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Hugo Lagercrantz tells Morgan Freeman that fishes can't experience the psychological aspects of pain because they lack thalamocortical connections. Lagercrantz says, "Thalamocortical connections are crucial for consciousness."
Freeman interviews experts regarding the transition from non-living to living forms of life.
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Freeman interviews experts regarding the transition from non-living to living forms of life.
Thanks for watching. Follow for more videos.
#cosmosspacescience
#throughthewormhole
#season4
#episode2
#cosmology
#astronomy
#spacetime
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LearningTranscript
00:00everyone has a beginning but when does that beginning begin is it the instant
00:13two cells fuse together for the moment we enter the world scientists and
00:21religious leaders don't agree on when the first spark of life occurs is life
00:27just biology or does our sense of consciousness dictate whether we are
00:33truly alive if we can create consciousness can we build life out of
00:41non-life and understand when life begins
00:47space time life itself
00:59the secrets of the cosmos lie through the wormhole
01:03life is a miracle that's a word we use when we are moved by something and when we don't understand
01:24how it happens nine months before a child is born it's just a handful of cells no more complex
01:32apparently than the bacteria that live on our skin both these clumps of cells have genes they both
01:40reproduce one turns into something we value greatly the other just makes us sick but they are both
01:49miracles a collection of chemicals with a mysterious spark of life did you ever make your own lunches
02:00growing up I used to make peanut butter sandwiches every once in a while I'd find a moldy slice of
02:07bread where did this green fuzz come from I wonder just seemed to have appeared from thin air I wonder what
02:17would happen if I left it alone with the mold keep growing into a fuzzy mold monster
02:23it didn't it was alive but not in the way I was what was it inside me that made me grow into a boy
02:47more in common is a biologist at the University of Utah School of Medicine she spends her weekends
02:56traversing the Wasatch Mountains of Utah where life springs up all around her as a biologist it's
03:04always fascinating to come to the mountains because there's such a diversity of life around
03:08you and it all comes into being in radically different ways all organisms reproduce but
03:17they have different ways of doing it the aspen trees that pervade the mountains of Utah clone
03:23themselves offspring grow as shoots from the roots of more mature trees creating grows that are really the
03:31same tree grown over and over again some worms on the other hand create their next generations in a
03:40different way there's a whole class of worms known as planaria they reproduce by attaching the back of
03:48their body to a rock and stretching themselves out until they literally tear themselves in two and
03:52then each of the two halves produce a full worm nature offers myriad ways for life to begin
04:00but the one that fascinates Maureen is the way it happens for you and me and no it doesn't involve
04:10a stork so human life comes into existence in just a fraction of a second you have a human egg and a
04:17human sperm and their sole purpose in life is to find each other and fuse so they come together and in
04:22that one instant you create a new kind of cell a one-celled human embryo this new cell has its own genetic
04:31code its own DNA that is a unique mixture of the egg and the sperm and within the single cell there's a
04:39complete plan for development development doesn't create that information it's there from the very
04:44beginning from her understanding of embryology Maureen concludes that the life of a unique human
04:52individual begins within the quarter of a second it takes the sperm and the egg to unite that single
05:01cell embryo contains an elaborate instruction manual with all of the information needed to create a human
05:08being you can think of it like a camping tent that builds itself so our tent is self-assembling because
05:19it has all of the parts it needs to put itself together and because it has a set of instructions built into
05:26it that allow it to assemble into its final state life is like this tent only a billion times more complex
05:35after the single-celled embryo is formed it takes a journey down the fallopian tubes to the uterus where
05:45it begins the process of cell division from two cells to four to eight to sixteen and so on after about
05:53one week the embryo arrives at the uterine wall and then plants itself a week later the sales of the embryo
