know about that. but somebody else's to die. this is foreign to me. he t >> there is a story about your wther and his world war two experience, but there's also a'a story about you taking a trial t run to canada. >> just call world war ii. worl. i was in many of those island battles right on the beaches. hc until this one story in theirda review was in the battle of newa britain. it was a friendly fire incident- where he and his unit had takend a hell. and t the american planes, that the in third japanese. they strafed the hill. i think every guy in my dad'sadt

unit was shot, one was killed, 13 were wounded.nded everyone was shot but my dad.ut the only one that did not get o shot by these american planesici coming and taking their japanes. and he told me, you know,meou ko growing up, every christmas dayc he remembers and is grateful fo, being alive. somehow he is survived that incidents. survid and i tell the longer story in the book. my incident, of course to my was opposed to thwae vietnam war, ad said earlier, and that became your draft age. age i am thinking, what am i goingil to do? i i'm not going to kill vietnamese . g to and so i and some buddies, we decided that we were, i don't know, 6917 years old. we were not appointed to jail,il we were not born to go doice service, some other service that you could do for the government. we dec we decided that regard to moveoe

to canada. we knew nothing about canada. one day we took a car and above over to port huron, mich., to do a dry run to see how we woulddrn escape to canada if we had to. e we get over there and forget the motor to the book. so we decided to try and take the car crossed the bridge. we felt we would be met with all this military checkpoints. all scared and the other guy are smoking so they could relaxs i didn't do any drugs, was the s designated driver.esignate and so i tell the story about the across the blue rubber bridge and into canada, our greatest a. great es of course the next year there i the draft lottery and my number came up, 2703 or something like that. drafted i was not drafted. >> richard from richmond virginia, thank you for holding. you're on with michael moore.>>m >> an absolute pleasure to be today.ng with you this afternoon.

oing?r. you d >> t >> thank you.ing doing well. >> i have a question to ask. i contacted my local american cancer society, an event that there will be holding. i suffered from a brain injury i and some onjther illnesses can i your piece was absolutely beautiful, i love this,. beautiful. my question, sir is, how do io approach or how would i go abouo approaching the american cancer society concerning a study that they did in 1974 with michaeln moore c -- t hc shrinking tumos in mice and then not wanting to go that direction.dire

>> actually, i do have someemoro memory of somethingf about thatt i cannot speak to it. i will say this.e michael moore see is the active ingredient in marijuana. cou know, our drug laws in this country are just so of work. and things like that where medical marijuana, they use its- to help people, i think years from now historians regard to historack at this air and wonder why we did something likeia thie you know, i would say for you, y and a good questions like this all the time, actually, from people who, you know, have seenn the movie in need help, some medical problem or their hmoo wt won't pay for them to see asee a rememberese in remember, these insurance companies want to provide fizzle

care as possible.y at a seven make a profit. and so i would say to you, sir, that definitely get behind --tee there are organizations that art trying to free up the studies, ae these. there there are people who have been fighting the fda for a long timg because they take so long withn treatments that are being usedur in europe and other places and not being used here.he robert, the fda, of course, isa, controlled and they essentially, a lobbyist, companies and other comp nto of aan vested interest insti prit and profit. in "sicko" i told the story in,d my last film. l invented the polio vaccine, and people were shocked that he did not want to trade market, did not want to copyrighted.copyrig

he decided to just give it awayi for free to the american peoplen to the world., to t he tho said he thought it would be immoral if he were to ownhat that will make a profit off of he s that.w he said, you know what, doctor,, researcher, i get a great salar, whatey, live in a big house. what more do i need to? i did this for the people.peop. where is that, where is that sense? ab and you talk about patriotism. not and not just america, but the fr d.rld. we don't have that much. i sure would like to see more of it. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> deepak chopra and leonard mlodinow debate whether science or religion for is the best foundation for understanding the world. this is about 50 minutes.

