I like how in the ad read each time John begins with the themes of the episode then pivots to life insurance and you can *hear* his smile as he is made aware once again of the absurdity of our existence in this time :)
There's nothing I enjoy more than having a conversation with Dr. Mack and John about life, the universe, and everything. This series is a wonder. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
As someone also going through The Depression. Thank you all so very much for spending your precious time and energy to bring us this wonderful series. I am loving it so so much! 💜
Hey, John, I struggle regularly with depression. But you have, on multiple occasions, inspired me to reach the next day. I hope you know that this insignificant speck in the universe is grateful that your speck exists and makes this clump of specks a better place to live
I've been following the pod somewhere with a much less robust review/commenting functionality, so I'm just here to express thanks and support for longer-form Crash Course episodes like CC: The Universe has been. My difficulty with other CC series has always been that the individual videos are too short to keep my attention unless I binge an entire course in a day or two and retain much less actual information, so longer episodes with a bit less "crash" in the course has been a delight. Thank yall for continuing to be awesome, and bringing us in this instance the awe of the universe as a whole.
Every episode of this podcast is a great way to have a "Whoa" moment that lasts 45-60 minutes. I have passing knowledge of astronomy and every episode blows my mind.
I love Dr. Mack defending herself about 0.1 basically being 1 because it's within a couple orders of magnitude. John is right, that really is such an astrophysicist thing to say. When I was studying astrophysics in college years and years ago, I always got a kick out of the engineers who sometimes took astronomy courses (usually to fulfill an elective requirement). The engineers got really twitchy whenever the professor was walking through a calculation and rounded up or down within an order of magnitude or two. I think the engineers nearly rioted when one professor said "let's just say that pi equals 10."
I still annoy my wife post astronomy degree by just rounding to the nearest ten. I've tried to explain that is a lot of detail for me because in my head I usually stop once I've got the right number of digits
This episode made me feel so beautiful. How absolutely wonderfully magnificent that I’m here, and now, and able to listen to voiced through my chemical brick and ponder how possible it is in the big giant wide universe for something like me to exist
I'm two weeks late to listening but at the very end John says "we're not so bad after all" and Katie replies "we're alright. we're alright." -- I really teared up. The way she said it just reminded me so much of the Whispering episode of Anthropocene Reviewed, when in the midst of the mysterium tremendum John hears "you'll be okay. you'll be okay." It's not to say Dr. Mack is voice of God, but she has at least been established for 8 episodes as the 'Big Star' on here. And as they talk about all this vastness of the universe it was so assuring to hear her say "we're alright"
how i would answer the intro question, as someone who has extensively studied astrophysics/cosmology and theoretical physics, is that i fully disagree with the brand of nihilism that people have about the scale of everything. this is something that's bothered me for a long time now, wherein the communication to the public of the scale of the things studied in these fields, emphasizes humanity's (relative) insignificance to the rest of reality, largely due to scale (despite human existence falling pretty close to the middle, scale-wise). we, human (and non-human) life on this earth, are the only life we know of in existence, and the only way the universe is aware of itself. we are, very literally, the universe experiencing itself. just because we're "small", and just because there's a lot happening around us we don't fully comprehend yet, doesn't mean anything for our significance as living, feeling things in the universe. we are significant relative to everything around us, our relationships, our experiences, our lives. everyway we learn and explore and grow is significant for the entire universe as we know it. there is nothing impressive or grand about a universe without someone to see it, and seeing it is the most significant thing we can offer.
Consciousness is no small chemical reaction. I can't explain what part of my atoms are asking "why?; how?". I've seen evidence that complex life, while inevitable, may be improbable and we may be the only ones looking up. Makes us special in a lonely way. Hot Jupiters, being tidally locked without a moon, and the chemistry; I bet you a trillion planets it doesn't happen again for another 13.7 billion years.