06:02begin to reorganize themselves into a primitive body after three weeks the beginning of the nervous system
06:10is in place as days go on cells continue to multiply blood vessels form the heart starts to beat the backbone
06:21takes shape arms and legs begin to bulge out during that time the formation of the brain begins the cells and
06:32tissues of the embryo undergo these amazingly complex cellular gymnastics to give rise to structures organs
06:39complex relationships that turn that flat embryo into something that has formed
06:45maureen's biological understanding of the development of a human embryo leaves her with little doubt about when a new human
07:00life begins we all trace our our own origins back to this single cell that came into existence as spermate fusion
07:09it's something we should try to understand as a process of self-discovery as a process of understanding our
07:16natures this is where we began but not all scientists trace an individual's origins back to just two cells
07:24in fact some scientists believe within one individual there could be the ghosts of multiple lives that life
07:36on earth is an unbreakable chain of events where one generation and the next are blurred together when I was a
07:45kid I would go and visit my grandfather and he used to play chess and I would go and watch him and I
07:50grew up learning to play with him on and then my father also taught my son and now my son and I play
08:04I think there's an interesting parallel between chess that was passed from one generation to another
08:09and what we know biologically now is the passage of cells between generations
08:14Dr. Hilary Gamble from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center believes individual lives are more
08:24interwoven than we ever imagined she wonders if inside all of us there are traces of our relatives dating back
08:33generations my area focuses on the exchange of cells between a mother and fetus during pregnancy the classic
08:41textbooks used to state that there was absolutely no contact between the fetal blood and the maternal
08:45blood they were just protected in separate compartments for years scientists thought when the placenta forms it
08:53acts as an impenetrable barrier between the mother and the fetus so nothing as large as a foreign cell
09:00with foreign genes could pass through baby's DNA stays within the baby and mom's DNA stays with the mom
09:08by peering into the blood streams of mothers Hillary and her team have discovered something remarkable when
09:22they sampled just a teaspoon of blood from the mothers they found dozens and dozens of foreign cells floating
09:28around cells from the mothers babies so we actually understand now that throughout pregnancy there is
09:37bi-directional exchange of information cells and DNA between the mother and the fetus Hillary's work shows the
09:45placenta is not at all impenetrable it's more like a sieve there are minuscule holes that let cells out and
09:53let cells in these foreign cells can survive in our bodies for decades it's an exchange that happens
10:00not only between mother and fetus cells from other relatives may sneak in too it is theoretically possible
10:08that we could have cells that are exchanged from multiple different sources and you know older siblings
10:14and certainly mothers and fetuses but past generations as well when a mother acquires cells from a fetus she
10:23could pass on these baby cells to her next child a younger sibling could have cells from the body of an
10:30older sibling these cells are more than just a curiosity they can act as soldiers in the body and combat disease
10:38those cells can be active against cancer cells that develop in the recipient but not all of these
10:45exchange cells protect and defend when our immune system detects these foreign cells in the bloodstream it
10:52may decide to attack them these small numbers of foreign cells that are persistent in an individual are
11:00associated with disease states like autoimmune diseases like systemic sclerosis the exchange of cells
11:08may have both positive and negative consequences for the health of the individuals involved the
11:16presence of cells from our relatives could change the course of our entire lives making us all more
11:22interconnected than we ever thought possible understanding that cells are exchanged commonly between
11:30individuals I think blurs the borders between those individuals so that the beginning of one life and
11:37the end of another life are a little bit less clear
11:42the life of some parts of our bodies actually begins before our sperm and egg have ever met
11:48but one doctor in Stockholm wants to push the beginning of life in the other direction
11:54he believes we cannot be alive until we know we are alive
