5 Unsolvable Mysteries of Science

we like to think of science as this steadily expanding bubble of knowledge one where we can focus our time and energy on specific fields and answers will inevitably appear humans have pushed the boundaries of understanding further and further back to such an extent that it's easy to assume these boundaries just no longer exist and yet for all of our greatness in the fields of physics and chemistry for all the dramatic leaps forward in medicine and all excellent present-day knowledge of biology both within us and the broader World there remains several enormous gaps that might never be filled admitting that there may be limits to human knowledge is an uncomfortable concept it begins to question our role within this existence and whether we are anywhere near as omnipotent as we make out we like to think or we're in control especially regarding science and the development of human understanding however the awkward reality is there are countless scientific questions out there that may never be answered oh [Music] Cubans have a good idea about the mechanics behind sleeping we know about sleep cycles and the we move through different levels of sleep including rapid eye movement REM sleep we even have apps that can track our Slumber and give us nicely packaged data in the morning but when it comes to Dreaming we're still grasping at theories here dreams have puzzled Homo sapiens ever since our Consciousness has appeared and well we're going to return to that enigmatic black hole a little bit later in today's video we've been asking ourselves what do these dreams mean for thousands of years and yet even with the full mind of our side of the inside we're still not really sure there are of course plenty of theories research has shown that dreaming perhaps has something to do with storing memories or sifting through millions of pieces of information to find what we need newer Theory suggests that it could have something to do with brain plasticity and could be on natural air protecting ourselves by allowing the brain to effectively stay on while we sleep this all makes a lot of sense but what does it mean when you wake up and realize you've been dreaming about chasing a purple towed through a Mexican Town while dressed as a chicken if the brain really is organizing it's waking our memories where does the purple toad come from now in the past we thought of dreams as perhaps a way of talking with our ancestors communicating with the gods or even predicting future events that Psychiatry came into the four in the 19th and 20th Century Sigmund Freud suggested that dreams were a direct road to the unconscious and that we might hope to unlock our Inner Demons by carefully studying them so much work has been done on sleep and dreaming and while many ideas are out there nothing concrete or remotely conclusive has yet to emerge so you ready to level up your knowledge well I've got just the thing for you and it's called brilliant now you know how important it is to stay ahead in this fast-paced Tech world right well brilliant.org is there to help you do just that they've got thousands of interactive lessons covering everything from foundational maths to Advanced topics like artificial intelligence and neural networks and here's the best part Brilliance courses are designed to be Hands-On and visual making learning super engaging and effective it's not just about about memorizing equations it's about building your intuition and your analytical skills whether you're a professional looking to sharpen your skills or someone just starting their Learning Journey brilliant has got you covered they offer bite-sized lessons that fit perfectly into your busy schedule you can learn anytime anywhere on your phone tablet or computer brilliant is built for High Velocity learning and here's the best part I want you to join me in exploring Brilliance course data structure and algorithms it's mind-blowing this course will help you unlock the secrets of efficient problem solving with data structures and algorithms discover how to optimize code tackle complex algorithms I really think like a computer scientist with brilliant you learn by doing your create programs play with stunning visualizations and even challenge yourself with mind tingling puzzles so you're ready to supercharge your learning here's what you need to do go to brilliant.org solid projects or click the link below and you'll get a free 30-day trial of Brilliance entire platform and the first 200 people will also get 20 off Brilliance annual premium subscription so thank you to brilliant for sponsoring today's video and now back to it thank you if we ever hope to understand dreams we must go to the darkest corner of what makes humans human our Consciousness we all have a pretty good idea that the world operates outside of our physical being trees grow animals feed and other humans go about their daily lives but when it comes to what's going on inside our own minds now that's a mysterious Abyss if there ever was one human consciousness is our subjective understanding of what is happening it governs our thoughts emotions and judgments it essentially creates a unique version of our world and molds the eye or egos that can often get us in so much trouble this self-awareness helps us learn and develop as humans it helps us make decisions prioritize adapt love hate and well almost everything we do and yet the Consciousness has a dark side why do we have and inner monologue that throws Relentless obstacles in our way and how does Consciousness manifest itself in the mind of a psychopath what role this Consciousness play in depression and mental health disorders well our scientific understanding of the exterior world has developed dramatically over the last hundred years and yet our knowledge of what is happening inside the human mind remains virtually non-existent scans can reveal over 100 billion nerve cells constantly firing throughout the brain it's Consciousness it might be some part of it but most will agree that the brain and the mind are different things we don't really even know where the mind is or if it has a specific location could it be connected to our guard orders every cell in our body contain a small piece of it nobody really knows whatever the mind and our Consciousness are their power is extraordinary they allow us to believe in religion and afterlife other dimensions they are the difference between humans and our egos and apes and chimpanzees who as far as we know don't have the same level of consciousness foreign moving from the inner sanctum of the human mind to the astonishing size what's around us this is not simply a question of whether there are other life forms but also what the hell the universe is all about whenever you hear someone say that there are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on earth the human mind struggles helplessly to understand what it's just heard it's a numbing fact that we often feel hopeless in the face of the 20th century saw us take an enormous Leap Forward in our