now, for the first time in history have a candidate for the mind of God. It is, cosmic music resonating through 11 dimensional hyperspace.
So first of all, we are nothing but melodies. We are nothing but cosmic music played out on vibrating strings and membranes. Obeying the laws of physics, which is nothing but the laws of harmony of vibrating strings. But why 11? It turns out that if you write a theory in 15, 17, 18 dimensions, the theory is unstable. It has what are called, anomalies. It has singularities. It turns out that mathematics alone prefers the universe being 11 dimensions.
Now some people have toyed with 12 dimensions. At Harvard University, for example, some of the physicists there have shown that a 12-dimensional theory actually looks very similar to an 11-dimensional theory except it has two times, double times rather than one single time parameter. Now, what would it be like to live in a universe with double time? Well, I remember a movie with David Niven. David Niven played a pilot, who was shot down over the Pacific, but the angels made a mistake, he was not supposed to die that day. And so the angels brought him back to life and said, Oh, sorry about that. We killed you off by accident; you were not supposed to die today.
So in a great scene, David Niven then walks through a city where time has stopped. Everyone looks like this. And there's David Niven just wandering around looking at all these people. That's a world with double time. David Niven has one clock, but everyone else has a separate clock and these two clocks are perpendicular to each other. So if there's a double time universe, you could walk right into a room, see people frozen in time, while you beat to a different clock. That's a double time universe.
Now this is called F-Theory, F for father, the father of strings. It's not known whether F-Theory will survive or not; however, M-Theory in 11 dimension is the mother of all strings. And that theory works perfectly fine. So to answer your question, in other dimensions, dimensions beyond 11, we have problems with stability, these theories are unstable, they decay back down to 11 dimensions, they have what are called anomalies, singularities, which kill an ordinary theory. So the mathematics itself forces you to 11 dimensions.
Also because this is a Theory of Everything, there's more room in higher dimensions to put all the forces together. When you put gravity, electromagnetism and the nuclear force together, four dimensions is not big enough to accommodate all these forces. When you expand to 11 dimensions, bingo, everything forms perfectly well.

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The physicist sees two major trends in the world today: the first is toward a multicultural, scientific, tolerant society; the other, as evidenced by terrorism, is fundamentalist and monocultural. Whichever one wins out will determine the fate of mankind.

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Dr. Kaku answers the question of whether it is possible to resurrect the dinosaurs by turning on their ancient genes? Moreover, now that we have also sequenced the genes of the Neanderthal man, at some point in the future it may be possible to bring him back. And then of course, if a young Neanderthal boy is born then the question is where do you put the boy, in a zoo or at Harvard?

Transcript--
Michio Kaku: We have taken cells from the carcass of an animal that died decades ago and brought them back to life and so it is possible using today's technology to take bodies, carcasses of animals that died decades ago and resurrect them in the form of clones.  Now we have also sequenced the genes of the Neanderthal man, meaning that at some point in the future it may be possible to bring back the Neanderthal man.  In fact, at Harvard University one professor even made a proposal as to how much it would cost to reassemble the genome of the Neanderthal man. And then of course, if a young Neanderthal boy is born then the question is where do you put the boy, in a zoo or at Harvard?
This is a question that we're going to be facing in the coming decades because it is possible that we might be able to bring back the mammoths.  We're talking about creatures that walked the surface of the earth tens of thousands of years ago and we have their genome and it's a serious proposal now that we're closing in on sequencing all the genes of a mammoth to bring the mammoth - by inserting a fertilized egg inside the womb of an elephant and having an elephant give birth to a mammoth.
Now dinosaurs are much more difficult.  They perished 65 million years ago, not tens of thousands of years ago.  However, something has happened that I thought would not happen in my lifetime and that is we have soft tissue from the dinosaurs.  I never thought it would be possible in my lifetime.  If you take a hadrosaur and crack open the thigh bones, bingo.  You find soft tissue right there in the bone marrow.  Who would have thought?  T-Rex's too and scientists have analyzed not the DNA, but the proteins inside the soft tissue.  Not surprisingly, we find the proteins of chickens and also frogs and reptiles, which means of course that dinosaurs we can now show biochemically are very closely related to birds.  In fact, we think birds are dinosaurs that survived the cataclysm of 65 million years ago.
Now there is another proposal to use what is called epigenetics.  Nature does not simply throw away good genes.  Nature simply turns them off.  For example, we have the genes in our own body that would put hair all over our body and you can actually turn that gene and create, quote, unquote, a werewolf.  In fact, in Mexico City there are two young boys with hair all over their bodies that are acrobats in a circus and scientists have sequenced the genes and yes, it is a very ancient gene that they have.
With chickens we can actually see the genes for chickens that were turned off because of epigenetics, genes that give webbing between the toes of a chicken because a long time ago chickens had webbed feet and also teeth.  You can actually bring back teeth inside chickens.  So then the question is, is it possible to make the next big leap to use epigenetics, to use gene therapy, to use all the different kinds of therapies we have, mix all these things up in the memory of a computer and have the computer give the best fit for a reptile that is like a dinosaur, insert that perhaps, into the womb of maybe an alligator or a whatever and perhaps give birth to an egg, which will hatch something resembling a dinosaur.
Well that's not possible today, but it's not out of the question.  It's not out of the question that at some point in the future we'll use a computer to take all these bits of DNA from living lizards, from the—extracting information from the proteins of soft tissue from hadrosaurs and assemble the best mathematical approximation to a dinosaur and have it give birth to an egg.