Precisely because we're so tiny and fragile, we should consider our existence and depth of our relationships, emotions, capacity for wonder etc to be truly extraordinary. So tenuous and yet so rich, what a treat 🥰
This was such a beautiful episode. This simultaneously helped me understand how insignificant yet large our existence in the universe truly is. To have the knowledge of something is not that thing until it is gives me clarification so many thoughts and spirals I’ve had for years now and I’m happy that this is the way I found out
John. I'm truly sorry that you've been struggling, your heart and soul are so pure and kind, you deserve all the serenity in the world. That being said, it does ad yet another intensity to your usual poetic way of looking at all things and you've been finding, and sharing, such beautiful meaning and wonder in these episodes, chef's kiss. Thank you for your vulnerability, it allows us to be reached by those beautiful things that go through your brain. Also, I know nothing of her outside of this podcast, but after all these episodes, I can confidently say that Dr Mack also has a bright and kind soul, it's really been a treat getting to follow your conversations and I'll for sure revisit them often ❤️
Thanks so much for this series, I'm always excited to see a new episode has been released. When it's over I'm going to start at the beginning and listen all over again.
'I need to accept that I'm trying to do something that's fundamentally against what the universe wants to do.' That tension is killing me too John. In fact it's killing us all without cease. But life is the only thing we've seen so far that took that inevitable flow into chaos and said, "Not yet." It's beautiful. You can't stop the tide of entropy, but _you can try._ *It is. And we are. I am ready.*
"The JOY of Sharing 💞 something Cool"😎 is what💯 Vlogbrothers have ALWAYS done & what Nerdfighteria is ALL about❣ 🖖DFTBA🖖 THANK YOU DR. Mack for giving us ALL a little touch of HOPE ❤
When doctor Mack discusses potential past life on Mars at 43:00 it's pretty funny to think that POTENTIAL evidence of past Mars life has been discovered this week. Getting the Samples back to earth will be difficult and will take a while, but there have been compounds detected that here on earth are mostly produced by life, in leaopard spot like patterns on the inside of rocks. These rocks were found in a place where water once flowed. If you had spotted those kind of patterns in such a spot on earth, treating this as evidence for microbial life would be an easy assumption to make. To actually confirm if this is the case for Mars, we'll have to see in about 15 years or so, to have the samples brought to earth for further research. No promises that life existed there yet, but we live in exciting times!
I just want to say, as an atheist, that I absolutely do find awe in the world. So whether someone is theist or atheist or anywhere on that spectrum, these subjects about the universe and the likelihood of our universe existing as it does, life forming, intelligent technology based life forming, it still brings awe even if the wonder behind it isn't driven by a higher power belief system.
Wonderful words by Dr. Mack, "....you'll be comforted to know that, at all moments, you are actually increasing the entropy of the universe because you are putting so much blood, sweat, and tears into trying to make that process of order that the total amount of entropy is still going up."
Oh man, this is what I needed today! The discussion in this video of the unknown percentage of all planets with life that also have at least one "intelligent" species reminds me of another video: Alien Biospheres #15. The host spends the first 20 minutes of the video defining sapience, then goes on to ponder the evolutionary pressures that would favor the development of sapience. I had always been so concerned with the "how" that I had never stopped to consider the "why." I had never stopped to think before about how ridiculously unlikely it is that the difference between being intelligent and being sapient would be worth the cost to any species. Sitting here in front of my computer, it just seems obvious that you'd want to invent airplanes, compose symphonies, and talk to someone half-way across the world on the phone in French.
This series is so good, and ending this episode in this positive note was amazing. Thank you John, Dr. Mack, and the team behind that makes it possible
John, we may be very small and weird, but that doesn't make us insignificant. It makes is very significant. We are an extremely rare configuration of already pretty-rare stuff and we have done things that do not occur anywhere else in the universe. I've mentioned in previous comments like this that both the hottest and the coldest places in the entire known universe are here on Earth, because we were curious so we made that happen so we could study them. Can you just imagine if some day in the far future the whole cosmos was teeming with complex networks of weird things like us doing things that have never been done before?