understanding of space and this led to countless TV shows and films dramatizing our hypothetical Adventures into the great unknown stories of UFOs were openly mocked for much of the second half of the century however with a rising number of sightings often now accepted by governments and even militaries there is a steadily increasing acceptance that there might be some body or something else out there but that's just the start if you know the mind really you're going countless questions about space conveys the mind even thinking about them many of which we might never fully understand what are black holes and where did they lead to what dark matter and dark energy why is the universe expanding and if it is increasing what's at the edge of it and probably the most perplexing what came before the Big Bang it's likely that at some point some of these questions might be answered but it's entirely likely that yet more questions will simply replace them the nature of the universe and the astonishing levels of mystery that make it up mean that human beings will almost certainly never completely answer the question of what's out there no considering how much research has been done on the migratory habits of animals we still don't have a firm idea about much of it however before we go on we should say that there's plenty that we do understand about migration such as reasoning and exact patterns but the mechanics behind it can be pretty bewildering so let's start with demonic butterfly each year they fly around 4 800 kilometers that's three thousand miles from Canada to Mexico and then back again now that's pretty astounding for a single butterfly but what makes the situation all the more puzzling is that it's not one butterfly this epic journey is completed over three to five generations meaning female butterflies lay their eggs along the way then die and then their offspring continue the journey this means that sometimes it is the great great great grand butterfly of the original butterfly mother that arrives in Mexico shortly before winter while there have been suggestions that they use the Earth's magnetic fields as a compass we have no idea how these butterflies know instinctively that they need to head North or South shortly after bursting from their cocoon another strange and as of yet completely unexplainable phenomenon is NATO philopatchery where an animal Returns the place of its birthed breed and here we're not just talking about return to the same rough area some animals such as the female Antarctic seal return to the exact place where they were born to within one body length considering they might travel thousands of miles in between that's quite the achievement there are cases of incredible migration across the animal world both on land and in the sea caribou and the North Atlantic traveled 640 kilometers or 400 miles a yearly making it the longest terrestrial migration while the gray whale puts in an astonishing 10 000 miles each year to take the water Crown however both are blown out of the water by the Arctic turn which might fly 71 000 kilometers or 44 000 miles in a single year as it shuttles between Greenland and Antarctica a monstrous achievement but why does it do it and what internal biological rhythms let it know where to go and when if you really want to expand the Mind why is evolution not developed in such a way that this small bird needn't fly almost twice around the equator every single year foreign [Music] gay Beecher wrote his book The Powerful Placebo in which he outlined a controversial Theory at the time that stated the human body can self-regulate pain and stress when it believes it's getting a helping hand through external sources such as drugs even when those drugs have absolutely no medical value to them in doing so he became the first scientist to quantify the placebo effect nearly 70 years later and the placebo effect has become an established fact however we've yet to learn why the body can do this and perhaps even more intriguingly what the limits are the fact that the body can effectively self-soothe opens up the tantalizing possibility that maybe we're not quite as helpless in the face of illness and disease as we've always thought Placebo is Latin for I will please and was associated with scientific failure for years in research studies one group was often given a real drug the subject of the trial while another was told they were but were actually given a placebo usually a sugar pill or a saline drip the idea was that the control group given the placebo would show significantly fewer signs of improve movement so showing the Drug's Effectiveness however that's often not what happened Placebo groups often perform much better than expected and researchers have recently found that this might not be down to the drugs ineffectiveness but rather the placebo effects mysterious power there have been plenty of studies into the placebo effect and while we understand that there is an increase in neurotransmitters like endorphins and dopamine along with significant activity in brain regions linked to moods emotional reactions and self-awareness we have no idea why or how now before we get carried away thinking that the placebo effect can cure cancer or shrink a tumor we should point out that placebo's work on symptoms modulated by the brain like the perception of pain as far as we know it can't cure you but it can certainly make you feel better it's also been shown to affect depression Sleep Disorders irritable bowel syndrome and menopause it's clear that there is a link between how much we expect something to happen and it actually happening and yet it doesn't seem to be the case that we can simply wish ourselves better scientists believe that the medical ritual is important taking a pill being examined by a person in a white coat but even in migraine studies where one group's drugs are labeled clearly Placebo a positive effect was shown in 50 of the participants of vague acknowledgment of the placebo effect has inched open a door that could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the human brain and its relationship to disease and illness indeed with the power of placebo seemingly rising and even now performing drugs in some studies it could really transform how we think about medicine but this could also be one of those questions that lies well Out Of Reach how taking a pill that we know doesn't contain any medical substance but can still calm our pain might be one question that sits just over the edge of human knowledge a thrilling aspect of the human mind but one that continues to stop scientists to this day foreign [Music]

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 176,601

Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects, sideprojects, 5 unexplainable mysteries explained by science, mysteries of science, unsolved mysteries, unsolved science mysteries, real life mysteries, something surprising, scishow mysteries, unexplained mysteries, supernatural mysteries

Id: poW9axshF8g

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023