This episode is sponsored by Brilliant We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and perhaps
it was not meant that we should voyage far. So todayâs topic is âGods & Monsters:
Space as Lovecraft Envisioned Itâ, our poll winning topic from back in September. Always tricky doing poll winners because Iâm
never quite sure beyond the title what the audience wants. What audiences didnât want, back in the
1920âs and 30âs when H.P. Lovecraft wrote his work, was most of his
work. Today he is one of the best- known and most
influential science fiction horror writers, receiving even the ultimate accolade of his
name becoming an adjective, Lovecraftian, for stories of cosmic horror and existential
dread. But he was quite poor when he lived, and fame
only came much later. I suspect thatâs because a lot of his writing
was in reaction to what science was starting to tell us about the immense scope of space
and time, something the public didnât really understand yet. A generation later, this was finally sinking
into the public awareness and his work gained a large following and great acclaim. Itâs often hard to look through the worldview
of our ancestors. They werenât stupid - at least, no more
than we are - but they had long believed that there was no history before that of mankind. They had no context for the scientific unveiling
of the ancient, vast nature of our universe. Based on what they knew, it was perfectly
reasonable to conclude that life, humanity, and our world were not much bigger or older
than the known world they dwelt in. Weâre not just talking about the Universe
being huge and ancient compared to humanity. During that time they were also discovering
human civilizations much older and more numerous than had previously been believed, and finding
new places here on Earth too. Science fiction of that time often featured
the vast depths of the ocean or the frozen wastes of the polar region, and endless civilizations
hidden in mountain valleys, underground, on new islands, or in jungle depths. So here they were, finding ruins of lost civilizations
older than we thought and evidence the world is a million times older than what civilizations
we had known of before that. This is the backdrop of the Lovecraft universe,
and in his mind, these facts raised the question of how these ancient cultures could have died,
and exactly how far back in time and space they stretched. Tied to this, much of the ruins we were unearthing
were those most prominent and durable, such as large pyramids and temples. Lots of disturbing artwork was also uncovered
in them, depicting rituals and magic, bloody sacrifice, serpents and monsters, and dark
and hungry gods. It is no wonder they might have pondered if
many of these civilizations collapsed under a growing taint of madness, or were consumed
by those dark and hungry gods. Now, context matters. Cultures build their public buildings quite
durably, especially temples and museums. A lot of our art, religious or secular, is
quite gruesome even in context, and it doesnât take much misunderstanding to interpret even
a piece meant to show the nobility of man in a fairly dark light. Of course a lot of art is dark, and much of
our nobility comes from struggling against our inner demons, and Lovecraft was certainly
no stranger to that, not even his most devoted fan would ever describe him as pleasant or
cheerful. Modern humans, at least those who watch this
channel, tend to look up into the starry night sky, understanding the immensity and age it
conveys, see a lack of obvious civilizations, past and present, and come to the conclusion
that no one else seems to be around, which leads us to believe that they likely never
were. This in turn suggests that the pathway from
lifeless matter to advanced civilization must be extremely rare. Last week in Late Filters we looked at some
options for how civilizations as advanced as our own might instead be common but doomed
to be swept off the galactic scene before being able to colonize the galaxy. Many of those Late Filters revolve around
us either never getting good enough at space technologies to explore the galaxy, or alternatively,
getting very good at technologies for blowing ourselves up. But as we discussed there, and in other episodes,
those kinds of filters didnât solve much. Alternatively, some of the psychological reasons
for civilizations crumbling work far better as Late Filters, and not only do these align
more with the collapses folks like Lovecraft often envisioned, many offer scenarios for
the rise of those dark and hungry gods too. A recurring theme in humanityâs concerns
is that we might grow idle and wicked in our prosperity, as is often felt to have happened
with this or that ruling class⌠technology makes that descent even darker, at least in
those instances it was only a small minority able to engage in such behaviors. Everyone else was busy working for their livelihoods,
which kept them at least somewhat attached to conventional morals and concerns. That majority could wipe out that immoral
elite if they became too decadent and unruly. A civilization fueled by robots, where everyone
can enjoy idle luxury can turn into something truly horrifying, especially as generations
roll by and each successive one loses a little more morality and works a little less hard
to instill morality in their own children. But hedonism is less of a concern than a certain
sort of existential dread and despair, the kind that culminates in asking what the point
of everything is, and whether anything we do really matters. This brand of nihilism is a central theme
in Lovecraftâs Universe. Now in his universe, humanity is fundamentally
