Sentient Planets & World Consciousnesses

[@businessproyects2615]

Imagine an universe filled with Introvert planets and extrovert clusters of close to star orbit satellites

[@kalakritistudios]

Can you imagine a Depressed Star? "I don't wanna expand myself. What's the point?"

[@jack1701e]

A new Fermi Paradox theory; all the world minds are too shy!

[@hogannull7022]

Everyone grows and expands at different rates. Don't judge

[@KikoKikoYukiko]

Same-like reality??

[@1986DarkStalker]

@@kalakritistudiosupsilon dies backwards

[@awandererfromys1680]

Sir Terry Pratchett's -first- second novel, _The Dark Side of the Sun_ , has a character called The First Sirian Bank, a 7000 mile wide, sentient (and legally human) planet. His crystalline surface settled in such a way that it allowed for conscious thought. Probably the first encounter I had with living planets when I was a kid and it fascinated me immensely. Such a surreal concept.

[@VainerCactus0]

Second*

[@tonyug113]

wow - first thing i thought of as well - though couldnt remember the books name

[@dradenyyg4805]

There actually are species of ants that have multiple queens! Tropical red fire ants, for instance, can combine colonies together and have multiple co-existing queens in one nest, or have an interconnected set of multiple nests that have a queen in each. These satellite nests don’t have to actually be connected underground too. This set up allows there to be MASSIVE super colonies of red fire ants that all work together and make swarms of drones that essentially all work for the same purpose. A colony structure like that seems like a possible path to producing a hive mind where the individuals act as the hive’s neural system and interactive forms.

[@gabrote42]

Argentine Ants have MASSIVE megacolonies with hundreds on a single network

[@WizzleTeats69]

Unfortunately with our preconceived notions on what a mind is, a singular unified experience seems to be a part of it which an ant colony can’t experience; a unified consciousness which is what brains seem to be.

[@jeffzeiler346]

It can be argued that single, and group colonies, exhibit clear signs of consciousness. They obviously exhibit practical and pragmatic behaviors, and an interdependence similar to cells and organs in larger multicellular life. The question of what, if anything, it would "feel like" to be the conscious awareness of an ant colony, is interesting. And how that would differ for combined colony groups, as well.

[@injunsun]

I once read a short story where a planet consciousness fell in love with a human woman. Her husband was abusive. The planet essentially killed him, but all life there joined its consciousness in death. As part of the planet's consciousness, he realised how awful he had been, and helped the planet provide for everything his widow could ever want or need, but for company. The planet would sing for her, tho, with the wind blowing through grasses and other vegetation, making soulful, sad harmonies.

[@nephihenry4328]

What's the name of the short story?

[@injunsun]

@@nephihenry4328 I need to find the book. It haunts me.

[@MrSperoni]

What a fantastic plot. I'd read this in a hot second.

[@jimmycoco6506]

So she gets around?

[@user-jr7vc9dp7u]

Sounds absolutely terrifying.

[@rhuiah]

Great episode. I could imagine a sentient planet looking after an adorable pet moonlet, or maybe a feral asteroid colony. One way or another, 'pet rocks' will never be the same.

[@billy4734]

Isaac's always picking the most craziest things in Sci-Fi and I absolutely love it

[@ughitstravis9243]

If you ever find yourself writing, thinking, or wanting to examine ideas in and of science fiction his channel is the single greatest resource for meandering ideas and munching on edifying material to help you out of ruts, and dead ends.

[@ethan-scott]

If you’re into this idea, read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem! Such a great book.

[@zohar9971]

Beat me to it, 1 of the best Sci Fi books out there, both movies didnt provide it with proper justice

[@ethan-scott]

@@zohar9971 Never saw the movies, but the more recent one had an absolutely beautiful soundtrack. One of the very best!

[@DenethorDurrandir]

Was just about to comment this

[@kalakritistudios]

I saw the Tarkovsky movie and slept in the middle of the climax.😂 I mean, I loved the idea and all but his direction is just...

[@infinitemonkey917]

Yea, I was waiting for him to mention it. Good book, mediocre movie.