Directed / Produced by Elizabeth Rodd and Jonathan Fowler

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains the basics of String Theory in this clip from his Floating University lecture.

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Enzymes like Telomerase and Resveratrol, though not the Fountain of Youth unto themselves, offer tantalizing clues to how we might someday soon unravel the aging process.

Question: Do you think the enzyme Telomerase could be used to reverse the aging process in our lifetime? (Submitted by Paul Cellura)
Michio Kaku: Paul, Telomerase hit the headlines; however, I think we have to put it into perspective. It is not the fountain of youth; however, it is a significant breakthrough. We have to put it into a much larger perspective.
First of all, we know that DNA is sort of like a shoelace. It has plastic tips at the end. Every time a cell reproduces, the tips get shorter and shorter and shorter until finally they fray. And you know that your shoelace, without the plastic tips will simply fall apart. That's what happens inside a cell. A cell, for example, your skin cell, will divide about 60 times, that's called a Hayflick Limit. Then the cell goes into senescence and eventually dies.
So in some sense, every cell has a biological clock. It is doomed to die after about 60 reproductions. However, Telomerase can eliminate some of the contraction of the chromosomes and the chromosomes can maintain their length. So at first you may say, ah-ha! We can now defeat the biological clock. But not so fast, first of all, cancer cells also use Telomerase. Cancer cells are immortal. Cancer cells are immortal and that's precisely why they kill you. Why are cancer cells so dangerous? Because they are immortal. They grow and they grow and they grow until they take over huge chunks of your body, meaning that your bodily functions cannot be performed and you die. So we have to make sure that when you hit ordinary cells with Telomerase that you don't also trigger cancer in the process.
Now, also you have to realize that genes are also very essential for the aging process. It turns out that we know what aging is. Aging is the buildup of error. That's all aging is. The build up of genetic and cellular error. And cells begin to age; they begin to get sluggish because genetic mistakes start to build up. Now cells; however, have a repair mechanism. They can repair damage to their cells; otherwise we would all basically rot very soon after birth. However, even the repair mechanisms eventually get gummed up and then the cell really starts to get old as a consequence. So then the question is, can you accelerate cell repair? That is another branch of gerontology which is being looked at using genes and using chemicals to accelerate the repair mechanisms.
For example, if I take any organism on the planet Earth from yeast cells to spiders, insects, rabbits, dogs, and even monkeys now. And I reduce their caloric intake by 30%, they live 30% longer. In fact the only organism which has not yet been deliberately tested by scientists are homo sapiens. All the other species obey this basic rule. You starve them to death, they live longer. This is independent of Telomerase. This is a function of the wear and tear that we have on the cells. And this is the only known way of actually deliberately extending the lifespan of any organisms almost at will.
Now, what we want is a genetic way of mimicking this mechanism without having to starve yourself because how many people do you know would be willing to starve themselves in order to live 30% longer? Not too many. So then the question is, are there genes that control this process. And the answer is apparently, yes. There's something called the Sirtuin genes, Sir2 being the most prominent of them. They in turn stimulate certain enzymes, among them Resveratrol, which is found in red wine, for example. So this does not mean that drinking red wine or taking Telomerase is the fountain of youth. I don't think that anyone has the fountain of youth yet. What I am saying is, we are now finding pieces of the fountain of youth, tantalizing clues that mean that perhaps in the coming decades, we might be able to actually unravel the aging process. We don't have it yet. Don't go out to the drug store and stock up on these kinds of chemicals and enzymes thinking you're going to live forever. However it is conceivable that in the coming decades we'll come very close to finding it.