The distinction between chemistry and nuclear processes is the first time in this series I've found myself thinking: "Ackshully Mr Green, that's not quite right..." Every other summary has been spectacularly insightful. More of these in my earholes please. Maybe delve into quantum mechanics next?
So what I'm getting from this discussion of the anthropic principle and the sheer unlikelihood of a universe friendly to life is that we're here...because we're here...because we're here...
Eukaryotic life may have only shown up once, but endosymbiosis has happened at least a few times, and may still happen presently in some microorganisms. See Journey to the Microcosmos for details.
I love that they ended on humans benefit from sharing information and knowledge not only in the information passed on but also in the joy of passing it on. I feel you can hear the joy in Dr. Mack's voice at the very thought of teaching someone and seeing their understanding grow. I really enjoy CC and especially this series. Big thank you to all those involved in creating it, I hope you get the joy you deserve from sharing it with the world.
But we're definitely evolutionarily wired to feel that joy. It's from showing the kids how to knap rocks or to find the right roots or whatever. It's from older members telling stories to the band in the cold nights that warn of dangers the young ones haven't seen yet or opportunities that don't come up often. Or of sharing new experiences and ideas when different groups meet. Huge advantages in all of that, for a technological species like ours.
Isn't it possible that there could have been a prior form intelligent of intelligent life on earth that left no trace behind that we can detect? The continental plates exposed today were not always present in the past. Anything that existed in areas of major glaciation would have been erased -- this includes much of North America, Europe, and Antarctica. Between volcanoes and glaciers, the surface of the earth is pretty new.
Why do I so often hear people say that we are "insignificant"? So far, earth is the only life we are aware of. Yet people will say it is "arrogant" to think it possible that life, as we define it, may only have happened here. There are events in the universe that only happen once, all the time: the big bang or yesterday. And as far as we can determine, life only happened ONCE here, on the very planet where it seems so abundant and resilient. We still have NO idea how it happened - here. And we don't see life spontaneously generating from any second sources either. The point I'm trying to make is that our rarity doesn't seem insignificant to me at all.
Written language is one of the big game changers between us and other terrestrial animals. It appears that speaking in air works better than through water. Many aquatic creatures seem highly intelligent but lack the ability to pass it on.
One thing I think about often is we have gone through 2 mass extinctions and if there were civilizations out there they may have come and gone by now they could have guilt rocket ships and faster than light space ships been here and said Nope thats not the one and moved on its just a possibility .
I like how in the ad read each time John begins with the themes of the episode then pivots to life insurance and you can *hear* his smile as he is made aware once again of the absurdity of our existence in this time :)
THIS. That little barely-suppressed giggle of glee~
There's nothing I enjoy more than having a conversation with Dr. Mack and John about life, the universe, and everything. This series is a wonder. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
As someone also going through The Depression. Thank you all so very much for spending your precious time and energy to bring us this wonderful series. I am loving it so so much! 💜
Hey, John, I struggle regularly with depression. But you have, on multiple occasions, inspired me to reach the next day. I hope you know that this insignificant speck in the universe is grateful that your speck exists and makes this clump of specks a better place to live
I've been following the pod somewhere with a much less robust review/commenting functionality, so I'm just here to express thanks and support for longer-form Crash Course episodes like CC: The Universe has been. My difficulty with other CC series has always been that the individual videos are too short to keep my attention unless I binge an entire course in a day or two and retain much less actual information, so longer episodes with a bit less "crash" in the course has been a delight. Thank yall for continuing to be awesome, and bringing us in this instance the awe of the universe as a whole.
Every episode of this podcast is a great way to have a "Whoa" moment that lasts 45-60 minutes. I have passing knowledge of astronomy and every episode blows my mind.
I love Dr. Mack defending herself about 0.1 basically being 1 because it's within a couple orders of magnitude. John is right, that really is such an astrophysicist thing to say. When I was studying astrophysics in college years and years ago, I always got a kick out of the engineers who sometimes took astronomy courses (usually to fulfill an elective requirement). The engineers got really twitchy whenever the professor was walking through a calculation and rounded up or down within an order of magnitude or two. I think the engineers nearly rioted when one professor said "let's just say that pi equals 10."
