#237 Neil deGrasse Tyson – Curiosity, Creating Connection, and Cosmic Queries

Big Ideas

Neil deGrasse Tyson has always had a thirst for learning. He describes the biggest question that continues to distract him as:

“I wonder whether we as humans are smart enough to not only answer the questions we have posed are we smart enough to even know what questions we should have posed in the first place”

Neil believes we are all born with curiosity. He continues to seek out the resources that the people with conflicting opinions or beliefs to his are consuming so that he can better understand where they are coming from and why they believe what they do.

“You can carry it to your grave, the curiosity of exploring that which you don’t understand and curiosity is what I want to understand or at least I want to know more about it even if I don’t end up understanding it”

Neil’s latest book, Cosmic Queries, dives into some of the deepest questions that humans have ever asked with philosophical, spiritual, and religious implications. Neil hopes that this book stimulates curiosity and wonder in the readers.

“The book is a gift from me to all those who lay awake at night contemplating the deepest questions humans have ever asked”

3:36 Cosmic Queries Opening Line

Neil opens his latest book, Cosmic Queries, with the line:

“To all those who are both curious and restless in search of our place in the universe”

Neil says that this line was chosen because “that’s who the book is for” and this project was in the service of their interest.

“I am your servant from page one to the final page of this book and that’s why it’s dedicated to that and I would want that to be everybody but I know just in practice it isn’t, not everyone is filled with curiosity and wonder but maybe the book will help stimulate that in others”

6:05 Curiosity

Neil believes we are all born with curiosity.

“You don’t need anybody to spark curiosity, you need people to get out of their way as they express their curiosity”

Neil explains how he has always been curious about the universe from a young age, describing a trip to the planetarium and the overwhelming feeling of an ‘infinitude of wonder’.

“With the limitless boundaries of the universe, there was no chance anyone was going to beat that out of me”

10:50 The Question that Neil Continues to Seek the Answer to

Neil describes the question that distracts him the most as:

“I wonder whether we as humans are smart enough to not only answer the questions we have posed, are we smart enough to even know what questions we should have posed in the first place”

13:30 A Thirst for Learning

Neil talks about how much he admired the insightful educators in his life, explaining how he did not relate to the kids that didn’t enjoy school.

“We created a place where learning is not a chore, you can’t wait for it to end”

Educators who impacted Neil:

“Science is not just dangling there, it’s woven into who and what you are as a thinking human”

18:34 Prep Work

Neil says that the people who recognize the work that goes into his talks are school teachers, because they are the ones who know what he is doing and how much energy and preparation it takes.

“The sentences, the rhythm, the word selection, the flow of content, all of this is a huge investment of my time and energy and emotion to get it right”

More of Neil’s preparation and processes are explained in his Master Class.

“As dancers would say, it takes a lot of training to make it look like your dance was effortless”

23:33 Marginal Differences

While it may seem nominal, Neil explains how his choice to not use a clicker in his presentations is actually a key component for keeping his listeners engaged in his talks. Neil explains how his decision to create a pattern of exercises in his talks train the viewers to expect when the topic will change, therefore creating a more valuable experience for them.

“There’s a certain order to the universe and only when I go back to the computer will that slide change and you don’t even have to think about that. That’s the level of attention I give into a talk”

27:55 Communicating to the Audience

When Neil is writing he continuously checks in with his sentences to make a judgement on whether he has kept the reader engaged. Neil interacts with his audiences in his talks and he has found that this interaction causes everyone else in the audience to feel as though he is talking to them. Neil explains how Carl Sagan mastered his language and communication with audiences.

“To watch his facility with language and with humor, and with wit, that combination is quite potent because you get people to be with you with every sentence you utter because they want to hear the next thing you say. When that happens you’ve opened up a complete two way communication channel even though you’re the one doing all the talking”

30:50 Connecting to His Audience

When Neil began to do more appearances on camera instead of in a classroom or academic setting, he didn’t know how to emulate the feeling of talking to an audience and so he drew smiley faces on sticky notes and stuck them to the camera.

“If someone’s going to spend their hard earned money on a book you just wrote, you want to make sure that you got them, that they’ve got you, and it’s mutual.”

32:26 Neil’s Separating Factor

Before he sits down to write, Neil says he first has to realize that there’s some idea that’s never been presented well.

Neil explains how his knowledge of pop culture is extremely valuable for him to communicate science effectively for people, drawing from recent examples and using them as a way to bring his audience halfway to him.

“If I have an ability or a talent or an interest and I can manifest that in a creative way that no one else has done before, I’m going to do it.”

35:18 Understanding Other Points of View

To connect with an audience, Neil says you have to empathize with them and see other points of view that you may have to seek out to learn about. He describes why his book choices are typically topics he doesn’t agree with or understand much about, wanting to see why other people would be thinking one way and not the other.

“I try to understand how people are thinking, what’s going on so that I can best identify the receptors that they carry so that when it’s time for me to communicate with them the communication links are open rather than closed”

40:38 The Absence of Curiosity

“Curiosity is a pathway out of the staleness of what it is you thought was true.”

Neil uses religion as an example of how you can be a deep believer but can still be curious about other views.

“You can carry it to your grave, the curiosity of exploring that which you don’t understand, and curiosity is what I want to understand or at least I want to know more about it even if I don’t end up understanding it”

46:25 The Human Sensory System

Neil talks about how the human sensory system is full of inaccuracies. He explains how probability and statistics are areas that humans are genetically inadequate at and incapable of having an intuition about.

“It is a day that there isn’t an odd coincidence, that would be odd”

51:34 The Levels of the Multiverse

There is a whole chapter in Neil’s new book, Cosmic Queries, on the multiverse. Neil gives a preview of the chapter with an explanation of multiverses and how we have typically viewed them and the various levels of multiverse.

“In Cosmic Queries, which is really a celebration of curiosity and questioning, the multiverse is an excellent example of questions that we can answer, questions that we think we can answer, and questions that we don’t even know if it’s the right question”

54:09 Cosmic Queries

Neil says that the questions within Cosmic Queries are very deep, with philosophical, spiritual, and religious implications.