>> my name is shelton zuckerman. i am one of the founders of the sixth inaugural so far, and i welcome you for what should be a very interesting evening. the building we are sitting in, 103 years old. it has always been a place of spirituality. it gives dr. deepak chopra a little bit of an engine test discussion, but i am confident that it will be very even-handed the end of the day. the building belonged to a number of iterations, originally the second home of the real congregation for 50 years. it was the home of the turner memorial a.m. each church for 40 years, and the historic synagogue. tonight's event is very typical of the type of event that we try to do, great people, very interesting topics, and things that people are interested in.

corporate pro wrestling always wants me to announce when i do generally i don't, but i have to tell you this. i look at the next author is coming couple's tonight's. john paul stevens and diane keaton, so we really, you guys did some great stuff. i have to think jackie for that. [applause] [applause] it is an honor to have dr. deepak chopra, the author of one of 60 books -- more than 60 books and a fellow of -- and time magazine named him one of the most 100 iconic people of

the 20th-century. pretty impressive. also nothing, a pushover. he will be teaching at caltech. a renowned physicist and author of several books, including the trucker walk, how randomness rules our lives. the new york times bestsellers list. also writing collaborator. the moderator tonight is timothy shriver, very lucky to have him tonight, the chairman and ceo of the special olympics. social leaders, educators the muslim producer, to bernard, and lives one street over for me. very, very connected. we are going to have questions tonight from the audience. it will be on index cards. around 715 we will have someone pick them up. after tonight's talk we are going to have a short reception

downstairs sponsored by the foundation and wheezing kemper that. and they should be an interesting moment because we're going to hear from different guests. these conversations, so, please join me now in welcoming the three gentlemen, dr. deepak chopra, leonard mlodinow. [applause] [applause] >> they tudor much. the bank. >> good evening. thank you. good evening. of would like to add my welcome to everyone here and say right at the outset that i feel that i have been in many calumny

distinguished and learned in my life, but i have never been as out of my league is i am tonight [applause] have any of you read the book? be honest. okay. good. so that means that it actually took me three times reading it to understand it. it does not make me feel bad, because none of you have anything over me. >> it makes me feel bad. >> it is actually an extraordinary book, and i hope you will all give it a try in the near future. it is entitled, as you all know, war of the world you -- "war of the worldviews." my only gripe with the book is the word war. i would like -- and i don't think, frankly, i don't think -- yeah, i don't think -- i don't think tonight we will have to work and at least i hope not. i think we're wrong to have an extraordinary writs discussion with a few people who have arguably insight into the

scientific and spiritual world. tree, and i am very misleading for to it. one of my credentials to pray that i would be the shortstop for the boston red sox [laughter] it did not come through. i prayed that i would win wimbledon, and that is not happen either. i have a lot of experience with frustration in religion and i read the book killing 600 miles-per-hour 6 miles above the earth to me and you cannot help but remember the men drinking a cup of coffee, as most of you have done in an airplane, on top of the ocean, you cannot help but be reminded that everywhere we go today something extraordinary, something unbelievable even. so we stand in the world that is

hungry for the spirit and fascinated by science and conflicted about where those two ideas lead us. so without any further talking from me i am going to turn it over to the expert, and i am going to start just by asking a very broad question, which is, first always is really good, what is really good of the spirituality? [laughter] >> talking about science. >> what is very good of the science, you are mentioning it, we are all here. we are here. but we have eliminated a number of these. we have instantly connected

ourselves. science and technology. rewire and really create solyndra tree. that is, i could go on and on. what is really good of the science is that the riches, the possibility, and the significance, the awesome this of god. that is what is really good. why? imagine creating the universe in an instance instead of taking seven days? imagine creating a big bang that simultaneously appears everywhere. it was not any particular location. before that there was that this

pace. it appeared everywhere, and we know that. radiation, micron radiation comes from all sides. imagine taking a dot smaller than the end of the sentence and sending it across billions of light years of space and time. that is omnipotence. imagine the precise loss, so precise as if there were off by even a fraction or fraction we will have a universe. i think we have done guns will by squeezing got into the volume of the body that spend a lifetime giving him a real identity and putting him somewhere in ethic background and saying, this cut is the

creator of the universe. much more awesome. [applause] [applause] >> so when u.s. what it is the spirituality, answer that question. well, one level lows spirituality in general that i think is very important to and if you're a scientist is very hope to have important to my hope, that if he realized because you're a scientist does not mean your spiritual person. the other level is spirituel become and i admire his spirituality. the freeing yourself in treating other people with respect. he has me hesitating. i like to meditate. i think it is very good for you. i recommended.

