00:00:01
Hey, Vsauce, Michael here. A single
00:00:04
piece of refined flour is on average
00:00:06
just 82.67 microns wide. That means a 5
00:00:10
lb bag of flour contains about 2.7
00:00:14
billion individual specks of flower
00:00:16
dust. Now, if each of those particles
00:00:18
were a person, three bags could
00:00:20
represent every single human alive on
00:00:22
Earth today. 8.1 billion itty bitty
00:00:26
things. Are you under 30 years old? Is a
00:00:30
question that could roughly divide
00:00:31
everyone alive today in half, the yeses
00:00:33
and the nos. But can you imagine a
00:00:36
second question that could then divide
00:00:37
both of those groups in half? Well, if
00:00:40
so, and if you kept doing that, after
00:00:41
just 33 questions, you would be left
00:00:43
with more than 8 billion groups, each
00:00:46
containing just one person. In other
00:00:48
words, out of everyone alive today, we
00:00:50
could pinpoint a specific individual,
00:00:52
for example, you, with just 33 yes or no
00:00:55
questions. What would those questions
00:00:58
be? Do they even exist? We don't know.
00:01:02
But we do know that every year about
00:01:04
this many people die. A little bit more
00:01:06
than a/4 cup. But about twice as many as
00:01:09
that are born. But how many people have
00:01:12
ever been born? This many. 117
00:01:17
billion. But out of all of these people,
00:01:19
out of everyone who has ever existed,
00:01:22
this is how many you will ever meet. You
00:01:26
are a stranger to your own species. This
00:01:29
is a video about how you will be
00:01:31
forgotten. It's about the ghosts that
00:01:33
surround us and how they're getting
00:01:35
closer.
00:01:38
Our journey begins 2500 km above the
00:01:41
surface of the sun. There, a hot layer
00:01:44
of ionized gas begins its reach millions
00:01:47
of kilome out into space. It's called
00:01:49
the solar corona. And normally it's
00:01:52
outshon by the rest of the sun because
00:01:54
it gives off just 1 millionth as much
00:01:57
light. But during an eclipse it can be
00:02:00
seen. When you are eclipsed your own
00:02:03
sort of corona will remain as well. The
00:02:06
memories people have of you. Your
00:02:08
treasure and junk. Emails and texts you
00:02:11
sent. The fact that your child has a
00:02:14
nose like yours. Every appearance you
00:02:16
made in the background of a stranger's
00:02:18
photo. Those are all traces of you that
00:02:20
shine while you're alive, but can also
00:02:23
continue long after you're gone. Douglas
00:02:26
Hoffetter called them your solar corona.
00:02:29
I love that phrase because it makes a
00:02:31
cosmological phenomenon personal by
00:02:33
literally including you.
00:02:37
How long will you be here? Well, that's
00:02:40
why I made this clock. It tells the
00:02:42
time, but it also tells your time. Just
00:02:46
answer a few questions and then when
00:02:48
it's ready, push the red button and the
00:02:50
clock will begin counting down the
00:02:52
seconds you have left to live
00:02:54
approximately. Now, whenever you want,
00:02:56
you can switch it to show the time. But
00:02:59
that's not nearly as fun. Also, this
00:03:01
clock never forgets. If you take away
00:03:03
its power, it'll go dark, but it's still
00:03:06
thinking about you. Next time you plug
00:03:08
it in, it will pick right back up where
00:03:10
it should be. Now, if you would like a
00:03:12
practical retro momento mori, you can
00:03:15
pre-order one of these now. Omnis
00:03:18
vulnerant ultim nat is Latin and it
00:03:21
refers to these passing seconds. It
00:03:23
means each of these wounds the last
00:03:27
kills. Mox knocks means soon it will be
00:03:31
night and it will. But while this is
00:03:34
ticking down, something else is ticking
00:03:36
up. The number of ghosts in the world.