12:00when does human life begin in this age of in vitro fertilization and prenatal medicine it's a question that scientists and doctors struggle to answer every day
12:15perhaps there's another way to approach the question how do you know if someone is home you knock on the door see if someone answers
12:27when dr. Hugo Lager Krantz was a younger man his life was stressful
12:42he was the director of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Astrid Lindgren children's hospital in Stockholm where he monitored fetuses and newborn babies
12:50field monitoring was quite new at that time there were a lot of force alarms so it was distressing
12:57but hugo's patients experienced far more stress than he ever did not the mothers the babies being born is the most stressful event in life
13:11particularly if you're born in the natural way
13:18when we are born we are taken from our warm safe womb and thrown into the world
13:24it's the most dramatic day of our lives
13:28but it's a day we don't even remember
13:34this made hugo wonder when do babies become aware of what's going on
13:40when does consciousness begin
13:43he thinks we can look for clues by looking at fish
13:48now there is a new law in Sweden that you're not allowed to use hooks when you're fishing
13:53the idea is that they think that the fish may be conscious and suffer
13:57and certainly the fish reacts to pain
14:00but I don't think the fish is conscious about pain
14:03more kind of reflex
14:06according to Hugo
14:10fish cannot experience the psychological aspect of pain
14:13because they lack the brain circuitry called thalamocortical connections
14:18thalamocortical connections operate like a switchboard in the human brain
14:26whenever we see, hear, touch, smell or taste something
14:32electrical signals go from our sensory organs to the cortex
14:37so our brains can process what we experience in the world
14:41these thalamocortical connections are crucial for consciousness
14:46because we believe that consciousness, at least high consciousness
14:50is localized in the cortex
14:53and if what you see, what you hear, what you sense doesn't reach the cortex
14:59then you cannot be conscious about it
15:01Hugo is now a neonatal researcher
15:04and studies when human brains develop these connections
15:08when does the first spark of consciousness happen?
15:12Donato, a four day old full term baby
15:17is here to help Hugo find out
15:20there are several criteria for consciousness
15:23one is being awake
15:25and then to be aware of your body
15:29and then of course to be aware of what you see and hear and smell etc
15:34Hugo and his team connect Donato to an instrument that measures blood flow in his brain
15:40when Donato is exposed to certain stimuli
15:46Hugo can tell if the baby's brain is receiving signals
15:49and processing the outside world
15:55Milk is a scent Donato is used to
15:58which is why he shows little blood flow
16:01Vanilla on the other hand
16:04is a pleasant surprise
16:06causing the blood flow in the brain to spike
16:10With vanilla, it indicates that the baby reacted in the cortex to this smell
16:16When Hugo gives Donato a whiff of a toxic odor like acetone
16:22he has a very negative reaction
16:24his blood flow goes down
16:26even below where he started before he smelled the milk
16:30It tells us that the baby seems to be conscious of the good and bad smell
16:37which I think is very important from an evolutionary point of view
16:41for survival
16:42I mean you must be able to differentiate between what is good for you
16:46and what is poisonous or not good for you
16:51Hugo's study proves that even a four day old baby is already conscious
16:56but what about before we reach full term?
16:59Testing for consciousness in fetuses is too invasive with current medical technology
17:05So Hugo tries to get clues by studying premature infants born as young as 22 weeks
17:12I would say that after 25, 26 weeks they seem to have some degree of consciousness
17:19but before that there were very few signs that they are conscious
17:26Hugo's research has led him to believe that a baby cannot be conscious until it is about 25 weeks old
17:34So is this when life begins?
17:37I think before consciousness has developed you are not a person actually
17:43I think this is the time when life begins
17:46But one child psychologist thinks the beginning of life comes much later
17:52later than you could ever imagine
17:56Mark Twain once wrote
18:03Man is the only animal that blushes
18:06or needs to
18:08Blushing is a uniquely human reaction
18:11One that stems from our high level of self-awareness
18:15But babies don't blush
18:18It's something they have to learn
18:20Does human life only truly begin when we become self-conscious?