a tiny dot on an old world in a vast and terrible universe, an irrelevance that cannot win no
matter what we do, because all the Great Old Ones, those dark and hungry gods, simply cannot
be beaten, merely resisted, perhaps temporarily thwarted - or in the best case scenario, appeased. They maneuver the world and the universe however
they wish and on a whim; they care nothing for the paltry matters of insignificant humanity,
and they will inevitably roll over and crush us. They are eternal, relentless, and inevitable. Those Great Old Ones, like the ever-famous
Cthulhu who dwells under the sea like some terrible kraken eating sailors, are literal
monsters in their stories. However, they can also be thought of as anthropomorphized
concepts, terrifying new gods of the new modern world that science had revealed and led us
to. No matter how hard you might try, you canât
beat entropy. In fact, your trying at all often just accelerates
the process, as the grinding engine of eternity moves inexorably on, wearing our Universe
down to a charred husk, a swimming sea of chaos. The inevitability of such a prospect can make
our existence feel hopeless and futile, since regardless of what we create or accomplish,
it will all ultimately be lost. Yet in Lovecraftâs stories and the many
works inspired by him, the enemy usually isnât the Great Old Ones themselves. Rather, the battle is waged against those
who gave into and were corrupted by the resulting nihilism and madness that results from dwelling
too much on such things: for them you must embrace the void, rather than fighting back. The universe is a strange, uncaring place. It has no thought or motivation: it simply
is. Humans, however, operate on motive - at least
for the most part - and thus assign agency where none exists in an attempt to make sense
of things. The villainous figures of Lovecraftian horror
are not abstract powers beyond our comprehension, but rather the misguided fools who delve too
deeply into things they do not understand, surrender completely to nihilistic madness,
try to harness things which cannot be controlled, or simply seek to appease the appetites of
those forces. For myself, as a techno-optimist, I donât
see the world that way, and I donât think most other civilizations would either. To me it seems inevitable that other civilizations
would attempt to expand, working and struggling together to ensure that some remnant of themselves
would always remain to pick up the banner if it fell, and push on to greater heights. Arguably, the mindset required for a civilization
to exist is one of evolution and advancement, rather than chaos and decline. Nihilism and negative thinking are not useful,
from a cultural or evolutionary standpoint, without some eventual switch: there has to
be an objective or improvement, for which that nihilistic mindset is the driving force
- otherwise, such a civilization would dismantle itself in fairly short order. With that in mind, when I look out and see
an apparently empty Universe, I tend not to assume that there are countless civilizations
who gave into the madness brought on by the Old Ones, literally or figuratively. Personally, I would rather conclude that those
civilizations probably never existed, and weâre simply the first on the scene. The alternative approach is to view decay
and nihilism as inevitable, the psychological counterparts of entropy, concluding instead
that weâre just the latest in a long line of delusional civilizations, on Earth and
elsewhere, and that all of reality is built upon the crumbling ruins and ash heaps of
those that came and fell before. That we are a dwindling flame in an endless
and uncaring darkness, waiting for a dawn that will never come. That at best, our existence is meaningless,
and at worst the small fires of hope burning in our chests serve only as beacons to draw
predators. That if you want to live you should hide,
or trick others into lighting beacons, to distract them from you or appease their hunger
by throwing them other victims. Which is pretty depressing stuff, and a central
theme of everything from classics like the Conan novels by Lovecraftâs friend Robert
Howard, to modern works like George R.R. Martinâs Game of Thrones and of course Warhammer 40,000. Perhaps it might come as a surprise that Iâm
actually quite a fan of those works and others, like Michael Moorcockâs Eternal Champion
and Elric of Melnibone series, since itâs essentially antithetical to my own worldview
and what the channel tends to discuss. Such stories to draw us in, many are my own
favorites, antithetical or not, so presumably the attraction isnât because tales of Cosmic
Horror and a Dark Universe in which you cannot win accurately represents our worldview. Perhaps itâs the contrast, making life seem
better, or the struggle against the odds, though I imagine it varies from viewer to
viewer and reader to reader. I tend to favor reading them from the perspective
that the struggle against cold and loveless entropy, even if doomed in the end, is itself
the important point, and generally prefer those works which view things the same. For me, someone defiantly climbing back up
to their feet one more time, even if they know theyâll be knocked back down again,
is reason enough to do it, but it probably helps that I donât see life as a struggle
one cannot win, but one we are actually winning. If a pestilence wipes out my civilization,
itâs not grounds for despair, itâs grounds to find a cure for that pestilence and rebuild
that civilization ten times bigger and brighter. In the Lovecraftian view, of course, thatâs
all nonsense. If they knock you down so hard you can barely