00:03:40
Your nominal ghost is your name. It's
00:03:43
out there representing you whether
00:03:45
you're there or not. It won't haunt the
00:03:47
world forever. Though, as we've often
00:03:49
been reminded, you die twice. Once when
00:03:52
your heart stops beating, and then
00:03:54
again, usually sometime later, when your
00:03:56
name is spoken for the last time. But
00:04:00
whose name has been remembered the
00:04:02
longest? Well, signed here on this
00:04:04
5,000-year-old tablet is the oldest
00:04:07
written name we've ever found. Kusham,
00:04:10
the first named character we know in the
00:04:12
written history of humanity. Probably
00:04:16
it's not entirely clear whether Kusham
00:04:18
is the name of a person or just the
00:04:21
title of an office holder. You know, if
00:04:23
you want to be really sure, a generation
00:04:25
or two later, this tablet was made. It
00:04:28
contains three names. G Saul and two
00:04:31
people he enslaved in Pop X and a woman
00:04:34
named Sakalger. These individuals are
00:04:37
the reigning chance of avoiding the
00:04:39
second death. And with archival
00:04:41
practices and technologies being what
00:04:43
they are today, your name could
00:04:45
conceivably last just as long as these
00:04:47
have already. But you know, I got to
00:04:50
say, if you want your ghosts to last
00:04:53
longer, it helps to bend the truth a
00:04:57
little bit. Toby Jukenov built this
00:05:00
interactive globe that shows the most
00:05:02
famous person born in every location.
00:05:05
Fame is based on Wikipedia data. How
00:05:07
long their article is, how many
00:05:09
languages it's in, how many visits it
00:05:11
gets per day, stuff like that. By the
00:05:13
way, out of everyone alive right now,
00:05:15
about this many of us, almost exactly a
00:05:17
quarter teaspoon are mentioned on
00:05:19
Wikipedia. Now, let's zoom in on
00:05:21
Stillwell, Kansas. Oh, hey there,
00:05:24
good-looking. But here's the thing. I
00:05:27
wasn't born in Stillwell. I I grew up
00:05:30
there. I lived there from ages 5 to 18,
00:05:34
but I was born in Kansas City. For a
00:05:37
while, a lot of things online said that
00:05:38
I was born in Stillwell, so that's
00:05:40
probably how I wound up here. But should
00:05:42
I correct it? What's more important? The
00:05:45
truth or a little lie that prolongs and
00:05:48
enhances my nominal ghost?
00:05:51
Maybe the truth? Because even if my name
00:05:54
is forgotten, images of me may stick
00:05:56
around. And that is your second ghost,
00:06:00
your likeness. Figurative portrayals of
00:06:02
what you look like. Now, we have no idea
00:06:04
what most people who have lived looked
00:06:06
like long ago. No records were made.
00:06:09
Eventually, some were and have survived.
00:06:12
So, who's the earliest known person
00:06:14
where like we know what they looked
00:06:16
like? Well, it's probably Gudea. He was
00:06:20
an ancient Sumerian ruler and 27
00:06:23
4,000year-old statues of him have been
00:06:25
found in southern Iraq. They stand out
00:06:28
not just for their craftsmanship, but
00:06:30
also for the fact that earlier
00:06:31
depictions of human forms are either
00:06:33
more abstract or generalized, but
00:06:36
because these depictions of Guda are
00:06:38
more realistic, are so similar to each
00:06:40
other, and have been found spread so
00:06:42
widely, it's tenable that they're
00:06:44
similar to the actual face of the actual
00:06:46
individual as he appeared in life, the
00:06:49
first known illustrated person in our
00:06:53
history. Even if your figural ghosts
00:06:55
don't stick around as long as gudas
00:06:57
have, things that look kind of like you
00:07:00
might. I'm talking about your genetic
00:07:03
ghost, your personal genomic variation
00:07:06
that can be carried on by your
00:07:07
descendants. Now, interestingly, even if
00:07:10
your progeny are especially fckened,
00:07:13
your genetic ghost probably won't stick
00:07:15
around that long. Just how much of your
00:07:18
unique genetic code winds up in your
00:07:20
grandkids, for example, depends partly
00:07:22
on chance. It could be anywhere from 23
00:07:25
to 27%.