i also think that spirituality, being a spiritual person and being able to appreciate the human condition and your place in the world makes signs of a much more awesome. so there is a great complementarity there. that's and mechanical term. >> right. but let's start than with science. outside of measure ability, measure. correct me. proven to be true and therefore

should not be accepted. >> well, i talked about science as the way a look of understanding the world. when you try to understand the world you should exclude yourself. science is a way of understanding the wall as it is without interference. thousands of years ago people probably have the same questions that have today, why is the world the way it is, why are there earthquakes? one of the planets all about, those lights in the sky. and thousands of years ago people thought it was just the fascinating story. chasing another wolf. and after a while we develop a way of approaching the same problem. but the last 200 years, we develop other methods.

and science at stability. so you don't just give an opinion, but you require the theory, make it possible. the problem to understanding the way the world, with us, that idea has been enormous. it is much greater than all the thousands of years before that. but science is that the into to all questions. sizes of its london meeting of life. size is not explain why you feel love. cestas that explain why things are here. finally, it should not be required to. on the other hand, spirituality, answers other questions, and often the spirituality, one of talking about answers to physical issues, personal questions. country toward we observe and science. some argue about that.

what would you believe the creation story. religions can offer something to people, but they said things that are purely not right. people tend, i always wonder, believe literally in the bible. the bible says that homosexuals should be killed, children did this affect their parents should be killed. we would have no one left. the people, you know, people who talk about creationism and taking the bible literally tens to ignore that. don't know how they get around ignoring that, those passages in the bible. they take the other parts literally. and i don't understand that. a think that they should recognize that in some ways the bible is just updated. >> so, when leonard writes about pretty powerful case that sign says unlocked the secrets that

are beyond anyone's imagination, even a couple of hundred years ago. of the brain functions canal the extraordinary pace, now we know end. you are suggesting that consciousness is this concept that you cannot measure, you can see, you cannot touch, you cannot get a microscope around it, but it is there. everyone knows it is there, when no one can measure it. >> he stated the dilemma very, very nicely. actually talking about it. consciousness is what is talking right now. if i wasn't i could never articulate what i am saying if you listen to me.

what the mistake this science is making, by the way, the end of the book, science does not explain. but for no. >> for now. >> it will soon enough. >> yes. [laughter] >> for now, but here is the basic problem. and this is an accepted problem because the problem, here is the heart problem. our military, imagine this continual see it? >> i can. >> the face of your mother. >> this idea, no picture, electrochemical like judy. you're having -- while we can

see the correlation, you have no way of explaining, science is not even have a model to explain the electrochemical activity in subjective experience, this is what life is about. so many units of oxytocin. love is an experience. the taste of red wine is the experience. so all experiences observed in our consciousness, they cannot find it by looking at the brain. the reason they can't find it is consciousness is doing the looking. how do you find something that is always the observer in the object of observation? >> look in the near. >> that's it. so the list of consciousness. live in the mayor.

the only experience of consciousness itself awareness. that's it. consciousness is the self. the self in of the self only by looking at the self. alkanet find. so right now as you're listening to my want you to have a brief experience, as you're listening to me, just turn your attention. "you listen to me? that is awareness. that is consciousness. even though while you were experiencing you were saying, what the heck is that disturbance, that sarah, i wish i had not -- i wish to have gone to the bathroom before this started. that is your mind.

that experience, you know, consciousness, this is what all experiences. this is not what david chalmers, scientifically based philosopher said is a heart problem. he and others expect that. it is a type problem because we're looking for, business. >> so when he talks that way i was thinking. [laughter] >> you have to really work car appear. i was struck. i remember the quote from the great scientists, the early revolution, passed out, he said the hard as reasons, but reasons don't count. i talk to myself, at some level is seems that he is just saying, the race scientists just saying

there is more than one way of knowing. the way in which science knows might be complemented by complete the way of knowing. >> i believe that. a way of knowing yourself and the way of knowing the world. but you have to be careful because sometimes you can have an overlap. he believes that this effort. there is some other stuff. there is some other rome that he can talk about. everything is connected. [laughter] and i believe that consciousness, whenever it is, it comes from the brain. and there's a lot of evidence that the sensations in the human mind comes from the brain. people have thought, members or

experience color. we are beginning to learn where the emotions come from and how the brain works. i am not saying that by doing that we're learning the meaning of life or about ourselves. >> is there a meaning to life in science? >> size is not necessarily. i mean, science is just a typical thing. what science is about is, here is the universe, here's the situation. and i'm going to tell you what would happen, you know, second or a minute later. and budgets so you how this operates. >> i don't know why that should be required of science. to me -- >> allow the question. >> you can come up to me in signalling yes. cooking is very important. it is a separate issue, a separate problem. and i think, you know, we get

into the problem and the difficulties and turn in a sense of what it does not matter. >> he says explicitly in the book that science cannot explain consciousness. >> i did not say that science to the spine consciousness. as of the mind and the body and not the same thing. aside, the body. >> okay. no brain right now how we have free will. in the previous book, steven hawking. at think we all think that we have it. no brain can tell you the mechanics of creativity or imagination. the geneticists and the neurosciences of harvard who is actually joseph b. kennedy.