😂😂😂 That is a fantastic anecdote, thanks for sharing ✨
A 1.5 twist Möbius strip?
Which is funny because mathematicians make jokes about engineer approximations
I still annoy my wife post astronomy degree by just rounding to the nearest ten. I've tried to explain that is a lot of detail for me because in my head I usually stop once I've got the right number of digits
John. Thank you so much for having the foresight to bring this series to the rest of us.
This episode made me feel so beautiful. How absolutely wonderfully magnificent that I’m here, and now, and able to listen to voiced through my chemical brick and ponder how possible it is in the big giant wide universe for something like me to exist
A philosopher and a scientist agree we we're alright. Best news I've heard all week! (within a couple degrees of magnitude)
I'm two weeks late to listening but at the very end John says "we're not so bad after all" and Katie replies "we're alright. we're alright." -- I really teared up. The way she said it just reminded me so much of the Whispering episode of Anthropocene Reviewed, when in the midst of the mysterium tremendum John hears "you'll be okay. you'll be okay." It's not to say Dr. Mack is voice of God, but she has at least been established for 8 episodes as the 'Big Star' on here. And as they talk about all this vastness of the universe it was so assuring to hear her say "we're alright"
how i would answer the intro question, as someone who has extensively studied astrophysics/cosmology and theoretical physics, is that i fully disagree with the brand of nihilism that people have about the scale of everything. this is something that's bothered me for a long time now, wherein the communication to the public of the scale of the things studied in these fields, emphasizes humanity's (relative) insignificance to the rest of reality, largely due to scale (despite human existence falling pretty close to the middle, scale-wise). we, human (and non-human) life on this earth, are the only life we know of in existence, and the only way the universe is aware of itself. we are, very literally, the universe experiencing itself. just because we're "small", and just because there's a lot happening around us we don't fully comprehend yet, doesn't mean anything for our significance as living, feeling things in the universe. we are significant relative to everything around us, our relationships, our experiences, our lives. everyway we learn and explore and grow is significant for the entire universe as we know it. there is nothing impressive or grand about a universe without someone to see it, and seeing it is the most significant thing we can offer.
There are also measures of significance that place human society at the top - say, certain notions of information density - right?
Consciousness is no small chemical reaction. I can't explain what part of my atoms are asking "why?; how?". I've seen evidence that complex life, while inevitable, may be improbable and we may be the only ones looking up. Makes us special in a lonely way.
Hot Jupiters, being tidally locked without a moon, and the chemistry; I bet you a trillion planets it doesn't happen again for another 13.7 billion years.
👌🏾🫡real hip hop!!
@@vvcc9565 I mean, we didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree!
Precisely because we're so tiny and fragile, we should consider our existence and depth of our relationships, emotions, capacity for wonder etc to be truly extraordinary. So tenuous and yet so rich, what a treat 🥰
wow the conclusion was breathtaking
This was such a beautiful episode. This simultaneously helped me understand how insignificant yet large our existence in the universe truly is. To have the knowledge of something is not that thing until it is gives me clarification so many thoughts and spirals I’ve had for years now and I’m happy that this is the way I found out
"Existence is cool" - Dr. Katy Mack
We need a t-shirt!
I was waiting for John to go "but is it, though?"
John. I'm truly sorry that you've been struggling, your heart and soul are so pure and kind, you deserve all the serenity in the world. That being said, it does ad yet another intensity to your usual poetic way of looking at all things and you've been finding, and sharing, such beautiful meaning and wonder in these episodes, chef's kiss. Thank you for your vulnerability, it allows us to be reached by those beautiful things that go through your brain. Also, I know nothing of her outside of this podcast, but after all these episodes, I can confidently say that Dr Mack also has a bright and kind soul, it's really been a treat getting to follow your conversations and I'll for sure revisit them often ❤️
Thanks so much for this series, I'm always excited to see a new episode has been released. When it's over I'm going to start at the beginning and listen all over again.