00:07:27
Your great grandkids will only contain 9
00:07:30
to 14% of you. Your great great great
00:07:34
great great
00:07:35
grandchildren will on average be no more
00:07:38
similar to you than you are to any
00:07:41
stranger. In fact, it is at that
00:07:43
distance that it becomes possible to be
00:07:45
genetically left behind. For absolutely
00:07:48
no personal chunks of your genome to be
00:07:50
present in anyone more than 70% of your
00:07:54
ancestors from 11 generations ago aren't
00:07:57
in you at all. So, you're not so much
00:07:59
the genetic foundation on which your
00:08:01
progeny sit as you are their baby teeth.
00:08:05
A thing that served a purpose but was
00:08:08
destined to then fall out and be set
00:08:10
aside.
00:08:12
Where should you be buried if you want
00:08:13
to become a fossil? Fossils last a long
00:08:17
time. Your legacy could be representing
00:08:19
our species in a cool bony pose at a
00:08:22
museum millions of years from now. Well,
00:08:24
as it turns out, fossilization, the
00:08:27
mineralizing of bones into rocky ghosts,
00:08:31
is an exceedingly rare occurrence. Bill
00:08:34
Bryson puts it this way. Less than
00:08:36
onetenth of 1% of a species is ever
00:08:38
lucky enough to become fossilized. Which
00:08:40
means that millions of years from now,
00:08:43
all that will be left of every single
00:08:45
person alive today in the US will
00:08:47
probably just be about 60 fossilized
00:08:50
bones, not even one full human skeleton.
00:08:54
The best way to improve your chances of
00:08:56
becoming a fossil are to be buried
00:08:58
rapidly and deeply with no coffin under
00:09:00
the seafloor of a still mass of water at
00:09:02
low elevation where sediment deposits
00:09:04
will be swift and fine and oxygen levels
00:09:06
low. Some locations that fit this bill
00:09:08
are parts of the Black Sea, the Gulf of
00:09:11
Mexico where the Mississippi disorgges
00:09:13
and the mangrove swamps along the
00:09:16
northern coast of Australia. But even
00:09:18
then, there's risk, right? Earth is an
00:09:20
active churning rock and erosion can
00:09:23
wear you away. Metamorphic activity
00:09:25
could melt you back down. So if you want
00:09:28
to be a trace for a long time,
00:09:32
leave. The oldest unchanged piece of
00:09:35
Earth wasn't even found on Earth. It was
00:09:37
found on the moon where geological
00:09:39
activity is less brutal. A monolith
00:09:42
engraved with your name and biography
00:09:43
buried on the moon would be a good idea.
00:09:46
Except in, you know, 5 to 10 billion
00:09:49
years, our sun will expand into a red
00:09:51
giant, engulfing the Earth and Moon,
00:09:53
likely destroying them forever. So, a
00:09:56
copper disc coated in aluminum and gold
00:09:59
floating through space would be even
00:10:00
better. The golden records aboard the
00:10:03
Voyager spacecraft could exist for
00:10:05
trillions of years. They could
00:10:08
conceivably still be legible even after
00:10:10
the last star goes dim. But your final
00:10:14
type of ghost will be there, too. It's
00:10:16
what I call your ripple ghost. The
00:10:19
diffused domino effect of all of your
00:10:22
actions. There will be people, for
00:10:24
example, a century from now who could
00:10:25
enjoy the shade of a tree you planted
00:10:27
without ever wondering who put it there.
00:10:30
The butterfly effect effectively
00:10:32
guarantees us all a sort of anonymous
00:10:35
minute immortality.
