Kind: captions
Language: en
so a quick and impossibly deep question
last question about mortality you spoken
about death as an interesting topic do
you think about your own mortality yeah
every day it's really scary so what do
you think is the meaning of life that
mortality makes very explicit so why are
you here on earth
Michael what's the point of this whole
thing what you know what does mortality
in in the context of the whole universe
make you realize about yourself just you
Michael Stevens well it makes me realize
that I am destined to become an ocean
I'm destined to become a memory and we
can extend life I think there's really
exciting things being done to extend
life but we still don't know how to like
you know protect you from some accident
that could happen you know some
unforeseen thing maybe we could like
save my connectome and like recreate my
consciousness digitally but even that is
could it could be lost if it's stored on
a physical medium or something so
basically I just think that embracing
and realizing how cool it is that like
someday I will just be an idea and there
won't be a Michael anymore that can be
like no that's not what I meant
it'll just be what people like they have
to guess what I meant and they'll
remember me and how I live on and as
that memory will will maybe not even be
who I wanted to be but there's something
powerful about that and there's
something powerful about letting future
people run the show themselves I think I
I'm glad to get out of their way at some
point and say all right it's your world
now so you the physical entity Michael
has have ripple effects in the space of
ideas that far out lives you yeah in
ways you can't control but
nevertheless fascinating to think I mean
especially with you you can imagine an
alien species when they finally arrive
and destroy all of us would watch your
videos to try to figure out what what
were the questions but even if they
didn't you know I still think that there
will be ripples like when I say memory I
don't specifically mean people remember
my name and my birthdate and hat like
there's a photo of me on Wikipedia like
all that can be lost but I still would
hope that people ask questions and and
and teach concepts in some of the ways
that I have found useful and satisfying
even they don't know that I was the one
who tried to popularize it that's fine
but if Earth was completely destroyed
like burnt to a crisp everything on it
today
what would the universe wouldn't care
like Jupiter's not gonna go oh no and
that could happen because so we do
however have the power to you know
launch things into space to try to
extend how long our memory exists and
what I mean by that is you know we are
recording things about the world and
we're learning things and writing
stories and all of this and and
preserving that is truly what I think is
the essence of being a human we are Auto
biographers of the universe and we're
really good at it we're better than
fossils we're better than light spectrum
we're better than any of that we collect
much more detailed memories of what's
happening much better data and so that
should be our legacy and I hope that
that's that's kind of mine too
in terms of people remembering something
or having some kind of effect but even
if I don't you can't not have an effect
right that's saying this is not me
feeling like I hope that I have this
powerful legacy it's like no matter who
you are you will but you also have to
embrace the fact that that impact might
look really small and that's okay one of
my favorite quotes is from Tess of the
d'Urbervilles and it's along the lines
of the the measure of your life
depends on not your external
displacement but your subjective
experience if I am happy and those that
I love are happy can that be enough
because if so excellent
you