cold war ratchets up the chances of extinction, but another man made existential threat, nuclear annihilation. so is humanities, intelligence, and collective knowledge also the root of its own destruction of the only beneficiaries, the 1000000000 is looking to escape the planet in private rockets. joining me now is renowned for lots for ac grayling this new book. the frontiers of knowledge explodes, the progress barriers and future of humanity when it comes to enlightenment. thank you so much, professor railing for coming back on. if anyone thinks that they don't need to read this book or you imply that they have the only themselves to be to blame for being blown to bits by append again as a nation drone. why? why is this not as it's eric? well, because i'm here. i can create the graph and forced always used in his novels, you know, only connect that if you're able to connect things together a bit, make better sense of your much more likely to make good decisions about what to do . you know, there's a wonderful anecdotal about the great physicist the steve and why and by nobel

prize, many physicists who, when ronald reagan was contemplating pushing and te ballistic missiles up in space . you may remember a kind of defense that was installed on satellites. weinberg said, it doesn't bother me. the president reagan doesn't know any science, but it does bother me and he doesn't know any philosophy and history. of course, the point was precisely that if you don't have context, don't put scientific developments into context or that see how science is changing history. if you don't do that to a joining up, then you're going to get into trouble. well, little known fact and i was cradled on the enforced his knee. that's how old i am. pretty we're. but i, i don't know whether the quote from using which you don't use in the book. when he said, i maybe to book or full. that all he see saw himself was finding a smooth pebble or a prettier show the great ocean of truth before him. central to this book is what

the more we know the less we know. yes, i mean, it's really very striking fact about the history of knowledge, if you like that until the beginning of modern times that he's in the 16th the 17th century, people thought that an increase of knowledge meant a diminishment of ignorance. the morning you the less we wait are involved and pap, satellite, and one day we wouldn't have everything. we would understand everything. we have a complete picture of the universe and we would have a grip on the truth. and of course, this is inspired by the model of knowledge, truth and certainty, which is provided by the great religions because the great religion say that they have the final closed story about everything. and what's happened since the scientific revolution, many of the 17th century and everything as follows from that is at the more we discover, the more we find out, the more knowledge we accumulate, the more questions are prompted. and it's been like occupy an island which is growing in the ocean. and then the big in the i didn't get the longer the shoreline

of ignorance becomes. and we realize more and more and more how little we know give you one very striking example of that. if you think of the enormous explosion of scientific knowledge, particle physics, quantum theory at one end of the scale, cosmetology at the other end of the scale, our understanding of the universe just in the last 100 years, huge explosion of knowledge about that. and what is it taught us? it's taught us that we have access to less than 5 percent of the mass density of the universe. less than 5 percent to physical reality is accessible to i think investigation more than 95 percent of that. it got matter dark energy, no idea what it is. we can see some of its effects, but we don't know what it is. and so this is a beautiful example of how the more we know the more we realize the last minute. but of course, those who are religious around the world and you've had spectacular debates with it . maybe, maybe actual clergymen, i will say, you know,

ever since the counselor nicely or whatever, they always said the bible or the koran later in later century, these are not the true, the, the, they open up questions and then there's a huge amount of ecumenical debate is it really that new the 5 percent versus the 95 percent dog matters in that comparable to the divinity of christ and whether he is 3 people and so well. and the easiest thing in the world is to get mad in the theological controversy here. but you do have to remember that even at the bay dawn of the age 1617th century, the church, the catholic church, it was quite literally putting people to death for life, excepting the literal truth of scripture. you may remember that gala was put on trial for saying that the move so flies around the sun, and he had to deny it in order to save his life. so i mean,

to that extent and your age, the old idea that the truth about things that the complete picture was available to us in our traditions. that was the thing that was revolutionized really by the rise of science and philosophy. and in the early modern period, and we didn't well now, which is the inheritor of that very healthy kind of skepticism inquiry asking questions, probing not carrying a desire to believe, to the world and looking for ways of justifying them, but taking out curiosity to the world. and finding out what the tells us about it itself. but of course, some would say that those are catholic elite that we're prosecuting galileo catholic elite that we're sending the message now. nowadays, we will say that science funding, obviously, and you do broach, the topic elite is being skewed towards elite game. is there that much of a change that we have? it's changing the way science is invested in. and of course,