00:10:37
Just by being born, technically you
00:10:40
changed the universe irrevocably. The
00:10:43
tiny and subtle but very real way your
00:10:45
mass affects the planet Saturn right now
00:10:48
will contribute in some extremely small
00:10:50
way to exactly how and when its rings
00:10:53
collapse. When the universe enters its
00:10:56
heat death and it's the same temperature
00:10:57
everywhere, the arrangement of matter in
00:11:00
the universe will be the way it is
00:11:02
because you existed. There will be no
00:11:05
minds to observe it. So you won't be
00:11:08
remembered, but you won't be
00:11:09
annihilated.
00:11:12
But like,
00:11:14
so what? Oh, I've got ghosts that stick
00:11:17
around. News flash, buddy. I'm not my
00:11:20
ghosts. Okay, first of all, yeah, that's
00:11:24
exactly why talk of fame and legacy gets
00:11:27
so fizzily. For what? I won't be around
00:11:29
to enjoy it and eventually no one will
00:11:31
be. But secondly, that's actually a
00:11:34
pretty good definition of the self. You
00:11:37
are everything you take with you when
00:11:39
you die. Your secrets, the things you
00:11:42
could have done or said but never did.
00:11:45
That's what you are. Now, you could
00:11:47
desperately try to do as much as you can
00:11:49
and leave as much on the table as
00:11:50
possible, but life is short. Too short.
00:11:54
Well, Derek Parett has pointed out that
00:11:56
the brevity of life probably has nothing
00:11:58
to do with its meaning. If your life was
00:12:01
twice as long, would it have twice as
00:12:04
much meaning? If we were all immortal,
00:12:06
would the meaning of life suddenly be
00:12:08
obvious? No. Meaning is separate from
00:12:12
the sheer participation we crave. We
00:12:14
just want to keep playing this game. And
00:12:16
there's never been more game to play.
00:12:18
Staggering amounts of what we want to
00:12:20
experience have been tamed into beasts
00:12:23
so lightweight and so fast that like
00:12:25
ghosts, they can pass through walls. The
00:12:28
soy bomb only lasted 36 seconds. But
00:12:31
because a digital ghost of it lingers in
00:12:33
Earth's largest haunted house, an
00:12:35
average of 40 people have seen it every
00:12:37
day for the last 30 years. Old music
00:12:41
started out selling new music for the
00:12:42
first time in 2015. Today, we each spend
00:12:46
an average of 7 hours and 3 minutes a
00:12:48
day in a haunted house full of avatars
00:12:50
and messages from the living and dead
00:12:52
alike. People and ideas and art and the
00:12:54
past have become not just accessible,
00:12:56
but accessible. We are on these ghost
00:12:59
portals so much it's become pretty much
00:13:01
the only way anyone finds companionship
00:13:03
anymore. For crying out loud, more
00:13:06
people on this planet own cell phones
00:13:08
than toothbrushes.
00:13:10
Documentality is the word Maritzio
00:13:12
Ferraris gave to his ontology of traces,
00:13:15
but it's also a great word for the
00:13:17
extent to which day-to-day life in a
00:13:19
society happens as documentation. In a
00:13:23
society of high documentality, nearly
00:13:26
every transaction, click, step, every
00:13:29
memory, everything said or done is
00:13:31
vulnerable to recording or simply comes
00:13:33
into the world already pre-remembered.
00:13:37
not as an ephemeral oral exchange or a
00:13:39
haphazard note, but as a highfidelity
00:13:42
timestamped cataloged artifact. In such
00:13:45
a world, it shouldn't be surprising if
00:13:47
it starts to feel like there are more
00:13:49
things you've said than things you could
00:13:52
say. More ways things have been than
00:13:54
ways things could be. The future isn't
00:13:58
what it used to be. But don't get it
00:14:00
twisted. Complete documentality is far
00:14:03
from here. As I've mentioned before, our
00:14:05
estimates of the current human
00:14:06
population have about a 2 to 3% margin
00:14:09
of error. That means that about this
00:14:11
many people may or may not exist. And at
00:14:14
any given moment in the US alone, there
00:14:16
are about 40,000 deceased bodies whose
00:14:19
identities are unknown. When Steve
00:14:21
Faucet failed to return to the Flying M
00:14:23
Ranch in 2007, search and rescue efforts
00:14:26
sent to find him discovered eight
00:14:29
previously unidentified airplane crashes
00:14:31
that weren't him but had been out there
00:14:33
for in some cases decades. And when
00:14:36
authorities searched for Gabby Patito,
00:14:38
they found her and the bodies of at
00:14:41
least eight other people they weren't
00:14:43
even looking for. We are not a
00:14:46
documented species. We are a bunch of
00:14:48
animals walking in and out of rooms.