Dr. Michio kaku of NewYork University talks about string theory.

Michio Kaku: US has worst educational system known to science says in a conversation with Michael Schrage and also says that the stupid index of US population in also rising and the proof are the reality shows, network televisions so why doesn't the scientific establishment didn't collapse and also adds that the america has an special weapon called as H1B visa and without which forget google, silicon valley as 50% of all pHD are foreign born.

Some of the other interesting videos of michio kaku are -

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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson claims the title scientist above all other ists. And yet, he says he is constantly claimed by atheists. So where does he stand? Neil deGrasse, widely claimed by atheists, is actually an agnostic.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: I'm often asked -- and occasionally in an accusatory way -- Are you atheist?  And it's like, you know, the only ist I am is a scientist, all right?  I don't associate with movements.  I'm not an ism.  I just  - I think for myself.  The moment when someone attaches to a philosophy or a movement, then they assign all the baggage and all the rest of the philosophy that goes with it to you, and when you want to have a conversation they will assert that they already know everything important there is to know about you because of that association.  And that's not the way to have a conversation.  I'm sorry.  It's not.  I'd rather we explore each other's ideas in real time rather than assign a label to it and assert, you know, what's going to happen in advance.
So what people are really after is, what is my stance on religion or spirituality or God?  And I would say, if I find a word that came closest it would be agnostic.  Agnostic -- the word dates from the 19th century -- Huxley -- to refer to someone who doesn't know but hasn't yet really seen evidence for it but is prepared to embrace the evidence if it's there but if it's not won't be forced to have to think something that is not otherwise supported.
There are many atheists who say, Well, all agnostics are atheists.  Okay.  I'm constantly claimed by atheists.  I find this intriguing.  In fact, on my Wiki page -- I didn't create the Wiki page, others did, and I'm flattered that people cared enough about my life to assemble it -- and it said, Neil deGrasse is an atheist.  I said, Well that's not really true.  I said, Neil deGrasse is an agnostic.  I went back a week later.  It said, Neil deGrasse is an atheist. -- again within a week -- and I said, What's up with that? and I said, I have to word it a little differently.  So I said, okay, Neil deGrasse, widely claimed by atheists, is actually an agnostic. 
And some will say, well, that's -- You're not being fair to the fact that they're actually the same thing.  No, they're not the same thing, and I'll tell you why.  Atheists I know who proudly wear the badge are active atheists.  They're like in your face atheist and they want to change policies and they're having debates.  I don't have the time, the interest, the energy to do any of that.  I'm a scientist.  I'm an educator.  My goal is to get people thinking straight in the first place, just get you to be curious about the natural world.  That's what I'm about.  I'm not about any of the rest of this.  
And it's odd that the word atheist even exists.  I don't play golf.  Is there a word for non-golf players?  Do non-golf players gather and strategize?  Do non-skiers have a word and come together and talk about the fact that they don't ski?  I don't—I can't do that.  I can't gather around and talk about how much everybody in the room doesn't believe in God.  I just don't—I don't have the energy for that, and so I . . . Agnostic separates me from the conduct of atheists whether or not there is strong overlap between the two categories, and at the end of the day I'd rather not be any category at all. 
Directed / Produced byJonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

Neil deGrasse Tyson says the greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves.