18:27Philippe Rochat is a child psychologist at Emory University
18:32He has spent his career embarrassing himself in the name of science
18:38So if I have my sticker on the forehead and I see people giving me looks, okay
18:47I'm going to start to be unsettled and concerned
18:49I mean something is wrong about myself
18:51I think that to be human is to be concerned about reputation
18:56At the psychological and cultural level
18:59Life begins indeed inhuman with the emergence of self-consciousness
19:05Blushing and bashment and shame
19:08Humans have developed a social brain
19:14We are the only species that do things like wear clothes and jewelry
19:19Monkeys don't wear makeup
19:22We are the only species that is profoundly concerned with how the world sees us
19:28According to Philippe, only when a child develops this concern
19:34Is he fully human and psychologically alive?
19:41Okay
19:42Come
19:43Philippe is the head of the Emory Infant and Child Lab
19:47Where he is trying to detect when children become aware of how they are perceived by the world
19:53You can sit here
19:55He says a first sign is when a child feels the pressure to go along with a crowd
20:01Meet one year old Booker
20:04Hey Booker, we are going to play
20:06Philippe and Booker's mother have pink stickers on their foreheads
20:10Look, this is boo-boo
20:12So we create this social norm
20:14Then we place the mark on the kid's head
20:18Unbeknownst to him, surreptitiously
20:21And we look at the child's reaction when he sees that he too has a mark on the forehead
20:28If Booker's brain has developed an awareness of what other people think of him
20:35He will leave the sticker on his head to fit in with the others
20:39But Booker is more concerned with getting the pesky sticker off his head
20:45Than he is with fitting in
20:48Okay, Caden, are you comfortable there?
20:51Huh?
20:52But when Philippe tries the same test on four-year-old Caden
20:55He gets a very different reaction
20:58Caden basically freezes in front of his own image
21:08He noticed that we all have a sticker on the forehead
21:13And he leaves the sticker on
21:16So there's this idea of conformity
21:19They care about their own image and self-presentation
21:23This is something that emerged by two to three years of age
21:28It's a big milestone
21:30But Philippe's research has shown that even a three-year-old is not yet fully self-aware
21:36What?
21:38Paper on my head
21:40There is still another level of psychological development to reach
21:44Okay, look, I have some cups here
21:47I think they are beautiful
21:49This is four-year-old Sidney
21:52I'm gonna build something with him
21:54Sidney watches as Philippe builds what he is calling
21:57The most beautiful sculpture in the world
22:00Whoa!
22:01But he's very fragile, huh?
22:03I'm not sure he's gonna hold
22:05But I'm gonna get some glue to put the cups together
22:10So, don't touch it, okay? I'll be right back
22:17As Sidney patiently waits for Philippe to return with glue
22:20To secure the precious work of art
22:23Philippe secretly pulls a transparent fish wire
22:26That is connected to a bottom cup
22:29And the question is, is to what extent the child will show concern
22:39That he's gonna be seen as responsible for the collapsing of the sculpture
22:44Sidney is not fazed by the tragic collapse
22:48Because he does not care if he looks like the culprit
22:51Everything okay?
22:53What happened?
22:55Did you touch it?
22:57No
22:58He's not concerned with how Philippe will perceive him
23:01When Philippe plays the same trick on five-year-old Milo
23:06That was scary
23:12He takes action and tries to rebuild the pyramid before Philippe returns
23:21And what we've seen with Milo and other five-year-olds
23:24Is the great concern about how they're gonna be perceived and judged
23:31Which is a huge step in the development of consciousness
23:42Philippe's tests chart the development of a fully conscious brain
23:48Just as a fetus develops in stages from a single cell to a baby over the course of nine months
23:54Consciousness in the brain grows in stages too
23:56Philippe believes consciousness comes to full term after about five years
24:04What happened?
24:05It has fallen by itself
24:07How is that possible?
24:09And to him, it's the mark of when we are truly alive
24:13Why don't we put it back together?