Bad day, very calming and centering thankyou x
'I need to accept that I'm trying to do something that's fundamentally against what the universe wants to do.'
That tension is killing me too John. In fact it's killing us all without cease. But life is the only thing we've seen so far that took that inevitable flow into chaos and said, "Not yet." It's beautiful.
You can't stop the tide of entropy, but _you can try._
*It is. And we are. I am ready.*
I could listen to this all day. I'm glad I can't ask questions real-time as they would tire of it rather quickly.
Really love this series, even if I need to listen multiple times to let it all sink in 💜
"The JOY of Sharing 💞 something Cool"😎 is what💯 Vlogbrothers have ALWAYS done & what Nerdfighteria is ALL about❣
🖖DFTBA🖖
THANK YOU DR. Mack for giving us ALL a little touch of HOPE ❤
When doctor Mack discusses potential past life on Mars at 43:00 it's pretty funny to think that POTENTIAL evidence of past Mars life has been discovered this week. Getting the Samples back to earth will be difficult and will take a while, but there have been compounds detected that here on earth are mostly produced by life, in leaopard spot like patterns on the inside of rocks. These rocks were found in a place where water once flowed.
If you had spotted those kind of patterns in such a spot on earth, treating this as evidence for microbial life would be an easy assumption to make. To actually confirm if this is the case for Mars, we'll have to see in about 15 years or so, to have the samples brought to earth for further research.
No promises that life existed there yet, but we live in exciting times!
I absolutely love the sound of John's grin when he does the life insurance ad intros... Like he's tricked us.
I'm gonna be so sad when this series ends. Please do more like this!
I just want to say, as an atheist, that I absolutely do find awe in the world. So whether someone is theist or atheist or anywhere on that spectrum, these subjects about the universe and the likelihood of our universe existing as it does, life forming, intelligent technology based life forming, it still brings awe even if the wonder behind it isn't driven by a higher power belief system.
I’m very anxious too. Almost daily I think about how rare it is for us to exist and that my candle will get snuffed out eventually.
Those conversations are such a pleasure to listen to. Thank you for making them available 😊
Wonderful words by Dr. Mack, "....you'll be comforted to know that, at all moments, you are actually increasing the entropy of the universe because you are putting so much blood, sweat, and tears into trying to make that process of order that the total amount of entropy is still going up."
Oh man, this is what I needed today!
The discussion in this video of the unknown percentage of all planets with life that also have at least one "intelligent" species reminds me of another video: Alien Biospheres #15. The host spends the first 20 minutes of the video defining sapience, then goes on to ponder the evolutionary pressures that would favor the development of sapience. I had always been so concerned with the "how" that I had never stopped to consider the "why." I had never stopped to think before about how ridiculously unlikely it is that the difference between being intelligent and being sapient would be worth the cost to any species. Sitting here in front of my computer, it just seems obvious that you'd want to invent airplanes, compose symphonies, and talk to someone half-way across the world on the phone in French.
This series is so good, and ending this episode in this positive note was amazing. Thank you John, Dr. Mack, and the team behind that makes it possible
love this series! best of luck with the mental health! speak to as many friends and family as often as you can - there’s people that care 😊
To share the "wow" is joy.
John, we may be very small and weird, but that doesn't make us insignificant. It makes is very significant. We are an extremely rare configuration of already pretty-rare stuff and we have done things that do not occur anywhere else in the universe. I've mentioned in previous comments like this that both the hottest and the coldest places in the entire known universe are here on Earth, because we were curious so we made that happen so we could study them. Can you just imagine if some day in the far future the whole cosmos was teeming with complex networks of weird things like us doing things that have never been done before?
Informative as always. thanks.
I’m so glad I found this podcast. ❤
The distinction between chemistry and nuclear processes is the first time in this series I've found myself thinking: "Ackshully Mr Green, that's not quite right..." Every other summary has been spectacularly insightful.