so over time we've had, i know, class managers in this book as well. i should say. i think there is a huge difference between the people who take leading roles in scientific work and discovery. and people who occupy hierarchies and religious traditions. and the big difference is that in the science hierarchy, if there is such a thing, the idea of critical skepticism, that idea of challenging people's results of demanding that they be replicated, complicate of different labs, for example, checking on the results of all the lapse of the great competition, there is to get the answer right and you know, to get the facts settled that is very healthy aspect of the way that just science develops. it to benefit to this tremendous dialectic, if you like, of, of, of criticism, investigation of scrutiny of results. and that is something which very difficult to

do if you, in a tradition where you have a center received truths and virtue is to believe them accept them and live by them . so a very, very different kind of mindset. i mean, i know everyone relies on quantum mechanics for mobile phones in the positioning and einstein's theories. but i mean, is it really replication no one at school? if they get the experiment, they come up with a different value for the percentage of oak ridge and or something. in some way experiment is going to go. we've disproved a huge amount and with the higgs both on its own. isn't it? if they hadn't found it, they would have just said, well, we'll keep looking for it. it's not that it doesn't exist. isn't there something on to logical about that? you know, i can tell you an interesting little anecdote about the space on, in connection with us. you just said that a good friend of mine is one of the lead time just sits on the knowledge, adrian collider. he was on the contact me on someone right experiment. that's one

of the true experiments of is looking for the he's itself. and when they announced that they were satisfied, they'd spotted it. this is in 2012 after a number of years of going over and over and over the results and being absolutely sure that they really got it right. i said to him, it must have been a wonderful occasion. you must have felt so exhilarated and indeed the consequences are for him personally y gracie was knighted and you know, 100 tremendous metal and so forth. but he said to me, said oh yes, yes, yes, it was great on that day. but you know what? if we hadn't found it, it would have been so exciting because it would have meant that there's a whole lot of different physics out there that we needed to look for. now is that attitude is that we set to see that one that, that 1st, that hunger for finding out more on for digging into difficult mysteries of nature and the universe or of the past for that matter or human nature. which is

a distinctive of the very best of our enquiries, not just in natural science, but i think historians who look at antiquity and try to make sense of how things work for people then, or people to look at the brain and how it functions and into human psychology, these are exhilarating, exhilarating inquiries. and you know, it's like opening christmas present the 2nd a parcel because you don't know what's inside. but you do know that whatever is inside is going to be part, at least of an answer to a question that you've got. and i should just say the range in this book in physics archaeology neuroscience is it's all this summarizes summarizing the field actually before we return to the maybe the class elements and the what it means today. i mean, just give you talk about ogre it in syria. i would say normally series in the news because we have a british in united states backing against the government by give islamist and so

on. and meanwhile, on the ground in syria, in recent years, we've discovered amazing things about the history of civilization. just tell me a little bit about that. yes, you know, it's a very striking thought for me about my grandfather and sell some elderly father said my father was born my grandfathers. i go and i was born my problems quite old . so i'm able to say that my grandfather was at school in the 18 seventy's and eighty's seem sort of astonishing. and he would have known nothing of what we now know about the past. because all the discoveries made about syria and iraq, about that the child presence of mesopotamia, the great civilizations that flourish, that the invention of writing the origin or the teacher. and so many technological advances, all that was actually on until the 2nd half of the 19th century. we had to rochester, we had the books of the bible, the i was just as christians call it back all wrapped up in legend at home. but

that is regarding the semi legendary is as well. so before about the 18th century b, the past as if there was any sense of that at all was just really wrapped in the midst of knowing. but just saw the origin of the middle east, from around about mid of the 1000 century has revealed to us quite literally, thousands of years of civilizational development in mr. patina, also in a rep and i'm civilization in this valley. a civilization of china learning much, much more about egypt and around supplies ation. taking us back. we are 4000 years before or just and the old testament. and that's pretty remarkable, is that only got a ball rolling and the ball rolling was a discovery of the whole new period. so you know, the new stone age and the development and sacraments unsettled agriculture. and

then of course, the discovery of human ancestry taking us back tens of thousands of years, hundreds of thousands, even indeed. now with the discovery of generations 6000000 years ago when the very, very earliest ancestors of the human 9 died. but the other apes, chimpanzees, and says in this, a startling and the way in which time and the past has opened up so dramatically and so tremendously just very, very recently transforming our view of ourselves and now, well, i mean, we're really in, in a way, i personally, you can see i find it so fascinating and so exhilarating and feel that if people had a sense of it, they understood it would make them sense their own place in the universe rather differently. i mean, i'm not sure what they wore plain pilots were thinking when they were bombing these areas, that recently has to be said as a sub, even more in the front years of knowledge after the short break.