24:15Okay
24:17What it means to be alive, I think it's not to be a robot and not to be a machine
24:23To be alive is more than sensing the world
24:28But to be alive is to feel the world
24:34To say that a child's life does not begin until he becomes self-conscious has radical implications
24:41A four-year-old is not alive
24:44But a newborn piece of machinery might be
24:46If it can think on its own
24:51Even a child can tell that a spider is alive
25:07And a rock is not
25:09But what if a lifeless object became a life form?
25:19Can life begin inside something that's dead?
25:23Good afternoon, thank you for coming
25:26I'm here to do a presentation on Project Annabelle
25:29Kate Izakievich is on a serious mission
25:32She has a plan to build the first ever living machine
25:36I've always wanted a chihuahua and I've always had a thing that I want to name it, Annabelle
25:42She is facing her toughest critic yet
25:45Renowned computational neuroscientist, Eugene Izakievich
25:50Also known as dead
25:53I decided that what if I could make a dog that was robotic
25:56Kate has been asking me for a real dog since she was three years old
26:00And for the last two years she has been asking me for a robotic dog
26:05So no mess, eats and poops out batteries
26:08Kate thinks that Project Annabelle is possible because I do computational neuroscience
26:12And I build artificial nervous system for robots
26:15I hope Project Annabelle will become my dad's first priority
26:19Thank you
26:23Kate thinks her dad is the best man for the job
26:25Eugene has built the most detailed computer model of the human brain
26:30A hundred billion neurons and almost one quadrillion synapses
26:36His ultimate goal is to create consciousness in an artificial nervous system
26:43He thinks it could be the beginning of a new life form
26:47One never before seen on earth
26:50I don't believe that consciousness is something that's only
26:53Has to be part of a human brain
26:56I think we can create computer programs for robots
27:00That possess this property
27:02Eugene and his team think they have found a way to do this
27:06Instead of giving robots step-by-step instructions with a program to make them move
27:11They want their robots to figure out how to move and learn on their own
27:15Just like living conscious beings
27:17They are building their robots electronic brains
27:22Modeled on biological ones
27:24Somebody says what's the most important concept in the brain
27:29I would say it's a neuron
27:31Neurons are the brain cells that help conscious biological beings like these dogs learn
27:37We may think biscuits are the key to a dog's learning
27:42But it's actually the neurons in his brain
27:46When a dog learns how to fetch
27:48The neurons in his brain fire spikes of electricity that create pathways
27:52As he practices more and more his neurons fire faster and faster
27:59And electricity flows more efficiently down the new pathway
28:03Eugene and his team of roboticists are building artificial networks of neurons that fire spikes of electricity
28:15And create favored pathways just like the neurons in a biological brain
28:21They wanted to see what would happen if they wired these spiking neurons to a robotic body
28:28Could a robot learn how to move and become aware of its body and its environment all by itself?
28:35Could a robot become conscious?
28:39Our approach to robotics is quite different from the standard approach
28:46We don't program robots
28:48We endow them with artificial nervous system and their own experiences
28:52For example, a robot starts by moving their hands and moving their necks
28:56And just exploring their own body
28:58And after that, users, people can teach robots the same way as they teach dogs and cats different tricks
29:04To reward and punishment
29:06Eugene and his team use different body shapes to see how many kinds of movements a robot can learn
29:15This robot is trying to learn how to stand up
29:18Its artificial brain is telling its body how to move
29:22They look alive
29:24And some of the demos that I showed to my daughter look so creepy that she said that we are torturing a baby robot
29:31By endowing Eugene's artificial brains with a body and letting them explore the world
29:40These robots acquire experience
29:43They develop behaviors
29:46Are they becoming alive?
