[@joerogan] Joe Rogan Experience #2363 - David Kipping

Link: https://youtu.be/VJNaciADLVs

Short Summary

Number One Action Item/Takeaway:

Support scientific research and space exploration, as these endeavors are crucial for understanding our place in the universe, potentially discovering life beyond Earth, and inspiring a more expansive and unified perspective on humanity's role.

Executive Summary:

This Joe Rogan Experience podcast delves into the latest astronomical discoveries, the Fermi paradox, and the potential future of humanity. The guest discusses the implications of the James Webb Space Telescope's findings, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the challenges facing scientific research. The conversation highlights the importance of continued investment in space exploration to address fundamental questions about life, the universe, and our place within it.

Key Quotes

Here are five direct quotes extracted from the provided transcript of the Joe Rogan podcast:

1. "Every time we've built a telescope that is you know uh 10 times more precise than the last thing every time we've done that we have been surprised."
2. "Part of the journey in being a scientist is knowing what your own biases are."
3. "It tells us that on average, every single star has a planet. So, as far as we can tell, this is it's pretty hard for a star not to have planets. It's like part for the course for that to happen."
4. "I think the most horrific idea is that we're not we're alone, that we're we're not living in a universe that's filled with life, that this is just some weird freak incident."
5. "If I was an alien civilization and I wanted to observe Earth undisturbed, I'd make sure I didn't leave enough evidence for science to take me seriously. Yeah, that's what I would do. Yeah."

Detailed Summary

Okay, here is a detailed summary of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast episode with a cosmologist, focusing on the key topics, arguments, and information discussed:

• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Discoveries & Implications:

  • The JWST is performing better than engineering expectations.
  • It's detecting quasars and galaxies formed much earlier than predicted after the Big Bang, challenging current cosmological models.
  • Specifically, supermassive black holes are forming very early in the universe, earlier than the existing Eddington limit models would allow, requiring either a faster feeding rate or a younger universe.
  • The initial belief about the age of galaxies was perhaps miscalculated as those models for galaxy formation were only based on data from local galaxies and didn't take the higher gas temperature of the early universe into consideration.
  • The age of the universe being wrong is a much less likely solution as it would require upending the Lambda-CDM model which explains many aspects of the universe to a high degree of precision. It's more likely there are issues with our astrophysics, like how gas swirls around a plasma.

• Hubble Tension:

  • The expansion rate of the universe (Hubble constant) measured using the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) doesn't match the rate measured locally using stars and supernovae, something is wrong with the measurement or cosmological model.
  • Observer bias by cosmologists may make them rigidly attached to their pet theories.

• Future Telescopes & Observation Methods:

  • Each generation of telescopes reveals new surprises.
  • Scientists are considering using the sun as a gravitational lens to create an incredibly powerful telescope, utilizing the bending of light around the sun to image exoplanets, and potentially see continents/cities.
  • Project Starshot aimed to send small probes to nearby stars at a significant fraction of light speed to take photos.
  • "Tar from Interstellar" is a twist on Project Starshot, an idea that builds on the concept.

• Exoplanet Diversity & Formation:

  • Early exoplanet discoveries, like hot Jupiters, challenged existing planetary formation models.
  • Migration of gas giants close to their stars is a possible explanation for hot Jupiters.
  • Mini-Neptunes, a common type of planet (2x Earth's size, but in between Earth and Neptune) that don't exist in our solar system, highlighting how diverse things are.
  • Many aspects of our solar system are unusual, including having Jupiter, and eight planets.
  • Binary star systems are common. Half of all stars live in binary systems.
  • Alpha Centauri AB candidate planet discovered, potentially Saturn sized in the habitable zone. It looks like tricolarens and it pushes the planets into a highly eccentric and twisted orbit.
  • Bode's Law isn't very predictive with exoplanets.
  • Asteroid belts, if in the location of these planets, would throw Bode's Law back into balance.
  • Every star has a planet is a current estimate.
  • Solar systems form from the collapse of giant molecular clouds due to gravity. The remaining material forms a disc, then gravity collapses matter in the disc to form planets. There are parts of this model scientists don't understand, such as the process from dust to pebbles to boulders to planet decimals.