Transcript--
I've had several people come up to me and say, What can I do to be you? And the only aspect of me that's really doable is I can tell you what my academic pedigree is and what I did as a kid and what things interested me, but what I do day-to-day is not the fulfillment of some preexisting job description. It's just things that I took interest in on my own that the general public happened to also appreciate or like or want access to. And so within my job description as Director of the Hayden Planetarium and as an educator, as an astrophysicist, I kept accreting other things that I did that people responded to, positively responded to. So, I can tell you about the academic pedigree. The rest, you have to create what it is that you do best that layers onto the formal training that may be behind it.

I think the greatest of people that have ever been in society, they were never versions of someone else. They were themselves. You don't think about Michael Jordan the basketball player and say, Oh, he was just like this other player. No, you don't even say, He was like this player plus that player divided by two plus this. No. He's Michael Jordan. I think the greatest of people in society carved niches that represented the unique expression of their combinations of talents, and if everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combinations of talents in this world, our society would be transformed overnight. It's the great tragedy -- people employed in ways that don't fully tap everything they do best in life.

I am privileged and I don't take a day for granted on the job about the fact that what I do, what people most warmly receive about what I do, are some of the things that I do best in life. I'm honored and flattered by that combination of facts as they apply to me. So, your task is to find the combination of facts that apply to you. Then people will beat a path to your door.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

Originally recordeed February 2012.

From poetry and ballet to mathematics and being clever, life is laden with frivolous pursuits that hold no bearing on our ability to survive. However, Dawkins explains that the ability to perform such actions comes as a byproduct of the evolution of the human brain, perhaps because being clever is sexy.

Dr. Kaku addresses the question of the possibility of utopia, the perfect society that people have tried to create throughout history. These dreams have not been realized because we have scarcity. However, now we have nanotechnology, and with nanotechnology, perhaps, says Dr. Michio Kaku, maybe in 100 years, we'll have something called the replicator, which will create enormous abundance.

Transcript--
Throughout human history people have tried to create utopia, the perfect society. In fact, America, the American dream, in some sense was based on utopianism. Why do we have the Shaker movement? Why did we have the Quakers? Why did we have so many different kinds of religious movements that fled Europe looking to create autopia here in the Americas? Well, we know the Shakers have disappeared and many of these colonies have also disappeared only to be found in footnotes in American textbooks, and the question is why?

One reason why is scarcity because back then the industrial revolution was still young and societies had scarcity. Scarcity creates conflict and unless you have a way to resolve conflict, your colony falls apart. How do you allocate resources? Who gets access to food when there is a famine? Who gets shelter when there is a snowstorm and all of the sudden you've eaten up your seed corn? These are questions that faced the early American colonists, and that's the reason why we only see the ghost towns of these utopias.

However, now we have nanotechnology, and with nanotechnology, perhaps, who knows, maybe in 100 years, we'll have something called the replicator. Now the replicator is something you see in Star Trek. It's called the molecular assembler and it takes ordinary raw materials, breaks them up at the atomic level and joins the joints in different ways to create new substances. If you have a molecular assembler, you can turn, for example, a glass into wood or vice versa. You would have the power of a magician, in fact, the power of a god, the ability to literally transform the atoms of one substance into another and we see it on Star Trek.

It's also the most subversive device of all because if utopias fail because of scarcity then what happens when you have infinite abundance? What happens when you simply ask and it comes to you? One of my favorite episodes on Star Trek is when the Enterprise encounters a space capsule left over from the 20th century, the bad 20th century. People died of all these horrible diseases, and many people froze themselves knowing that in the 23rd century or so they'll be thawed out and their diseases will be cured. Well, sure enough, it's the 23rd century now. The Enterprise finds a space capsule and begins to revive all these people and cure them of cancer, cure them of incurable genetic diseases, and then one of these individuals, however, was a banker. He is revived and he says to himself, My God, my gamble worked; I'm alive; I'm in the 23rd century, and he said, Call my stock broker; call my banker; I am rich; I am rich; my investments, they have been sitting there in the bank for centuries; I must be a quadrillionaire! And then the crew of the Enterprise looks at this man and says, What is money; what is a bank; what is a stock broker? We don't have any of these in the 23rd century, and then they say, If you want something, you simply ask for it and you get it.