the professor who explicitly says today to us that he is a neuroscience. where and how the back and also, a little bit, we all said we don't know. >> is the spirituality? his spirituality just finding what science is no and sank, off -- >> no. spirituality is also asking yourself the meeting of my existence. do i have a soul? was the meeting? is he or she or it care of me? >> is there any read in wrong answer? question as a bid? >> yes, sorry. >> it think there is one thing that i want to make clear. size does not explain everything and it may never, but keep in

mind, the people understanding everything, but just think a thousand years ago people did not understand what caused an eclipse. people came along. well, we don't understand what it is. it might be the moon jumping across the sky. just because we don't understand consciousness and things right now we should not just grab on to any explanation light will jump across the sky.

there are levels of reality. >> i didn't hear him say that. >> no i said for instance where does the -- come from? science can never answer that. do you know why? if you are going to answer that how would you answer where the slots games from coming to have other laws and you would say where did those laws come from? physics by definition starts with laws or some principles and arrive at consequences. this can never answer the question where did those laws come from, who created the laws immigrated those laws? that's outside the law physics. spy vaidya physics do not acknowledge that there is a first cause? >> a first cause of the universe? >> of the laws are of anything. >> in "the grand design" stephen hawkins and i exclusively said that six can explain where the laws come from and if you want to call that god we have no objection to that.

universe. >> we also talked about -- >> the laws of physics. >> thomas aquinas and aristotle, first cause, the first mover, that's got. >> what we are saying is the universe -- the board. >> that's not quite the same thing as saying the universe, the maximum creation of the universe. universe and the laws of physics are two separate things. i don't think thomas aquinas was talking about the laws of physics. but we can also ask ourselves what we gain by saying okay, that's got. that's fine but where does that get us? >> that answer gets us into humility and reverence. it gets us into -- >> you quote einstein. physicists have a lot of -- >> einstein says in his book -- >> he was a physicist wright? >> he was a physicist and he said he was humbled and to

reference in the rationality of the universe and first of all you can't measure reference in units of energy and secondly if it's a rational universe it's incomprehensible to us and it could have a rational source. but yet another objection i have two the scientific method that does not acknowledge consciousness -- you know, leonard says that science is based on the experimentation and observation. where is experiment designed? and consciousness. wears observation made? and consciousness. we have no scientific explanation for consciousness. right there, you were growing the rules. you are saying that we can have an explanation in the absence of consciousness and science needs consciousness to extend anything

and consciousness does not need science to extend anything. all it needs is -- >> just a couple of things. one is that deepak seems to be characterizing scientists is not as not being able to have an ought and wonder of nature even as he was quoting einstein and let me say that's very important for any physicist. who is going to spend their life if you are smart guy and go to law school and make a ton of money. instead you choose to sit in some dark office working on paper all day on these equations all day and all night with no hope or no promise of any particular success and you do that because you do have ought and wonder in the universe and you want to know how it works. >> that is spiritual. >> i said spirit child is in important for scientist. scientist don't believe that we will jump across the sky. [laughter] that has become my icon for your for philosophy. >> there is not one person in

this room that believes that. >> to me, you do. >> i do? when did you hear me say that? beato mean that literally. >> in any case. the other thing deepak said that the scientists deny consciousness and i don't know where that comes from. scientist not only don't deny consciousness there are scientist studying consciousness. scientist admits that they don't, they can't just say where it comes from. science is progressive in small steps, carefully and the science -- scientists will start talking about what consciousness is when they have a good idea what it is but just can't because they can explain it doesn't mean that they denied. >> what is the most prominent strident fundamentalist atheist it his personal