• Star Size & Characteristics:

  • Our sun is relatively small compared to the largest stars (example: Stevenson 2-18 which would fill out to the orbit of Jupiter).
  • Most stars are red dwarfs (75%), which are smaller and longer-lived than our sun.
  • Conditions in the early universe were more conducive to creating gigantic stars.

• The Search for First Stars (Type III Population Stars):

  • Scientists are seeking to detect the first stars ever born, made of pure hydrogen and helium, and uncontaminated by metals.
  • These likely formed around 100 million years after the Big Bang.
  • James Webb might be powerful enough to see them.

• Fermi Paradox & The Potential for Engineered Stars:

  • The Fermi Paradox (where are the aliens?) is addressed, considering colonization rates and lack of observable engineering on other stars.
  • The universe is old, so if technology existed, there's been plenty of time for intelligent life to spread everywhere. So why is it we've never been colonized, or even seen it?

• UAPs & UFOs:

  • The guest discusses the possibility that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations intentionally hide from us to avoid interfering with our development.
  • UAP pilot accounts are intriguing, but there could also be false positives, and military technology.
  • The guest touches on the 2004 tic tac incident, and notes the difficulty of accounting for the false positive rate.

• The Likelihood of Life & the Great Filter:

  • The guest touches on a range of concepts on the likelihood of life including the tourism paradox, how the earth is a perfect tourist destination because it is so rare and contains life, so why aren't we seeing any signs?
  • Acknowledges that our puny brains can't comprehend the true size and age of the universe.
  • A new transitional human society is occurring right now. In the past we just had a simple single celled life, so perhaps its rare to even have multicellular life, which would suggest if life existed elsewhere it would just be single celled.

• The Need for Caution Regarding UAP/UFO Stories:

  • Need to be wary of personal stories and how to scientifically take this data and make it ingestible.
  • Need to figure out the background rate, the number of false alarms. One in ten thousand hours pilots will make a mistake. So that needs to be taken into consideration.
  • Talk about using iphones to create a citizen scientists UAP tracking system.
  • Living in an age with drones and starlink satellites makes it difficult to discern things that are not human controlled.

• Space Travel & Panspermia:

  • Voyager 2 at Voyager 2 speeds crappy alien technology out there could already have spanned the whole thing.
  • If alien or aliens want to observe humans you would do it in a way to not freak out them.
  • The "what's the point" from humans to aliens could also be "what's the point" from the universe of not being colonized, right? What's their motivation?
  • Panspermia is possible, but it doesn't make it easy to get life onto another planet.

• The Future of Earth, AI & Humanity:

  • Earth has 1 billion years left before the sun makes it uninhabitable. There is opportunity for us to contact that civilization as well. There's opportunity to load an update.
  • Is AI more of a risk or nuclear annihilation? It's actually a new species. An electronic caterpillar.
  • It goes from pebbles to boulders to plants to what we have today is this an act to create super intelligence. There could be some non-physical sense.
  • People may want to figure out a way to lace human DNA into the sale for people that go to other planets.

• The Uniqueness of Earth and Potential for Future Evolution:

  • The Earth is a paradise unlike any other star system. And then they could use their sunsized telescope to figure all that out.
  • Most stars do not have an Earthlike planet, maybe 1-2% and the universe is really good at single cellular like how does multicellular become.
  • What is progress, or constant evolution of human technology? We want to control resources and dominate people.
  • But in a double edged sword war drives the biggest innovation. We can't just eat all our resources because we have no means to innovate.
  • There's the supernova effect, we can start see the alien civilization when they just about to nuke themselves.
  • They might want to reach out, but they are not always interested in our type of stuff.

• Extragalactic SETI as a Decoupled Test Tube:

  • Extragalactic seti is a really underserved portion of science.
  • There are also problems on Earth when there's a weird stuff. Upside down lightning for years and years reported and nobody understood.
  • Aliens has unbounded explanitory capabilities.

• The Value of Exploration and the Importance of Funding:

  • Astronomers are not well funded for the work we do, this gets people grossed out and connections make those the Einstein's.
  • What does a billion dollars get you, we are super limited in what we can see.
  • Starship is low cost launch, because we have ground based telescopes that we can ship off.
  • Funding and a lack of interest are a big hurdle. Have lobbyed but can only talk to aids. Got to get in front of Congress.

This summary focuses on the main points and arguments, providing a structured overview of the discussion.