ah, join me every thursday on the alex salmon. sure. i'll be speaking to guess what the world of politics, sport business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then. mm hm. oh, driven by trainer shaped by center. some of those with there's syncs. we dare to ask

a welcome back. i'm still here with philosopher in public intellectual professor. ac grayling discussing his new work, the frontiers of knowledge. there will be some view is maybe in the american south right now watching this and they're not taking their vaccinations against corona virus and so on. will be subjected to a different version of history financed by particular interests. would you do? do? mentioned the book. what are the dangers of this as this amazing revolution and thought has been uncovered and discovered and invented re enter the human mind. and human society is like geological, strasser, less of geological structure. and they primitive, very, and act to take quick,

easy answers and superstitious views of the world down in the more primitive layers of our understanding. and then increasingly psyche more questioning, slightly more open or skeptical. and more rational, i think, and the concept of rationality is very important here because as i say in the book, if you look at the word rational, you see the 1st part of it is ratio, which means proportion. and so a rational belief is one which is proportional to the evidence you have for it, or the strength of the reasons that you can offer for it. and so that tends to be at a rather level of the general structure. people and society is in groups who then societies find themselves at different levels of this geological lab, which is why we, you know, have rockets so years in the moon now. and people are still with estrogen forecasts here in 2021. so can, it's not surprising in a way that there is this kind of mixture and it's

a mixture because history is always on the move, the past is always dying and the new is always being born. if i remember correctly . and fact, when i was, i'm thinking a bit about this interview today. i remember that you chose is not the graph to your dream of the decade novels i think you chose, or you chose a remark from graham she, i seem to recall. and we, she talks about how the old is died and the new is not good for. and i mean that middle period that you called in a kind of interregnum that there is complexity and difficulty this, this, you know, it's problematic. the present is always problematic in that rate is recess. this at mixture of the old and the new. so entire chris might want a traditional belief might use very, very modern means to carry out some act based on that traditional belief. and that is to make sure that we're in at the moment, and it can sometimes be very dangerous mixture. i mean, i want to go through,

breaks it again and there were complex breaks appear, argument and complex remain, or argument famously. but how is it that if, as you say, things become more and more spectral, in terms of our understanding of the questioning of the world and the universe has political, some elements of political theory appeared to get more certain certainly amongst maybe it's just to read your vacation of it would certainly say russia isn't bad, china's bad as was biting would say change, but it's a trump thing x. but why is this questioning in intellectual circles or company? more certainty? i arguably, i mean it's for petitions. you know, there is a very, very direct relationship between increasing complexity and increasing simplicity or the propensity to reach a simple quick constance. the more complex things are,

the more a lot of people are driven to look for something that simple black and white. this is a you know, an example of how it is that good. it's just one dimension isn't like, you know, christian fundamentalism in the southern states and the u. s. funding mechanism anyway can persist. it's because you can tell anybody the fundamental teen it's doctrines and plans on any of the major religions in less than half an hour. but it takes a bit longer than that to understand physics. and this is a really good example of how if our understanding of the world is increasingly complex, there's a lot to know a lot to understand. then people will reach for the simple answer to human beings like a clear story appear in the beginning, middle, and then end lawson explanation that what makes sense? they want to have something that they hang on to. and the simple answer is the one that you reach for when you start feeling if you're getting lost in the complex

sense in palm shapes that happens as well. so, you know, if you think of a system like the one in the u. k, which like canada and united states, america and india, or have the 1st 13 system. this is a terrible, terrible voting system because part from the may on democratic is going to provide for minority based government. it also means that you can get to political conscience and you therefore get colorized ation. you get a, you know, 10 kind of opposition to use that results in slogans and in simplistic arguments, you don't get didn't get people trying to compromise or share all worked together. but you get division b, c s. and it's most dramatic in the united states of america by the divide between the republican party and the big democratic party is so bitter and so deep as to be frightening. and we've seen it and say was in the trunk. yes, that. so in the case of something like branch,

it's now going to be perfectly neutral about it and tell you that i think it's the most disastrous idea. british politics of another 1000 years have been in the case the brakes and they will see a phenomenon which is turns in fact, on the idea that if people are worried about all sorts of things in their lives, you can find one simple wouldn't be fugitive explanation for it, but a mirror on the u. s. a back sovereignty and we saw these problems out of the way that one, if you can do that. and if you can use these incredible new techniques of communication because i think social media, the internet, what's happened and google and facebook and so on. have been very, very malign, influences on politics. they great from the things by the way. they great for the sort of democratic anger of compensation, people sharing news and views and couldn't get in touch with one another. yes. but there are also really bad aspects of them because you can micro target people with

