His next video will give the inside story on the Tooth Fairy.

Please don't tell me he's teaching somewhere on this planet.....

I'll give him an "A" for his Public Speaking Skills, and an "F" for his Ability to Think Through the Consequences of What He is Proposing.

Trillions of Tons of Trash Traversing the Universe.

Oh, Michio Kaku, Sultan of Space Spam, may we see an Environmental Impact Report on that first?

I found that enjoyable. Far fetched? Incredible? Sure. So what?

We need dreamers like this in our society just as much as we need the Luddites who denigrate them.

The man certainly has significant credentials, including String Theory to his name.
On a similar subject the LHC at CERN goes live later this year. The most expensive experiment ever conducted, the data processing and storage alone is mind boggling. If all goes to plan we might have the final missing piece to the puzzle.

Bob.

The world doesn't need anyone to denigrate the dreamers.

All we need (besides love :O) are people who can be bouncing boards for the dreamers, people who can nurture their ideas, develop them to practical implementation and consider the consequences, things that are less likely to be a dreamers' strengths.

Well now.... what is there in that to object to? Quite sensible science speculation.

"Well now.... what is there in that to object to? Quite sensible science speculation." -------- Serena, have you forgotten your "conditioning" requirements to work in "video"?
The mis-guided prof did not have an IPOD in his shirt pocket showing during filming, nor did he firmly stated that the new Apple iPhone would move planet Earth to stage One. ;-)

He is one of the few theoretical physicist that can keep a general audience awake, not too hard to talk to but sometimes some of his ideals about the future came be as strange as string theory's sub-multi-dimensions. But future speculation on the future of civilization or alien life ------ is -- a wishful dream of the beholder and that's all.

Well, he's obviously a fan of deduction, and that's why he needs N**N**N**N etc. robots to bring back data to deduce the structure of the entire universe (or more specifically the best way to colonize and subjugate the other bastard solar systems quickly as possible).

I'm more interested in induction, where from studying the principles of the universe one could induce the structure of the whole.

There is a very famous old story about when these two methods were applied by two researchers simultaneously for exactly this purpose. One used induction, the other travelled the entire universe in record time to see everything, and they came to the same exact answer.

A lot of people know this story, anyone here know what I'm talking about?

I'll give you:

a) 2 points for stating the type of vessel used to crisscross the universe at record speed.
b) (500 points for stating why the particular form was important.)
c) 2 x 10 points for stating the names of the two researchers.
d) 20 points for describing the inductive method used.
e) 2 x 5 points for stating the names of the two who posed the challenge to know the universe.

The first person to hit at least 45 points, will receive a cool and valuable video editing/production/post production-related prize to be determined individually with the winner, based on his or her needs from a list selection with lots of goodies.

Anyone who hits the bell (500+ points) will be awarded beyond the pale.

String theory, quantum gravity, entangled particles. Yes, well outside the world of video. The prof makes a great deal more sense than the people who wrote the screenplay for "Sunshine", although that's hardly a reason for believing he'll be proved right. Conditioning? Don't actually comprehend the reference, but is there a whiff of Genesis in the objections to his speculations?

No Genesis here, but the people who were taken aback by certain aspects of his otherwise most excellent speech, were probably taken aback by his assertions that the goal of "life, the universe, and everything" was to subjugate everybody else and to build self-replicating robots that would go forth and multiply like viruses, gobbling up resources everywhere, polluting everywhere, and by definition never stopping (unless some other civilization decided that these mutants had to be stopped for the survival of the universe).

It seems like the old idea that if a little bit is good, then more must be better.

Repeat.

Fair enough. These things are just ideas, well beyond any possibility of reality. But I'll agree hat we already have too much of the issues you've identified.

While I don't agree with the rather soul-less (robots are the future) and human-centric conquest-of-environment outcome implied in his predictions, I join those here who support him for being among innovative positive-thinkers.

Cynical, fear-based doom-and-gloom perspectives are all too popular these days.

Otherwise put, one could say that he probably would agree with the essence of the thoughts of a couple of other outside-the-box, trail-blazin' scientific dudes...

"Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction." ~ Albert Einstein

"Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'" ~ Max Planck

To which one can add a more literary, applicable-to-anything version....

"Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm." ~ Henry Miller

Yeah, granted, I'm one of those "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one" types :)

I love the Einstein quote, it is typically brilliant!

When Henry Miller poopooed "moralities," I think he was referring to "moralism," i.e. "the condemnation of those doing whatever the finger-pointer wasn't doing."

I can't understand what he had against ethics though. Anyone know? "Trifling import, eh?

Laws we need only because we can't count on people to have ethics.

Science is a funny business, we talk about it so much and yet there's more fundamental disciplines that get very, very lttile press.
Following up on your challenge (about which I haven't a clue) I found lots of interesting reading on induction, we still haven't resolved many of the laws of logic and reason, even induction is still a thorny topic.

Coursedesign,

The Miller quotation you referred to:

"Moralities, ethics, laws, customs, beliefs, doctrines - these are of trifling import. All that matters is that the miraculous become the norm." ~ Henry Miller

You said:



____________________-

That quotation by him seems to me to point to your last comment: that " the miraculous become the norm" would be the result of instinctive higher human nature not needing the tools of ethics, laws, morality, etc.

Or to use the title of an old George Harrison song, "Isn't It a Pity" that we still need the outer scaffolding of such things to "do the right thing." In his own wiseguy literary way, Miller seems to lament that we still need the "stick" of these things for us to behave in more miraculous (expansive/inclusive/loving/etc.) ways.

We keep getting caught up and still too often even viciously entangled (and/or entangling others) in dogma -- which comes in many forms: religious, cultural, social, political, etc. One can do without all of these to get the simple, basic stuff, i.e. the so-called Golden Rule.

In short, we make it all so complicated when it's really duh-basic. If we could keep it simple, the miraculous would be come the norm.
That's my chosen interpretation of his quotation..

You mean if everybody really got the Golden Rule, we wouldn't need 42,500 traffic laws in Los Angeles alone?

:O)

Thinking about it some more, I'm beginning to think you're right.

Ethics can be seen also as a set of rules. I was seeing it more as a place, an understanding from the heart, a connection between one individual and the rest of the world, a oneness if you will, something that is related to but not identical with the Golden Rule.