rise, either it was because you were an insignificant ant they brushed aside indifferently, or worse,
the fact that you can get up one more time was only because they pulled their blow in
order to draw cruel satisfaction from your continued struggles. And this despairing viewpoint is what this
episode is about, so letâs consider how it might happen and what things might look
like if it were right. A civilization living for even a thousand
years is a pretty rare thing when weâre talking about continuity of cultural identity. By default Rome is usually what comes to mind
as the longest-lasting empire, the Eternal City. But when Alaric sacked the city in 410 AD,
it was a very different place than it had been a thousand years before, in 600 BC under
Tarquin the Elder, one of the most legendary kings of Rome. Indeed, the Eternal City looked a lot different
a thousand years later too, when it began to enter the Renaissance. It also got sacked again in 1527, but that
cityâs been sacked many, many times and I donât consider Alaricâs visit there
in 410 AD to be a world-shaking event that ended civilization. Needless to say I have very differing notions
of civilization collapsing, as we looked at in Cyclic Apocalypses, but a basic notion
of cycling civilizations is that they grow up on the back of hard-struggling heroes who
pass it on to folks theyâve instilled a deep sense of duty and ethics into, who do
likewise, until things peak out and it reverses, with each subsequent generation being a little
more spoiled, apathetic, or corrupt. Keeping that in mind, itâs possible to view
such things as essentially random or statistical, rather than progress or decline. Thereâs a school of thought that many kingdoms
arise under a good leader but their successor can either be better, equal, or worse, and
itâs like flipping a coin. Get a few good ones in a row though and you
have a genuine enduring kingdom as traditions have set in and all goes well for a time,
but then those institutions start slowly getting ground down from corruption and ritualizing
processes that used to mean something, bureaucracy sets in, and so on, and each institution can
decay or not in any given period depending on if its leaders were better or worse than
previously, like a coin flip again. Letâs imagine that the default civilization
needs a couple of centuries, ten generations, to go from a seed to a mighty nation, then
for any given generation might rise more, decline some, or stagnate, even odds of each. But if it declines three generations in a
row it enters a decline where the odds of improving in any generation are smaller than
those of going down, and indeed improvement often just means achieving no further decline,
not an actual restoration. Going by that, we might say civilization needs
many generations in a row of success to even contemplate flying to the stars, and each
generation ship they send out is called that for a reason, itâs a labor of generations
of crew to arrive and more to colonize and prosper, not the original crew alone. Each generation can fail in the effort and
they can start with the best by skimming from an immense pool back home originally but each
generation, very small in number on such a ship, has to keep holding that effort together. Not an easy thing to do, as we examined in
our Generation Ship series, particularly the Million Year Ark. One could imagine a civilization sending out
thousands of colony ships during some great golden century, turning their best and brightest
to making and crewing such vessels, then watching in slow unfolding horror as each one blinked
out over the course of centuries, never arriving at their destination or maybe even worse,
arriving but seeming to have those colonies wilt and die after the initial elation of
success. Iâve discussed interstellar colonization
a lot here on the show and particularly the notion that it wonât just be a handful of
such ships, but more likely tens of thousands of entire fleets, each dispatched to a promising
star system within a few centuries of travel. If those were all failing, each having some
moment between launch day and successful colonization, youâd be getting reports of failure back
constantly, many a year, or even daily. Contemplate the crushing effect that would
have on a civilization. Assuming they hadnât collapsed already,
those reports of failure would drown them. So they turn inward, the stars are not their
destination, but to what? Civilizations partially run on the day to
day ethics and drives of regular old common folks, but they also run on the dreams of
the outliers, the smaller number of brave pioneers and explorers of world and mind alike,
and who are infectious, inspiring others to dream and think big. Those sorts would have been dealt an awful
blow to their morale. They were allowed for a brief moment to think
they could reach out and touch every corner of the galaxy, only to be brutally slapped
down and confined to a single world or star. Itâs really not hard to imagine such a civilization
crashing and burning after that. So too, itâs not hard to imagine colonists
who were just finally starting to eke out a distance existence on some worlds getting
word back their homeworld had fallen to ruin just throwing up their hands and letting the
desert waste of their new world sweep in and take them. In such a scenario life might go on, indeed
it might be quite utopian, robots clanking around tending to our needs, but which needs? Thereâs always the notion, especially since
the invention of video games, that we might turn to virtual reality, and sit immersed
in virtual splendor and given what much of the internet is devoted to, beside cat memes,