false messages that other people can see and call out. i'm sure they, they direct them for the elections. i'll give you for that. but then it, forrest johnson or donald trump, maybe in 2024. i mean, maybe if you read that, they read the book, then they would come out with the alarming idea that they're on the right path. because this questioning of knowledge are companies seeking for simplicity. so you'd be, they're going obviously, i don't agree with it, but johnson get more union. jack's get flags around, you have more simple messages. people are looking for answers, and this is a good political, machiavellian strategy. it is that it's a rich evidence. he has worked in recent years. yes. and i suppose you could switch around what you've just said. a one of them and telling young center wrote up more flags. i've been telling everybody else to watch that back when johnson start turning out more flags advocacy trying to do them. so you know that that's the

place where it is the message. but what we want to be, what we want to be doing, and this is a point that i read the book for parking important point is we should make ourselves the church across the fields again and then fired, and in particular. so then we can make ourselves better at thinking theory critically and evaluating what people train people tend to know. because we can make some connections, we can see across the landscape of understanding about doesn't mean that we will have to become part of the system where i could become ancient historians or anything. but although each of us needs specialists and we need to know the skill in life in our careers, we should also have this general literacy. and i think our educational and the trust that verification of systems like it lets us down in the u. k. we start to

specialize after the age of 16. now, could you see we do few subjects at a level. you might be one subject to university, and this is not great. and the old model, the one which is kind of been chipped away ash a lot in the us is that you provider, general education. and then people specialize on the basis of that interests and talents afterwards. but if you, if you specialize too early people, new site of the context of the wider landscape of things into which what they do it . and that i think is important. any part of a complicated story. obviously, i know you talk, you talk to the bus or this, this size culture debate from seabreeze, though, is alive and well. it hasn't changed. yeah. i mean, i was talking about history for you. you talk about christopher hill, who's i'll give you a marginalized figure. the great marxist historian it, ok, so i mean, i was taught, there was a civil war here. he talked about it english revolution. is that an example of the

kind of way history is skewed? it's a very, very good example of the difference between revisionism, a background in history where like holocaust deniers that say, and i'm thinking about the past in much more exact and creative ways to try to make sense of it. looking at it in from the point of view of different framers. and what christopher hill did, i think in a really significant is that he noticed that if you put the english civil war, what happened? and charles, parliament and rush into this longer context of european history. you see, it is the 1st one of the great revolutions. so we think of the french revolution american revolution, we think that they both should be mentioned a bolshevik revolutions. and indeed the revolution. some folks as well that the

enlightenment represents. and you see this as part of very basic, different and instructive process. so he was able to push it into and you know, context which makes a c, h, a fresh and interesting the fresh, using this perspective, that marxist interpretation of history office that's very valuable. i cited in the book as a, as a way of showing how revisionism in history that ish revising our understanding of something, is different from historical denial. and can be used to inform us much, much more sensitively about things. another example i use, of course, is the australian setting. when the settlers came with, you know, after captain cook back at the end of the 18th century, they regarded australia as well, sometimes called a tera and really is an empty land. you can just take it is that for the, for the taking. and it's only very recently that some historians and australia are

said on, you know, it and with many, many different kinds of people living in it. and in fact, it was an invasion that wasn't a settlement and it was of a violent one because there was a long drawn out war between the sexes and the aborigines, which only very recently ended. and that is a way of revising our view of history understanding things differently and trying to do something better now and in future on the basis of that better understand. and in this dichotomy between revisionism and denial, ism is morris johnson. on the denial list side, i'm. well, i don't know what goes on since views about history. i have very, very 90 sinking feeling about his use of the present to say i will. well, he does, he does. but i think i may be frank and rude at the same time about it. i think it's because he would like to model himself on church in some way. and so he's,

he's a kind of, well the shadow official version of churchill where it's ironic, deeper view of church show who have many, you know, characteristics which we can do. my, for example, is covered in this, during the 2nd law. but prior to it for decade after decade, he was regarded quite rightly by most of his contemporaries and actually, you know, boss, do it. so some people say because he was so unreliable, politically, switch sides and etc. so maybe bars something has some similarities to him in that respect. press. great, thank you. thank you very much. that's it for one of your favorite shows of the last season. we'll be back on wednesday, the 12th of january, but until then stay safe. and you can watch all our interviews by subscribing to our youtube channel and falling us on all our social media. ah,

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