agenda to say this. that is not a very scientific attitude. i think his attitude is scientific even though he chooses words and buzzing eclipses. >> plausible. >> one thing i can say about leonard, he is really intellectual integrity. we have spent a lot of time together and i will say that you know, he has intellectual integrity but there are fundamentalists and science -- scientists who will make statements like the god delusion and all -- have an agenda. >> a lot of people and deepak in fairness, a lot of people that may be a first cause has some, you could make a case that is justifiable as the definition of god or something that people, people get uncomfortable with because from the idea of the first cause or consciousness, religions tend to make up a lot

of rules and ideas and plans and programs that drive people kind of -- spirituality, to say that of spirit is another and to then say this is how you ought to live is another. the claims that people who are spiritual make as leonard points out in the book are not really experimental. how do you know whether it's better to be peaceful or warlike or whether it's better to be anxious or calm, whether it's better to in this situation do this or that but religion and spiritual traditions tend to say this is the right way to go inside his come along and say how do you know? >> can we separate religious dogma from religious experience? see what i want you to help us answer is how do you defend the inevitable need that in a spiritual leader has to say things about the world based on

your spirituality that will inevitably leads to a conflict? >> well, hg wells said gorelick he is just jealousy with a halo. [laughter] i think morality, imposed morality is immoral but the religious experience which gives you an experience of unity consciousness spontaneously brings about what is called platonic quality, a yearning for platonic quality tour duty, resolution, peace, social justice, harmony, love, compassion, equanimity. this is the religious experience that is a spontaneous expression of transcendence, of being connected to the god or whatever you want to call it. so i think if you understand the religious experience, you know,

jesus had a religious experience and then of course the devil came and said, let's institutionalize it and call it religion. [laughter] >> so you believe in the devil? >> i believe that everything has its opposite just like particles have anti-particles and the universe would be meaningless if it was not one of contrast. when i say devil i think of it metaphorically. >> but so, for those of us in leonard two refers to this in the book those of us who lived through the 20th century, one of the great challenges to people who say that god is good, often beautiful, unifying and harmonious ephedra is obviously the experience of the holocaust or the experience of a confrontation with evil or the sense in which nothing good could allow.

>> the evolutionary impulse in creation. >> why would god if there is such a first cause, that being is good and true -- why is it made the wait is? >> if you think of being the infinite it contains everything. weatherwise by definition it is not infinite. that's the difference between eastern wisdom traditions and some of the western traditions. they want god to conform to their ideas of how things should be. in fact when god is the infinite of all things. there are many faces of the divine and it is our job to see where our free will allows us to align with the revolutionary impulse with the destructive impulse but it's that consciousness by definition that contains everything. >> even the bad? >> of course. we see the back, don't we?

at the stage of development. it's a spiritual stage of development. we have stages of development. why can't we have stages of development in spirituality? >> i was thinking of stage of development, whatever we are calling god. i just don't know why she would have made -- >> if you look of the world right now there is less violence today, less racism, less bigotry, less of everything that a thousand years ago if you lived in this country, a few hundred years ago, women could not work in this century so we are improving in our evolution and that's part of the spiritual track. what i also have to say in that spiritual quest, we have and i should phrase this very carefully because i know blended

well enough, i have to phrase it very carefully. science devoid of spirituality has given modern capacity that risks our extinction. it has given us mechanized death, nuclear weapons, global warming, climate chaos. i saw a program the other day, where on television, where there are people in civilian uniforms or civilian clothes. they work worked 9 to 5 jobs, they take cigarettes and coffee breaks and a day home at 5:00 and play with their children and go to sleep but they have been moving a mouse on the computer to move drones and faraway places that have killed sometimes a few hundred people and they don't have any connection, a spiritual

connection to that. this is diabolical creativity that if i can say to you, if there will be a mass extinction of our civilization, it will be because of modern capacity lengths to primitive spiritual development. >> you so leonard, doesn't science really, shouldn't science and grade advanced thinkers like you another people that are applying physics to technology shouldn't you ask for spiritual guidance almost daily? >> i think so. i think all people should be looking for spiritual guidance daily and deepak uses the example a lot, and i'm not quite sure what he is getting out the cause the scientist like everyone else, like you and everyone in the audience, are moral people. they shouldn't do evil things but that's not really the question here. the question and at issue is how do we get knowledge? how do we obtain it or do we

