The physicist on the spiritual consolations of realizing we’re probably unique in the universe, and not part of some greater plan.

Lawrence Krauss: The picture that science presents to us is, in some sense, uncomfortable because what we’ve learned is that we are more insignificant than we ever could have imagined.  You could get rid of us and all the galaxies and everything we see in the universe and it will be largely the same.  So we’re insignificant on a scale that Copernicus never would have imagined. And in addition, it turns out the future is miserable.  So the two main lessons that I like to say I like to give is first we're insignificant and second the future is miserable.  Now that - you might think that should depress you, but I would argue that, in fact, it should embolden you and provide you a different kind of consolation.

Because if the universe doesn’t care about us and if we're an accident in a remote corner of the universe, in some sense it makes us more precious.  The meaning in our lives is provided by us; we provide our meaning.  And we are here by accidents of evolution and the formation of planets and we should enjoy our brief moment in the sun.  We should make the most of our brief moment in the sun because this is all we have.

And even if we’re so rare that we're the only life forms in the universe, which I doubt, that makes us, in some sense, while we're more insignificant, we're more special.  We are endowed with a consciousness that can ask questions about the beginning of the universe and learn about the universe on its largest scales and experience everything that it means to be human.  Music, art, literature, and science. So for me it should be spiritually uplifting that we're not created with a purpose by someone who takes care of us, like a mannequin or with strings determining everything.  We determine our future.  And that makes our future more precious.

Directed / Produced by

Jonathan Fowler & Elizabeth Rodd