[@nobodyspecial2053]

A few more thoughts- In the case of the algae mind, what happens if every so often a part just breaks off due to circumstances like plate Technics and such and later remerges into the greater whole and what sort of effect would that have on the thought process of planetary mind? Also, what about the possibility of the mind being a blending of minds that aren't entirely separate, but communicate with each other so readily and often that it is hard to tell where one begins and another ends?

[@dirus3142]

Would a volcanic eruption that destroys a big part of a algae/fungal mind be like having a stroke?

[@kahlzun]

We often have nerves that lose signal for a time (leg going dead, local anaesthesia) and the signal is restored afterwards with no issues. I imagine it would be similar to that.

[@milhousevanhoutan9235]

I'm a neuroscientist I think I can make a reasonable educated guess but it's all predicated on science that doesn't apply to life on Earth (except Quorum Sensing), but might apply elsewhere (it also has the benefit of not necessarily requiring predator/prey cycles but takes them into account) however I believe that these aspects would be necessary for a large scale neural network made up of many cells to survive to reach sapience. When diffuse neural network theory was en vogue thanks to Golgi and before Cajal's excellent and meticulously drawn neurons were known to the wider world due to not being translated into French from Spanish, the two core concepts of diffuse neural networks was redundancy of function and quick rerouting. Even though they were wrong about neural networks they were still right to a degree the major area they wrong about was "quick" nature of rerouting in practice in the current understanding of nervous systems. While it is true children exhibit more neuroplasticity than adults and adapt faster, the underpinning of neuroplasticity in adults is the same as children, so given enough time with an adult it's probable that enough density of gap junctions will form to allow for rerouting or retasking of the damaged area to a non damaged area. So given an assumption that a diffuse "brain" of algae would behave closer to a neural network rather than a centralized hub and spoke system due to it's nature. It is unlikely that a large chunk breaking off would effect it's basic function, the neural network may lose some level of intelligence but due to the ability to quickly reroute if that chunk was somehow specialized and tasked it could be transferred, additionally the cells would continue to divide so the "lost" intelligence would be regained. So it stands to reason, using that assumption, whatever knowledge the smaller chunk can gather (likely limited compared to the larger body) would simply incorporate seamlessly back into the larger network bringing new information with it. As for thought process that's impossible to say, I can only speak to the information based on an assumption. As for two such bodies on one planet, I believe that due to the inherent nature of natural selection, and the nature of Quorum Sensing, those bodies of floating algae would likely be hostile to each other and one would assimilate the other or kill the other by some means. The reason is simple, when you're floating algae and that neural network is your entire brain it's cells are fragile and exposed. For such a thing to reach the level of sentient intellect selective pressure dictates it would have had to have developed a way to deal with competing emergent algae hiveminds, develop a very strong form of quorum sensing for initial formation and reformation of the neural net that can be dispersed and rejoin, and a tendency of intelligence to desire self enhancement. Now this could be assimilation by just sheer "force of will" something resembling endocytosis (like an amoeba) where the larger one encompass the smaller one until it has managed to use whatever communication method between the algae to take over the new larger organism or vice versa (sort of like two queen bees battling it out in a hive, but the larger organism has a massive advantage due to it's stronger quorum sensing). I'm not an evolutionary biologist though. However the idea of a catastrophic event that destroys a large part of the algae being synonymous with a stroke is a good comparison. Given the assumptions we're working with, the algae would likely to be able to regenerate as fast as available resources and cellular metabolism allow (so if it's photosynthetic essentially exponential up until surface area becomes a problem and you reach a state of photo-inhibition), due to their nature as individual single celled organisms which can all continuously divide until some form of quorum sensing or more advanced communication tells them to stop. Hence quick regeneration. To actually destroy it to the level where it could never come back would be to reduce the numbers of the organism where Quorum sensing was no longer possible, but that's a tall order as even if one cell was left over it could divide again and again to the point where QS is possible, start the grouping process and get back on the road to intelligence, while doubling itself exponentially as resources and surface area allow. So such an organism could probably only be destroyed via a complete planet-wide sterilization event like a gamma ray burst, or an impact with a sufficiently large object to completely liquefy the planet as it was in it's early days, similar to the Thea impact that created the moon.