Now that's subversive. That's revolutionary because if all utopiansocieties vanished because of scarcity and conflict, what happens when there is no scarcity? What happens when you simply ask and you get what you want? This has enormous philosophical implications. For example, why bother to work? Why bother to go to work when you simply ask for things and it comes to you?
... Remainder of transcript here: ...

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd

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There are no more evolutionary pressures driving gross human evolution, but that doesn't mean we won't be able to genetically re-engineer ourselves in the future.

Dr. Michio Kaku returns to Big Think studios to discuss his latest book, The Future of the Mind ( Here he explains how the quantifying approach common in physics can be used to model consciousness.

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Transcript: In the entire universe the two greatest scientific mysteries are first of all the origin of the universe itself. And second of all the origin of intelligence. Believe it or not, sitting on our shoulders is the most complex object that Mother Nature has created in the known universe. You have to go at least 24 trillion miles to the nearest star to find a planet that may have life and may have intelligence. And yet our brain only consumes about 20-30 watts of power and yet it performs calculations better than any large supercomputer. So it's a mystery. How is the brain wired up? And if we can figure that out what can we do with it to enhance our mental capabilities.

When you look at the brain and all the parts of the brain they don't seem to make any sense at all. The visual part of the brain is way in the back, for example. Why is the brain constructed the way it is? Is this nothing but an accident of evolution? Well one way to look at it is through evolution. That is, the back of the brain is a so-called reptilian brain. The most ancient primitive part of the brain that governs balance, territoriality, mating. And so the very back of the brain is also the kind of brain that you find in reptiles. Now when I was a child I would go to the science museum and look at the snakes sometimes and they would stare back at me. And I would wonder, What are they thinking about? Well, I think now I know. What they're thinking about was, Is this person lunch?

Then we have the center part of the brain going forward and that's a so-called monkey brain, the mammalian brain. The brain of emotions. The brain of social hierarchies. And then finally the front of the brain is the human brain, especially the prefrontal cortex. This is where rational thinking is. And when you ask yourself a question where am I anyway. The answer is right behind your forehead. That's where you really are.

Well, I have a theory of consciousness which tries to wrap it all up together. There've been about 20,000 or so papers written about consciousness and no consensus. Never in the history of science have so many people devoted so much time to produce so little. Well, I'm a physicist and when we physicists look at a mysterious object the first thing we try to do is to create a model. A model of this object in space. And then we hit the play button and run it forward in time. This is how Newton was able to come up with the theory of gravity. This is how Einstein came up with relativity. So I tried to use this in terms of the human brain and evolution. So what I'm saying is I have a new theory of consciousness based on evolution. And that is consciousness is the number of feedback loops required to create a model of your position in space with relationship to other organisms and finally in relationship to time.

So think of the consciousness of a thermostat. I believe that even a lowly thermostat has one unit of consciousness. That is, it senses the temperature around it. And then we have a flower. A flower has maybe, maybe ten units of consciousness. It has to understand the temperature, the weather, humidity, where gravity is pointing. And then finally we go to the reptilian brain which I call level 1 consciousness and reptiles basically have a very good understanding of their position in space, especially because they have to lunge out and grab prey. Then we have level 2 consciousness, the monkey consciousness. The consciousness of emotions, social hierarchies, where are we in relationship to the tribe. And then where are we as humans.

As humans we are at level 3. We run simulations into the future. Animals apparently don't do this. They don't plan to hibernate. They don't plan the next day's agenda. They have no conception of tomorrow to the best of our ability. But that's what our brain does. Our brain is a prediction machine. And so when we look at the evolution from the reptilian brain to the mammalian brain to the prefrontal cortex, we realize that is the process of understanding our position in space with respect to others -- that is emotions -- and finally running simulations into the future.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton

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Graphene is in incredibly strong, one-molecule thick layer of carbon atoms that could someday be used to create life-sustaining nanorobots.