want to limit x. if you want to limit science we can make an argument that we should just stop signs because there will be evil people whether they are scientists or engineers or even people that will just read the book. you can make an atom bomb but anyone, the crazy thing is want to get the knowledge, people can apply. scientists are the ones who are seeking the knowledge, not the ones who are making things from what we know generally speaking. i don't want to get letters on this. but, people, so the question is, is a dangerous to have knowledge? that is what he is talking about. what's the colleges they are evil people can do evil things with the. >> isn't knowledge on couple for morals, from ethics? >> i think knowledge is not the goal. wisdom is the goal. we need wisdom, not knowledge. knowledge can be defined and it can be diabolical. >> is physics bring wisdom? >> it should. physics as you said, should seek

the guidance of those who understand the human spirit and then let's make our science, which we have a technology. we have the means today to resurrect some species that are disappearing. we have the technology today to correct global warming. we have the technology today to harness solar energy. why are we paying attention to these technologies more than we are paying attention to mechanized death? >> can i say i'm a scientist but i agree with you? this isn't a failure of science. it's a failure of the people in the town. is the failure of the policies. [laughter] do you think scientists wake up in the morning and say i think i want to work on weapons today? the government pays companies to do this kind of research and if you don't like it then vote them out of office but don't say science is a bad methodology for understanding the universe

because you don't like some of the ways people use it. >> who says that? >> you seem to be saying that. is that science has to incorporate subjectivity in spirituality. >> people need to incorporate those things. >> is part of the human experience. the human experience is modern documentation of data. the human experience is everything, everything you do including the scientific research is because of a subjective motivation. >> and yet if we are going to measure elements properties are in a bad move that we better works of the science has to be different. >> does matter if you are in a bad mood. >> exactly, thank you. scientist trying to avoid this human bias and i think deepak agrees with me about that. >> a couple of questions from the audience and this is picking up on this issue to leonard. can there be ultimate rights and

wrongs? [laughter] >> this is a question. i'm a scientist. i'm not a theologian and i'm not a psychologist. >> but would you allow it? i mean in other words, what question do we really want to ask scientists? sometimes it's like why the size seems so it irritated by religion these days, by spirituality and by the question of right or wrong? >> i know you are not. on behalf of a lot of people who are angry. >> scientists get irritated by some of the uses of religion today when politicians say god told me to run or that evolution is wrong or that you know global warming is just a theory. when people look at the results in and the hard work of scientists who really know a lot

and test their theories and come up with results that are verifiable and other people who ardently think about it at all it to get votes. that is what irritates me and deepak agrees with me on that. >> the books that amend reid britain recently, the dawkins book, the hitchens books, these big a seller seemed to capture a level of anger. >> the capture the anger of the people who are angry at what i just described so they are tapping into that and the other thing, they are making a buck and it's great. they are either make a buck or getting a vote. >> i can answer that question. i think everything has a context. is it fair to go to germany and get rid of the man who was, --

because of the holocaust. you have to take things in context. >> deepak? science and religion. exley i think it's for is for both of you, are often used to justify human superiority, human consciousness, the human mind in the human capacity is the root of science. religion tend to put people at the center of meaning and value. aren't both guilty of making human superior over all other creatures of the creatures and all other beings? >> i mean you are talking about i guess, you talk about science is making people and biologists, who talk about how humans are different? >> i'm not sure. the questions from the audience. in the book you point out humans have reached a level of consciousness, a level of intellectual capacity and wonder, curiosity that allows them to reason in a way that

other animals can't do. it suggest that human beings have a special -- >> it's easy to compare a human with a sparrow and we all agree that the human can reason a little better but i don't think scientists have to field and a strange superiority to other animals, that they have some greater worth. scientists are studying the brains of the animal's behavior and what the different species are. >> my response is that the human being is a paradoxical species. we are the only species that can create, that can yearn for the divine, they can have that longing for meaning and purpose, that have created art, science, civilization. so that is the amazing part of us, but as i said, the human species is also the predator on our planet that has gotten rid of other species, who is risking

its own extinction. i was talking to an evolutionary biologist the other day. he said, if insects disappear from our planet life will dissolve on this planet in five years. [inaudible] if you look at it from a cosmic perspective, we are multiplying. we are metastasizing. and we are risking our extinction after 14 billion years of creation. we can do this in the next 100 years? so that's the price you pay for free well. and it's our responsibility today, do i want to harness our collective creativity and our collective imagination to become the next evolutionary impulse or the first cause or do we want