29:47You can imagine a situation when you have a set of robots having access to raw materials
29:54You can even hypothesize that it's possible for these robots to kind of create copies of themselves
30:00And then such a community of robots would act as a life system
30:05Perhaps the day will come when one of Eugene's robots will feel emotion
30:09Maybe even blush
30:12Artificial life will then be indistinguishable from our own
30:18But building robots may not be the only way to create new life on Earth
30:24One scientist in Denmark is searching for the perfect recipe
30:29He thinks the ingredients to produce new life forms are right under our noses
30:35If we build robots that become self-aware
30:40Then humanity will have created an entirely new form of life
30:46It will be the first time in billions of years that something non-living became living
30:53But there might be another way to create brand new life forms
30:57Not in a robot
30:59Not in a robot
31:01But in a petri dish
31:10Martin Hanzik from the University of Southern Denmark
31:13Is trying to figure out when life begins by going back to a time when life was simpler
31:19As a biochemist, he knows that in order to understand life
31:23He has to look at the simplest form that appeared on Earth a very long time ago
31:30When we think about the origin of life
31:33There must have been a very interesting transition from material that we wouldn't consider living
31:37That gave rise to organize what we would call life or biology
31:41So it's a big mystery and it's a fascinating mystery
31:47How can inanimate objects become animate?
31:50What sparked the transition from non-living to living?
31:56Martin's work as a biochemist inspires him to ask that question wherever he looks
32:03So what we're looking at here is an old windmill
32:08It's from I think the 1830s
32:11And we are considering whether an artificial construction like this has any similarity to living systems
32:16Living systems have a body, they have a metabolism, and they have some sort of inheritable information
32:23Clearly, this windmill has a body
32:27It has a metabolism that takes wind energy from the outside and uses it as power
32:33And it has inheritable information
32:36There is a blueprint for this that has information about how to put the parts together to make a functional windmill
32:43Humans can use these blueprints and create modern windmills
32:53In a sense, you could say the windmills have evolved and multiplied
32:58However, something important is missing
33:02Windmills cannot grow all by themselves
33:04They rely on humans to assemble them
33:09But the first forms of life must have assembled themselves
33:14Martin wanted to see if he could find a recipe made of non-living materials that could build itself a body and become alive
33:23We think one of the key steps in the origin of life is actually the self-assembly of molecules together
33:35Martin wondered what kind of chemicals might behave like this
33:39He realized he had to look no further than the kitchen pantry
33:44Oil
33:46As we all know, when you combine oil and water, they don't mix
33:51But the combination forces the oil molecules to self-assemble and form big droplets
33:58These are the bodies Martin decided to use for his lab-made life
34:05So when we make an oil droplet in a dish, nothing happens
34:13You just get a nice spherical oil droplet that just sits there in the dish
34:17But the key was how to then power some sort of movement of the system
34:23We wanted to put in a metabolism
34:25Martin injected his oil droplets with molecules that break down into soap bubbles when they encounter water
34:33The bubbles spread from the middle of the droplets to the edge, pushing them around like a motor
34:39It's a working metabolism
34:43You could say it's almost alive
34:46We were very excited when we saw this because not only does it work, but it worked rather quickly
34:53Martin has successfully created a self-assembling body that can metabolize and move on its own
35:00Next, he arranged for a little oil droplet soiree
35:05Could he mimic the process of reproduction?
35:09And it's interesting that when we put more than one droplet into an experiment
35:14They tend to follow one another, almost like a dance
35:17The oil droplets are being social
35:20And we all know what a little mingling and some good chemistry can lead to
35:25Each droplet is giving out a chemical signal
35:29And therefore the droplets are able to communicate with each other through this kind of chemical language
35:34But even if one of Martin's droplets meets the one
35:39What about inheritable information?
35:42Do they have a genetic blueprint?