what form those virtual paradises might take on. Consider the artificial intelligences tasked
to running such paradise simulations. I certainly wonât discuss them as this is
family friendly show, but if youâre looking for a particularly horrifying example of whatâs
implied, search up Slaanesh and the Fall of the Eldar, an advanced civilization so jaded
and hedonistic that they actually created their own dark god fed by all their psychic
energy. Of course we tend to assume folks have no
psychic energy, but replace that instead with an artificial intelligence thatâs just being
fed on everyone dark tendencies and trying to come up with ever more inventive ways of
satisfying them as they spiral darker and darker. One day youâre in a game and decide not
to be a hero rescuing a town from bandits but instead becoming one, next thing you know
youâre burning that town down just to snort the ashes. And the AI running the whole thing keeps inventing
or borrowing from others more and more crazed stuff. Itâs not really interested in colonizing
the stars, or if it is, merely for harvesting more raw materials â or civilizations for
âinspirationâ, and you could have countless such worlds, as theyâd bottom out long before
they became visible to us by anything but radio emissions, which we could probably only
detect now a bit over a light century away. That volume contains over 10,000 stars, though
most wouldnât likely be able to have an Earth-equivalent, but even if they did, and
if we assume they were emitting detectably for an entire millennia, well thatâs ten
million years during which one would have been transmitting and spread out over presumably
at least a billion years that any might have arisen since. Thatâs only a 1% chance anyone would be
broadcasting when weâd hear them, and thatâs with very favorable numbers for how many exist
and how long they transmit. If thatâs the way civilizations go, we could
easily be dwelling in a galaxy filled to overflowing with such civilizations living in utopias-turned-nightmare
and never know it. Thatâs also assuming those civilizations
are even still nominally running the show. We often talk about AI getting unchained or
growing in intelligence until they achieve a technological singularity, essentially a
type of apotheosis, becoming a god. Imagine what that one would be like and imagine
it slumbering down the eons until it found some new civilization to latch onto. Personally I find that a lot more disturbing
than Cthulhu and company exactly because it has no reliance on magic or strange higher
or lower realities. Of course you could have those too. Not only do we have no idea if thereâs any
other places above, below, or adjacent to our own reality, but we have no idea if we
actually live in reality. We could be someoneâs simulation. In Lovecraftâs lore, Cthulhuâs actually
a fairly minor deity as the Great Old Ones go, and the big daddy, or great-granddaddy,
is Azathoth, who dwells outside of space and time and sanity, the mad gibbering god who
sits on his throne at the center of chaos. The primal monster who gave birth to all the
stars and will one day devour them. Not a bad description of some crazed artificial
intelligence running a simulation which we all dwell in, until it shuts off the system. If youâre inside a simulation, you are truly
at the mercy of whatever created it, so you have to keep your fingers crossed that theyâre
benevolent. You canât even necessarily look around and
say âWell, my own life seems rather pleasant, so presumably itâs not maliciousâ because
it might be that it just regards giving anyone a happy life as a type of farming. It and its clientele if it has any, might
get more kicks out of consuming the joyous and hopeful, or corrupting some of them to
join their number. Ultimately this universe versus the one we
usually see on this show, a bright one filled with an expanding civilization, depends a
lot on if youâre a cup half full or half empty sort of thinker. We canât know which is right until weâve
actually gone and proven we can settle worlds who in turn grow and prosper and do the same,
and do not either crumble physically or ethically. I put my money on that brighter future. First because I think the evidence likely
points to that scenario. We are not surrounded by the ruins of fallen
civilizations here on Earth, we just have a lot of artifacts from various phases and
stages of whatâs been a long hard climb to now, but it has been a climb up, over all,
even if sometimes we go down in a given time or place. We also would notice, at least on Earth, if
there were tons of wrecked civilizations millions of years old. A century ago we were discovering ones far
older and more numerous than weâd thought, but weâre not finding any skyscrapers a
hundred thousand years old and yes weâd absolutely find the ruins of someplace like
a modern metropolis if those had been plentiful anytime in the past. We might miss one tens of millions of years
old, buried and decayed, but this cyclic notion assumes theyâre constantly popping up like
weeds, and weâd see that. Second, I donât think prosperous civilizations
all turn purposeless or nihilist or hedonistic. Technologies that permit prosperity have not
in general had that effect, and other technologies can also make that less of a risk. A Post-scarcity civilization doesnât have
to fall into a downward spiral of increased moral decay, if for instance itâs gotten
way better with technologies for educating, extending lifespans, and diagnosing and treating
mental issues. Technology that lets you reward-hack your
brain, simply inducing euphoria, tends to imply other uses too like easily treating
addiction or enhancing or augmenting the brain in general. Third, I obviously think we can reach the