to -- >> is spirituality human only? do sparrows have spirituality? >> i think every living form is connected to the spirit. how cannot the it's a -- if it's alive? in fact animals are much more innocent and we are and therefore in a sense much more peer and unconditioned. >> so, unfortunately these are all good questions and i think one that i really want to know the answer is from leonard. which episode of "star trek" did you work on? [laughter] >> now we get to the real importance that. i worked on the second season. i was what was called the story editor. rewriting episodes became and that my partner and i wrote one of the shows are cells. is called the -- excuse my french. and it was leslie's first girlfriend. she was raised on one planet to be separated from the ruling class and she was being transported to her home planet

and had never seen another -- a very spiritual episode deepak. had never seen another of her species, had never been in love and fell in love with wesley but she was not supposed to fall in love with someone of another species certainly and she happened to be guided by an evil shape shifter. it got a little tense for a while. that was my scientific it spiritual episode of "star trek," the next-generation. [laughing] >> a couple of questions that came from "the washington post" which we were obliged to share and you both have to take a swing at these. the first one is for those of us who put faith in science what constructive responses can we make and statements by those without scientific training who attack scientific findings? for example, how do you respond to those who claim that hurricanes are the wrath of god?

>> through education. >> just education? >> yet, through education. >> religious people do this all the time. coincidence happens. god just made this coincidence happened. i just ran into my old god -- friend, it must have been god's work. that's never true, that god did not put us here together? >> no, i wouldn't say that. i think we have a choice to do what we want and you know, natural disasters have causes that we can't explain. like earthquakes but some natural disasters like hurricanes, we know humans have a lot to do with it with the climate chaos. you have to examine each case carefully. i would say a lot of the weather is -- we are definitely responsible for it but i wouldn't lay in god for everything. >> so leonard what would make

them more effective lyrical leader? a person of science, or a person of faith? >> a person of faith meaning a person who believes and what? >> can't a scientist be a person of faith? is it exclusive? >> well, a scientist or a spiritual person. >> i think if you can have attorneys as politicians you shoot and they should be able to have citizens. [applause] >> it think you need a spiritual person, person who believes in the human spirit who cares about people, who cares about community and helping other people and it would be good to have someone who understand understands science once in a while. i say we go for the gold and try and get those. >> and i say, something that politicians understand very well intuitively? they know that people pretend to be intellectual but they are

actually bristling with emotion and nobody ever makes a decision based on rationality. they make emotional decisions, and politicians understand that. there is a biological reason for that. our emotions raise about 100 billion years and evolution and our particle brain is only 4 million years of the emotional brain in many ways is wiser and older and people respond to that intuitively, so it's not what the politician is saying but what they feel about what the politician is saying. >> so maybe we just start to get ready to close. i thought it might be worth remembering steve jobs today. his contributions are obtusely enormous and many many ways. it's well-known, stanford commencement speech among the things he said was this. death is very likely, the single best invention of life.

it is life change agents. so i guess the question is, did life invent death? did the universe, to the first invent death? >> death makes life possible. if we didn't -- every part of your body is dying right now so it can be re-created. the cells die every five days. you were a child in a child is dead. you were a teenager. in biology we have a term which means crow grams cellular death where they cells die and they become cancerous. a cancer cell is one that doesn't know how to die. we re-create the cell through the mechanism of death. steve lives on. anytime i use a handheld device on my computer, steve's consciousness is in my body and that is how we survive in each

other's consciousness and that is where we are right now in each other's consciousness. >> do you think steve lives on leonard? >> i think he lives on through the people who love him, yeah. i also agree with deepak that without death, the earth would quickly be overrun by old fogey's and there would be no food. >> this would be a fossilized universe. >> death is a necessary part of life at least if you are going to reproduce and we all like to do that. [laughing] >> we can agree on that. well i think i started by saying all the things that i pray for that i did not get. >> and i have this? the chicago cubs, they may not be winning the world series but getting in. >> you have to pray a little harder on that one i think. but i think we are enormously

grateful that the two of you have taken and put so much effort into helping the average reader understand their the worldviews of physics and the emerging worldview of a new kind of spirituality that deepak is champion. it is a very general and in the kind of spirituality we think of when i think of religious institutions but also we remember the great call of israel toward our god as one. the way that prayer begins which i am sure has been spoken very many times from this place. the unity that comes from the ancient traditions, however crazy. i think the only thing these two guys agree on is how much they don't like the catholic church and i happen to be a catholic. they'll institutions that gets pilloried is the catholic church. [laughing] >> i wrote a book called the dash go. >> i know you like jesus. i know you like jesus.