35:43We are thinking of how to address this question of inheritance and genetic information
35:50One way to do it is to take some lessons from biology and put something in like RNA or DNA
35:56But we're thinking of more primitive ways of understanding the emergence of information
36:02Martin is still working on recipes for inheritable information
36:06And he's on the brink of creating a living organism from non-living materials
36:10If there is a line between living and non-living systems then it must be a very blurry line
36:21From artificial cells to artificial neurons, scientists are creating new life with their own hands
36:29But one form of physicist thinks there could be another version of life arising
36:35Growing out of the collective experience of all of humanity
36:40Life on Earth began as a simple cycle of chemical reactions in a bubbling primordial pond
36:51Four billion years later, those chemical reactions have spread across the planet
36:57And have become so complex that they can think and talk like me
37:03But something new is happening
37:05Connections between computers have spread worldwide
37:11Forming a dense electronic web
37:14And now, these global networks
37:17One electronic, one chemical
37:20Are interacting
37:22A new life could be about to begin
37:25On a scale unlike anything Earth has ever known
37:28Evolutionary cyberneticist Francis Heiligen at the Free University of Brussels
37:39Thinks humanity is giving birth
37:42And this baby is big
37:45If we look at global society at all the seven billion people on this planet
37:50People become more and more connected into a coherent being
37:54The internet gives you immediate access to all the important ideas
37:57The internet gives you immediate access to all the important ideas
38:01Nowadays, ideas that travel the ocean, they can do that with almost the speed of light
38:07That means the speed that is comparable to the speed that the neurons in our brain used to talk to each other
38:12The global network that connects all of us
38:19Facilitates massive amounts of information sharing
38:22Information that has unveiled secrets that explain how our universe works
38:27The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, for example
38:31Could not have detected the elusive Higgs boson
38:34Without the ability to share tremendous amounts of data across the globe at great speeds
38:38If Galileo could immediately have talked with all his colleagues
38:48I'm sure that science would have developed much more quickly
38:52Francis and his team of computer scientists have invented a mathematical model to measure what the internet is doing
39:01Their goal is to find out whether it is becoming a global brain
39:08In the mathematical model, like in all scientific models, you make a kind of simplification of reality
39:14Instead of having a real person, you will have a small computer program that in some way behaves like a real person
39:20Francis' models are like global FMRIs, where people act like the neurons in a giant brain
39:31Just as neurons learn by firing back and forth, people fire information to one another electronically
39:39Francis believes, as connections between people increase in number and strength, our global brain will become more intelligent
39:47Hmm
39:52You see that the network of connections, it's getting better at what it needs to do
39:57New connections are created, old connections that are no longer useful disappear
40:03And the whole thing is constantly self-organizing
40:06Francis' work has shown him that our global brain is adapting, learning
40:11Humanity and the internet are merging to become a giant living being
40:20He compares this beginning of global life to the beginning of life for his nine-year-old daughter, Nia
40:28This is a picture of Nia in the womb
40:32She had a rudimentary brain, but the brain was basically a bunch of cells, there was no interconnection
40:40Learning and experiencing over the months and the years to find what are the right connections
40:47She started out as this bunch of cells, but then she gradually developed into
40:52smart, intelligent, adventurous little girl that likes to climb in trees
40:57A single cell in Nia's body doesn't know what to do on its own
41:05It is the coordinated effort of the billions of neurons in her brain
41:10That tells her leg muscles how to climb a tree trunk
41:13And tells her arm muscles how to propel herself from branch to branch
41:17Francis believes humans and the web are working together in the same way
41:22If life begins with a brain, then humanity has just climbed to a new level of awareness
41:32It is the beginning of consciousness at the global level that we see with the emergence of the internet
41:41So it is a kind of a beginning of life
41:44A human being cannot survive without a brain
41:47A brain cannot survive without a body
41:50And now the body of humanity and the brain of the web
41:54may be evolving into a super intelligent organism
41:58Could it be the beginning of a new form of life?
42:04When does life begin?
42:07We now know there are several answers to this question
42:12When sperm and egg meet, they create a new and unique genetic blueprint
42:17Life takes another leap forward when creatures become conscious
42:23Be they babies, toddlers or robots
42:27And when all those individual life forms merge
42:31Becoming part of a global super organism
42:34Life on Earth will advance one more step
42:37And perhaps one day
42:39That new life form will ask where its life began
42:45And what miracles are yet to be born
42:48Keep on
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