what is complicated or complicate what is simple, to try and understand -- to respect strength, never power. above all, to watch, to try and understand, to never look away and never, never to forget. thank you. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> next on booktv, michio kaku talks about the latest advances

in brain science. he says that our understanding of the to brain and technological advancements make it possible to now record our memories and dreams, communicate telepathically and control robots with our minds. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> well, after such a great introduction, i can't wait to hear this speaker myself. [laughter] sometimes all these introductions can backfire. recently, new york magazine voted me as one of the 100 smartest people in new york city. [laughter] i thought, wow, what an honor. but this all fairness, in all

fairness i have to admit that madonna also made that same list. [laughter] and i understand that next year lady gaga is going to push me off the list entirely. [laughter] now, today i'm going to talk about the future, the future of the mind. and let me say that talking about the future is dangerous. let me quote from that great philosopher of the western world, yogi berra. [laughter] yogi berra once said, quote: prediction is awfully hard to do, especially if it's about the future ooh. [laughter] well, i'm a physicist. we can predict the future of the universe billions of years into the future. so let me quote from that other great philosopher, woodley allen -- woody allen. he once said, quote: eternity is an awful long time, especially toward the end. [laughter]

well, you may say to yourself, what does a physicist know about the mind? what does a physicist know about daily life? well, we are the ones who invented the transistor. we invented the laser. we helped to assemble the first computer and the internet. we wrote the worldwide web with. and along the way we invented television. we invented radio, radar, microwaves, x-ray machines. and don't forget, we created the space program and the gps satellite. and we physicists love to headache predictions. -- make predictions. when we helped to assemble the internet once it was predicted that the internet would bomb a forum of -- would become a forum of high culture and high society. [laughter] well, today we know that 5% of

the internet is pornography. [laughter] but that's because teenage boys log on to the internet. [laughter] just wait until the grandmas and grandpas log on to the internet. then 50% of the internet will be pornography. [laughter] and again, you may say to yourself, well, how does physics differ from chemistry or the other sciences? well, let me tell you a little story. during world war ii, once the nazis captured a bunch of american scientists, and they called them spies. spies. and so they were about to be executed by firing squad. there was a geologist, a physicist and a chemist about to be shot by the firing squad by the nazis. well, they lined them up, and then just as they were about to push the trigger all of a sudden the geologist says, earthquake!

earthquake! well, chaos broke out. and then in the chaos, the geologist snuck away. well, now it was just the physicist and the chemist. they were lined up in the firing squad, and then suddenly the physicist said, lightning, lightning! well, in the chaos, the feds cyst sneaks -- the physicist sneaks away. now it's just the chemist. so they lined up the rifles, and all of a sudden the chemist says, fire, fire! [laughter] sometimes it just doesn't pay. [laughter] so anyway, today i'm going to talk about the future of the mind. ever since i was a child i've been fascinated by two things. first, i've been fascinated by outer space, by the origin of the universe. in fact, that's what i do for a living. that's my day job.

however, i've also been fascinated by inner space. what lurks on your shoulders? it's the most complex object in the known universe. if we were to create a computer that can simulate the brain, the computer would be the size of a city block. that's how big the computer would be. energy would require a nuclear power plant to fire it up and a river to cool it down. but your brain operates on 20 watts of power. so when someone calls you a dim bulb, that's a compliment. [laughter] and you don't need a nuclear power plant to energize your brain, just a hamburger is fine. [laughter] so how is it possible? well, my latest book, "the future of the mind," i'm proud to say is now number one on "the new york times" bestseller list. [applause]

so i'm not the only one fascinated by the mind, because the book is now the number one hard cover book in the united states. but my previous book was also a bestseller, "physics of the future," in fact, they tell me this is the first time this world history -- in the world history that the word "physics" entered "the new york times" bestseller list. [laughter] and i did it twice. [laughter] in "physics of the impossible," i even go 500 years into the future when we have starships, teleportation, maybe even time travel. and i answer the question what happens the you go into a time machine -- if you go into a time machine, go back in time to meet your teenage mother before you're born and she falls in love with you? [laughter] well, if you're a teenage mother who falls in love with you

before you're born, you're in deep do-do if that happens. [laughter] so let us talk about the two greatest mysteries in the universe; the origin of the universe and what's sitting on your shoulders. inner space and outer space. and last year the politicians got wind of the excitement. we've learned more in the last five to ten years about the mind than in all of human history combined. president barack obama last year got wind of this, and in his state of the union address announced the brain initiative. just like the human genome project changed the course of medicine giving us a disk with all our genes on it, obama announceed the brain initiative with the europeans.

$1 billion, that's billion with a b, not an m, will be devoted to creating a map, map of the brain. just think of it, we will have the genome and the connectome, all the neural connections of the mind on a disk. the short-term goal is to cure mental illness. mental illness has been with us since biblical times, even the bible mentions mental illness. but if we have a connectome and we have the genome on two disks, then in some sense if you die, you live forever. you live forever this some sense because your personality, your memories, your wants and desires are coded inside a disk. so when i was a kid, i was fascinated by telepathy, reading minds, telekinesis, moving

objects with the mind. recording memories, uploading memories, photographing a dream. believe it or not to, we can do all of the above. and you will see that in today's slide show. but when i was a kid, i used to try to read people's minds. i tried real hard to move object toes with the mind -- objects with the mind. i finally came to conclusion that maybe there are two telepaths that walk the surface of the earth, but i wasn't with one of them. [laughter] and then in science fiction, of course, it's full of telepaths. these are things that we can now do in the laboratory, things that we can only dream of we now do in the laboratory. and even recording memories and uploading them. hollywood is always ahead of us. this is the movie, "the matrix," when even reality, reality

itself is a memory uploaded into the mind. so let me ask you a question. late at night just before you go to sleep, late at night have you ever had that weird sensation that maybe, maybe life is an illusion? maybe it's just a memory uploaded into your mind like the matrix, and you are the only one that's real? and in some sense someone is testing you to see whether you're smart enough to figure out that you're the only real one. ever had that weird feeling? raise your hand if you ever had that feeling. well, you're crazy. [laughter] you think you're the only to one in the universe? give me a break. you see, i'm the only one in the universe. [laughter] i'm sitting in my bed right now. this is just a memory uploaded into my mind.

i'm just sitting in my bed all by myself. well, hollywood, of course, is always ahead of us, and when it comes to uploading memories, no one can do it better than the former governor of california. [laughter] the former governor of california had the memory of being married to sharon stone uploaded into his mind, and look what happened to him. [laughter] this is "total recall." and in "total recall," arnold schwarzenegger is the good guy. for 99% of the movie he's the good with guy. you identify with him, the hero. and the last minutes of the film you find out he's actually the bad guy. with good guy memories uploaded. it's the only movie i know where he's both the hero and the villain simultaneously. and then we have "iron man" comics and the movies, exoskeletons. we can now do this in the

laboratory. in fact, the pentagon realized that there are thousands of wounded warriors from iraq and afghanistan. they are now connecting the brain directly to a mechanical arm and exoskeleton, bypassing the spinal cord totally. we can now i do this in the laboratory. and then why not live our life through an avatar? a surrogate. surrogates have perfect bodies. they're superhuman in strength, they're perfect, they're gorgeous. why not live our life through a surrogate or an avatar? this could be the future of the space program. outer space is dangerous. ever see the movie with sandra bullock, "gravity"? whoa. space is dangerous. so why not send a robot into outer space guided by you, and you are in your hot tub in your living room? from your