Michio Kaku:  Matthew, there is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent nanobots, microscopic robots, from circulating in the bloodstream and bulking us up, strengthening our bones, giving us the power of Superman. There is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent that.  However, the reality is much, much more complicated. 
Let's take a look at nanotechnology today.  It's very primitive.  It is a multibillion dollar industry only because we use it for coatings, coatings to make fabric stronger and coatings for different kinds of appliances.  We also use it in airbags.  Believe it or not there is a tiny sensor, an accelerometer in your airbag—compliments of nanotechnology—that create the gigantic explosion of an airbag. 
But that's today.  The promise is that in the coming decades with carbon nanotubes, with graphene, we'll create even new substances which can replace the silicon of computers, maybe even give us a space elevator.  Graphene for example, is a substance made out of one-molecule-thick layer of carbon.  Think about that.  Think of like Saran Wrap made out of one-molecule-thick carbon atoms.  That graphene is so strong in principle you can take an elephant, put the elephant on a pencil, suspend the pencil on graphene and graphene will not break.  That is how strong it is.  It is the strongest material known to science at the present time.  However, having these nanobots in our body—that is decades away.  We can't even create a nanobot that is large that will do most of these things on a microscopic scale.  Forget going down to the atomic scale.  So to summarize: yes, in principle there is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent nanobots from invigorating us, changing our molecular structure, changing our bone structure and skeleton.  However, the practical implementation of that is staggering.  It's not going to happen for many decades to come.

Michio Kaku:  Matthew, there is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent nanobots, microscopic robots, from circulating in the bloodstream and bulking us up, strengthening our bones, giving us the power of Superman. There is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent that.  However, the reality is much, much more complicated. 
Let's take a look at nanotechnology today.  It's very primitive.  It is a multibillion dollar industry only because we use it for coatings, coatings to make fabric stronger and coatings for different kinds of appliances.  We also use it in airbags.  Believe it or not there is a tiny sensor, an accelerometer in your airbag—compliments of nanotechnology—that create the gigantic explosion of an airbag. 
But that's today.  The promise is that in the coming decades with carbon nanotubes, with graphene, we'll create even new substances which can replace the silicon of computers, maybe even give us a space elevator.  Graphene for example, is a substance made out of one-molecule-thick layer of carbon.  Think about that.  Think of like Saran Wrap made out of one-molecule-thick carbon atoms.  That graphene is so strong in principle you can take an elephant, put the elephant on a pencil, suspend the pencil on graphene and graphene will not break.  That is how strong it is.  It is the strongest material known to science at the present time.  However, having these nanobots in our body—that is decades away.  We can't even create a nanobot that is large that will do most of these things on a microscopic scale.  Forget going down to the atomic scale.  So to summarize: yes, in principle there is nothing in the laws of physics to prevent nanobots from invigorating us, changing our molecular structure, changing our bone structure and skeleton.  However, the practical implementation of that is staggering.  It's not going to happen for many decades to come.

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Cosmologists now develop credible theories about the beginning and end of our universe and theory-based speculations about vast numbers of multiple universes. But does the cosmos have a reason?

Dr. Michio Kaku returns to Big Think studios to discuss his latest book, The Future of the Mind ( Here he explains the evolution of human intelligence.

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Transcipt - 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 the brain itself.

And so in the future -- not today but in the future we may use gene therapy to begin the process of making perhaps a chimpanzee intelligent. We know the genes that'll increase the size of the brain. We've isolated now the genes that give you manual dexterity by which you can make tools. We have found the genes which give you the ability to articulate thousands of words. And so it may be possible to tinker with the genome of a chimpanzee so that they have a larger brain case, they have better manual dexterity and they have the ability to articulate a larger vocabulary. But then what do you get? You get a primate that looks very similar to a human. And so my personal attitude is why bother. We already have humans, just look outside the door.

So why bother to manipulate a chimpanzee because as you make a chimpanzee more and more intelligent it becomes more and more humanlike with a vocabulary, with vocal chords, with manual dexterity, with a larger brain case and a spine to support a larger brain case. That's called a human.

Directed/Produced by Jonathan Fowler and Dillon Fitton

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Once a science prodigy who finished first in his Harvard physics graduate class, Michio Kaku is now an accomplished physicist, author, futurist and science educator. Kaku has had more than 70 articles published in physics journals, covering topics such as superstring theory, supergravity, supersymmetry, and hadronic physics.

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