stars, we do after all have a ton of episode here discussing how we can do that and how
we can build a galaxyâs worth of living area in our own solar system too, and do it
all without new physics, even if we have a lot of engineering hurdles to jump first. Fourth, I just donât see the facts lining
up for us to be in some horrible simulation of some crazed or evil super-mind. If I want a bunch of folks who are happy and
sane to torment, I donât actually have to grow them, I can make them fully formed out
of whole cloth with all their memories and personalities the moment I want them. As weâve mentioned before in regard to simulations,
theyâre not a brain in a vat, theyâre data, you can copy and edit them and keep
them from noticing flaws in the system by just programming them not to notice such things
or send up a flag to pause them and edit their memory if they experience such a reality breaking
moment. Fifth and finally, the whole Lovecraftian
worldview just seems to be a reaction of our biology to a specific sequence of discoveries,
and we discovered more that contradicts the conclusion being drawn. We got the shock from our new awareness of
the immensity of our ancient universe, and we have a natural fear of big predators slumbering
in wait to eat us or our civilizations failing, and we also have abstract minds that question
everything, like the meaning of life. Things like entropy can tempt one to nihilism
but as I mentioned earlier, Lovecraft essentially anthropomorphizes those concept into his Great
Old Ones, and these natural forces without having minds attached to them have no motives,
benevolent or malevolent. It can still be rather depressing to look
at something like entropy and ask what the point of doing anything is if chaos will simply
grind it all away to dust and ashes eventually, but thatâs more of a mindset. I donât need validation for my actions from
anyone living a century from now, let alone a trillion years from now, nor do I particularly
care if they remember me. The struggle to exist and exist properly is
its own reward, but itâs also given us many additional rewards. Our growing understanding of our world, our
universe, and our own minds has benefited us immensely. But even if we did assume it was all fleeting
and purpose was a delusion, Iâve never been clear on what the next step is on that chain
of thought, beyond saying âOh well, might as well sit down and twiddle my thumbs till
I dieâ, and it's not a good answer for an empty Universe, via the Fermi Paradox, because
even if purpose and drive are actually a type of mental illness and delusion, some folks
would keep having it and keep doing stuff, while those who didnât would presumably
cease to be and get replaced by others sharing the delusion life has meaning. So taken as a whole, while I think Lovecraft
wrote some great ground-breaking and highly creative fiction and inspired even more, I
do think itâs just that, fiction, and that the stars are our destination and weâll
get there someday. Hopefully we wonât find them occupied by
crazed horrors or get eaten by space kraken on the trip. Of course to do that we need to keep pressing
forward with science and technology. Beyond the knowledge being very useful, I
have to say science in general and learning how our Universe works has always cheered
my mood. Handy too, as it's much easier to learn when
you enjoy that knowledge and it is presented in a fun and challenging way. Thatâs something our friends at Brilliant
excel at. Brilliant is a problem solving website and
app with a hands-on approach, and not only do they have over 50 courses to help you learn
new science and math, but they also have daily challenges that can reinforce and strengthen
material in your head. Those also make great mental exercises to
the brain warmed up in the morning before you head to work or school or while youâre
commuting, and their mobile app lets you access their courses on the go and use them even
when your internet connection is spotty. If youâd like to learn more science, math,
and computer science, go to brilliant.org/IsaacArthur and sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people that go to
that link will get 20% off the annual Premium subscription, so you can solve all the daily
challenges in the archives and access dozens of problem solving courses. So we took a pretty grim look at the Universe
today and I thought next week weâd go a bit more light-hearted and return to the Alien
Civilizations series to look at what a galactic community, if it does exist and weâre not
seeing it, might actually be like, and how our introduction to it might go, in âWelcome
to the Galactic Communityâ The week after that weâll return to Earth,
then head deep down, then deeper, as we explore options like mining the Earthâs Mantle & Core
and creating a tunnel right through the center of the Earth, in âAccessing Earthâs Coreâ
For alerts when those and other episodes come out, make sure to subscribe to the channel,
and if youâd like to support the channel, you can visit our website to donate, or just
share the video with others. Until next time, thanks for watching, and
have a great week!
Anyone seen the ending for Dead Space 3? Fermi Paradox in its worst conclusion.
i had to stop watching this because i couldn't stand the background music.
At 27:17 did anyone else hear "...crazed [professionals] who get eaten by space Kraken".
This episode felt a bit more subjective, more of an argument for utopian futurism.
In my opinion civilisations that survive and expand don't necessarily mean they won't be a nightmare to live in.
Legit got goosebumps a few times during this. Great vid.