00:14:50
That said, some things changed. The last
00:14:53
time a body was interred in the tomb of
00:14:55
the unknown soldier was after the
00:14:57
Vietnam War, but it was removed in 1998
00:15:00
after DNA testing connected it to a
00:15:02
name, Michael Joseph Blassie. In 2014,
00:15:06
prosecutors didn't need witnesses or
00:15:09
security cam footage to construct what
00:15:11
happened between Michelle Carter and
00:15:13
Conrad Roy because they had these
00:15:16
thousands of text messages. Despite
00:15:19
living just 35 mi apart, Carter and
00:15:22
Royy's relationship occurred almost
00:15:24
entirely through text. So these are not
00:15:26
pieces of their relationship. They're
00:15:28
not evidence of the whole story. They
00:15:31
are the whole story. These messages
00:15:34
aren't missing the glances, the nods,
00:15:37
the way he or she said it. This is all
00:15:40
they each saw. And we have it all. an
00:15:43
entire human relationship that happened
00:15:46
as and still is undying documents.
00:15:51
They're all online just a few taps deep
00:15:54
in the world's largest ocean of
00:15:56
documentation. And we just keep filling
00:15:58
it up, turning more and more of what we
00:16:00
do and see into ghosts, not just to
00:16:02
remember, but to experience. When we
00:16:05
instinctively watch events through our
00:16:08
phones, it's not that we aren't living
00:16:09
in the moment. It's that we are. Today
00:16:13
to be in the moment you have to be fully
00:16:16
in the moment. Every part of you, even
00:16:18
the eye, you have to charge and the mind
00:16:21
you share with others. See what's
00:16:23
happening? We are not just getting more
00:16:25
ghosts. We are beginning to live as
00:16:28
ghosts as an account, a like, a post, a
00:16:32
view. And it's great. We're spared the
00:16:35
humilities of confrontation. And to be
00:16:37
an image is to be something. Frederick
00:16:40
Douglas and Sojourer Truth knew this.
00:16:42
They had photographic images of
00:16:44
themselves printed up. To own and
00:16:46
control and sell your own figural ghost
00:16:49
meant that you had power. But today,
00:16:52
being a ghost surrounded by other ghosts
00:16:55
causes a certain kind of new fangled
00:16:57
anxiety. In his 1985, Amusing Ourselves
00:17:01
to death, Neil Postman describes what he
00:17:03
calls the information action ratio. Now,
00:17:06
even though this book predates the
00:17:08
worldwide web, it may as well have been
00:17:09
written about it. Let me ask you a
00:17:11
modern version of a question he asks in
00:17:13
here. How often does something you see
00:17:16
on social media cause you to alter your
00:17:19
plans for the day or to take some action
00:17:21
you would not otherwise have taken or
00:17:24
provide you with insight into some
00:17:26
problem you are required to solve?
00:17:29
When everything persists, irrelevance
00:17:33
takes over. But the constant scroll of
00:17:36
doom and pleasure and distraction isn't
00:17:38
just irrelevant, is it? No, it's truly a
00:17:41
ghost that can pass right through you.
