Top Scientist REVEALS: We Invented Heaven, God Is A Human Invention! | Prof Brian Greene

**Brian Greene** (0:00)
And I can't convince you that we're not in the Matrix. Why? We could be.
Is this table real? Am I really here? Am I a simulation sitting inside some computer? Maybe there's a kid. When 29th century Earth, then they happen to allow you and I to exist sitting at this table. And here's a big assumption. Can you create a computer program that has consciousness? Nobody knows the answer to that, but I've spoken to some of today's AI researchers who think that ChatGPT is conscious. And in the back of my mind, I do think it's possible.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:30)
Then if we considered robots to be conscious, would they then get rights?

**Brian Greene** (0:34)
I think that's something we should think about now, actually.

**Steven Bartlett** (0:36)
Professor Brian Greene, what is the ultimate question that you're seeking to answer?

**Brian Greene** (0:40)
We find ourselves thrust on this planet. We're trying to figure out why we're here. Is there some ultimate purpose? We're a little dot on planet Earth, and you begin to see our sun, one of many stars within the galaxy. You can look at our Milky Way galaxy within the setting of the entire universe.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:00)
And what's beyond?

**Brian Greene** (1:01)
Well, if the universe is infinite, if you go sufficiently far out into space, you're virtually guaranteed to find a copy of yourself out there.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:08)
There's a version out there of me that just loves light.

**Brian Greene** (1:11)
There you go.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:12)
So should I feel insignificant?

**Brian Greene** (1:14)
I would urge you not to, because the fact that we can understand that we are so small, that's what gives us a sense of connection to something larger.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:23)
Do you think it could lead us to God?

**Brian Greene** (1:24)
If you mean the kind of God our forebears often have spoken, that feels to me very much a human creation. I will tell you why I'm skeptical of that. But another thing we should think about is the end of the earth, because if we go arbitrarily far into the future, the earth is going to spiral.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:41)
It's not going to get scary.

**Brian Greene** (1:42)
Well, it's scary the whole way.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:48)
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Professor Brian Greene. What is the ultimate question that you're seeking to answer?

**Brian Greene** (2:29)
The ultimate question I would say is, what is the true nature of reality? We find ourselves thrust on this planet, and we look out and we're trying to figure out why we're here, what it's made of, is there some ultimate purpose?
Or is it just some interesting accident that allowed us to have self-awareness and ask these kinds of questions about the nature of the world? I think that to me is the deepest kind of question that we humans can ask.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:01)
Do you feel like over the last 30 years of your career, you've gotten closer to understanding the answer to that question?

**Brian Greene** (3:07)
Yes, but it's like picking up grains of sand on a beach, right? You pick up more and more, and that pouch of sand gets heavier, so your understanding is deeper, it's weightier, but you look out and there's just almost infinitely more grains of sand that are out there. We understand the world better than we once did, but does that really take us some significant way toward assessing the big, deep questions of, say, why is there something rather than nothing? Maybe that's the deepest question of all.
But which I don't mean empty space, I mean nothing, nothing at all.

**Steven Bartlett** (3:49)
Well, will Innis' conversation go in the pursuit of that answer? To tell people who you are and to let them understand the journey you've been on academically and through your career, where did you study, where have you worked over the last couple of decades?

**Brian Greene** (4:02)