More of these in my earholes please. Maybe delve into quantum mechanics next?
The heavier elements of this podcast give me a lot to think about.
Best episode yet.
so much cool stuff in this episode... including an idea for a story in my cauldron...
This whole series is soooo good... 👍
Kudos to the Paleogene Octopus People. They made the right decision.
So what I'm getting from this discussion of the anthropic principle and the sheer unlikelihood of a universe friendly to life is that we're here...because we're here...because we're here...
Great series. Thank you 😊
Our technology is advancing faster then our global knowledge... I hope we make it.
Mane, you said what I've been thinking.
Luvvit, guys. Keep making more
I hope both of you talk about the Dark Oxygen stuff
Eukaryotic life may have only shown up once, but endosymbiosis has happened at least a few times, and may still happen presently in some microorganisms. See Journey to the Microcosmos for details.
it's not a "Suburb", It's an uncharted backwater of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy.
Mostly Harmless
I love that they ended on humans benefit from sharing information and knowledge not only in the information passed on but also in the joy of passing it on. I feel you can hear the joy in Dr. Mack's voice at the very thought of teaching someone and seeing their understanding grow. I really enjoy CC and especially this series. Big thank you to all those involved in creating it, I hope you get the joy you deserve from sharing it with the world.
But we're definitely evolutionarily wired to feel that joy. It's from showing the kids how to knap rocks or to find the right roots or whatever. It's from older members telling stories to the band in the cold nights that warn of dangers the young ones haven't seen yet or opportunities that don't come up often. Or of sharing new experiences and ideas when different groups meet.
Huge advantages in all of that, for a technological species like ours.
Organic Hydrogen
LOL
I love your brain so much, John Green.
"Help those in inevitably leave behind"😂
Can we have a crash course pod about biology and life?
Have you checked out Journey to the Microcosmos yet?
24:14 Didn't know that John Green was actually Solanum (Outer Wilds)
AwesomeSauce!!!
Did PolicyG ask to sponsor the universe, or did they just happen to get picked?
Isn't it possible that there could have been a prior form intelligent of intelligent life on earth that left no trace behind that we can detect? The continental plates exposed today were not always present in the past. Anything that existed in areas of major glaciation would have been erased -- this includes much of North America, Europe, and Antarctica. Between volcanoes and glaciers, the surface of the earth is pretty new.
Why do I so often hear people say that we are "insignificant"? So far, earth is the only life we are aware of. Yet people will say it is "arrogant" to think it possible that life, as we define it, may only have happened here. There are events in the universe that only happen once, all the time: the big bang or yesterday. And as far as we can determine, life only happened ONCE here, on the very planet where it seems so abundant and resilient. We still have NO idea how it happened - here. And we don't see life spontaneously generating from any second sources either.
The point I'm trying to make is that our rarity doesn't seem insignificant to me at all.
Sorry for this, John.
How do you, personally, reconcile All Of This with observations? If you need to ask Hank, I'm fine with that. I'll hold here.
Written language is one of the big game changers between us and other terrestrial animals. It appears that speaking in air works better than through water. Many aquatic creatures seem highly intelligent but lack the ability to pass it on.
Can't whales communicate across like thousands of kilometers of ocean? Why do you say air is better?
💖✨
Me listening to this while extracting DNA 🧬... I think i just gave myself an existential crisis 😅😅😅
💞🖖💫
One thing I think about often is we have gone through 2 mass extinctions and if there were civilizations out there they may have come and gone by now they could have guilt rocket ships and faster than light space ships been here and said Nope thats not the one and moved on its just a possibility .
5 mass extinctions in the Phanerozoic eon, more in the Proterozoic eon.
First! And also grest video
The universe is so unrealistic.
whale whale whale what do we have here?!?!?
I don't know man there are a lot of coincidences happening in this series
First
There's more to be in awe of than any group or man or woman can possibly imagine.