00:17:44
You can sit and stare for an hour and
00:17:47
not remember a single thing you were
00:17:48
served. We don't do that because it
00:17:50
feels good. We do it because our minds
00:17:54
want to be unsettled. A neverending
00:17:57
scroll of decontextualized news and
00:18:00
horror and comedy and family and back
00:18:02
flips isn't some unholy modern
00:18:04
abomination of nature. It is exactly the
00:18:07
niche we evolved to thrive in. Oh. Oh
00:18:11
no. My brain evolved to eat berries in a
00:18:14
cave. No, it evolved to reach the
00:18:17
lushness of Southeast Asia and then
00:18:19
cross the Wallace line. Not because it
00:18:21
had to and not because it could, but
00:18:23
because what laid beyond was next. And
00:18:26
we've got autoplay on. Hey, let's build
00:18:29
a thing that floats and like we could
00:18:31
fit in it. Um, we could call it a boat.
00:18:33
Huh? What's that? Where will it take us
00:18:37
away? We are not the universe
00:18:41
experiencing itself. We are the universe
00:18:44
ignoring itself. We are the universe
00:18:47
looking for something else. In order to
00:18:49
be here for long, we needed to not be
00:18:53
here for long. I don't think it's the
00:18:56
risk or the challenge that motivates us.
00:18:59
Good stories and curiosity and adventure
00:19:02
are the icing on the cake we really
00:19:04
desire. Unsettledness.
00:19:09
Not knowing what's going to happen next
00:19:11
can be exciting. Why? I think in the
00:19:15
same way that long necks were selected
00:19:17
in giraffes because no one was eating
00:19:19
the way up high leaves. And in the same
00:19:21
way that white fur was selected in polar
00:19:23
mammals because no one was eating snow,
00:19:26
imagination was selected in humans
00:19:29
because no one was eating possibilities.
00:19:32
As soft apes in the midst of climatic
00:19:34
change, those who survived didn't wait
00:19:36
for natural selection to provide an
00:19:38
answer. No, they relied, as we still do
00:19:41
today, not on evolution, but on
00:19:44
resolution, on picturing and
00:19:47
manipulating an analog world inside the
00:19:50
theater of their own minds. Up here, we
00:19:52
can imagine things that aren't,
00:19:55
hypotheticals, the distant past and
00:19:57
future, the way things might be. We can
00:19:59
recognize that collecting firewood now
00:20:01
will be worth it. We can recognize that
00:20:03
if there's no water here, we can bring
00:20:05
it to us. The world is not our home.
00:20:09
It's fuel for the fire up here where we
00:20:12
really live. But because of that fire,
00:20:15
we have made the whole world our home.
00:20:18
Our ancestors are those homminids whose
00:20:20
resolving never resolved. Now, sure,
00:20:24
binge watching TV or scrolling a social
00:20:27
media feed are pretty different than
00:20:28
crossing the bearing straight, but
00:20:30
they're still unsettling, right? What's
00:20:32
going to happen next? Each next swipe
00:20:34
brings you something different. Like the
00:20:36
cognitive niche we built for ourselves,
00:20:38
it never resolves. But unlike the
00:20:40
travails of our ancestors, there's so
00:20:42
much less danger. We can witness and
00:20:45
interact safely from home. Like pieces
00:20:48
of luggage being moved at light speed
00:20:50
without moving at all. The internet is a
00:20:53
bounty of torqus and vales, pushes that
00:20:56
spin us around but don't move us
00:20:58
anywhere, and wishes not strong enough
00:21:00
to inspire action. We're not amusing
00:21:03
ourselves to death. We're amusing
00:21:06
ourselves to life, a longer, scarier
00:21:10
life. And as always, thanks for
00:21:13
watching.
00:21:20
[Music]
00:21:27
[Music]
00:21:29
Don't forget to pre-order your very own
00:21:31
death clock. After you've answered its
00:21:33
questions and pressed the red button,
00:21:35
the button stays locked down. It cannot
00:21:38
change. It's locked to your soul, to
00:21:39
your life, unless you want to give it to
00:21:42
someone else or you made a mistake or
00:21:44
something, in which case you can reset
00:21:45
it by just poking this into the hole in
00:21:46
the back. But you better pre-order now
00:21:49
because time is literally running out.