[@StonedOdie]

I’m thinking what if when it breaks off it thinks for itself, explores a little and once it gets back around and renters the main algae then what? Two ppl? Main brain gets smacked with what would seem like parasitic thoughts? I dunno that’s how I pictured it when you said this but still very interesting

[@ambika69]

9:20 Given how many of our current 'advances' come from multi-field projects and cross polinating knowledge and skills, it's probably not as difficult as you make it out to be for an AI to advance far beyond us just because it got turned on. Not because it'd be discovering new things, but because it'd be able to apply every thing we know at once.

[@kalakritistudios]

"pollinating"... "turned on"... boy, I took that in the wrong direction!🤣 See, I was thinking about a depressed star which doesn't want to expand and thinks there's no point to life... but what if he falls for another star? What if it falls for a Nebula or something? Searching for hope to live. That there's something more maybe. Maybe these intelligences have figured it out. They seem to be living till now. Maybe some planetary brain is expanding and radiating and that's how it falls in love. "How are you doing? What have you found? Can I stay with you? ... What if we merge our identities?" "No."

[@jgr7487]

"... now, imagine that's *your* mind." so much potential to be wasted!

[@seriousthree6071]

This is why Marvin the android had mental issues.

[@rushwasaband8842]

@@seriousthree6071 Brain the size of a planet and he was constantly given menial tasks. Not to mention all the diodes on his left side gave him a lot of pain. Poor, sad robot.

[@PatchyConvert]

Would be slow to respond to anything, that it would.

[@fist-of-doom487]

Honestly I struggle to understand to uses turning your brain into a brain for a whole planet would be. It’s still a giant rock in space and unless it was basically converted into a giant machine how much control will you really have?

[@krunkopolis1921]

Might be able to catch up on my backlog of games.

[@theFLCLguy]

I just woke up and I'm not high enough yet to truly appreciate a topic like this. Time for a nice wake and bake.

[@Arthur_DeWitt]

Im with you brother, but for me its the end of the day

[@ethanlowden3657]

Firing it up right now

[@ESL-O.G.]

Only users lose drugs

[@DavidEvans_dle]

So we went large, with Sentient Planets. Let's go the other direction. How small could an organism brain be, and still have human level intelligence? Guess, it depends on what counts as the entity neurons. Just trying to judge if sentient tentacle monsters in syringes, is such a thing. :P Don't want the KZbin to demonetize this video, so I'll stop here. :)

[@MarkM001]

Always useful to look at extrema.

[@ontoya1]

Well start at using quarks as neurons and go down from them. The portions of the quantum energy field could be the smallest but the best part is that it would also be the largest due to it being only one whole and that whole encompassing the entire universe. Just sayin

[@jeffnelson3197]

Ravens are pretty close.

[@jeffnelson3197]

@@jeremycmsmith No it just knows us.

[@jeffnelson3197]

I hereby dub the quantum brains Angels. Now all we have to solve is how many fit on the head of a pin.

[@joshuaforbus5853]

Holy fricking cow my man. It's been 5 years for me listening to you. You murdered most space shows for me. I haven't watched this episode yet. Though I had to express my excitement over all your content. Especially today's. Semper Fi Isaac. Love light open roads. Retired Marine Sgt. Infantryman 1996-2006 and father of three. Thank you. I apologize for punctuation.

[@thehat4244]

It's not just fiction, listening to legit science from other channels seems to pale in comparison.

[@johannatavius2405]

Oh Boy. A guy literally named Isaac talks about sentient planets... "ISAAC, MAKE US WHOLE!". To be fair they were more of "Sentient Moons" than planets in the game Dead Space.

[@michaelselz3389]

This isn’t a game boyyyyyy

[@pll3827]

Conceptually, you think if they wanted to, they could merge together into a planet?

[@Godzillaaaaa11]

Criminally underrated comment right here

[@snipman8067]

I completely forgot about that game! It was so good, until the sequels. Then it started to go downhill. Especially 3. But 1 and 2 we're pretty good

[@johannatavius2405]

@@snipman8067 I actually like the plot of 3 if not the implementation. They sacrificed the soul of the franchise to attract a wider audience, hence the action-oriented gameplay that killed almost all immersion and tension.

[@aldoushuxley5953]

It is often said, that galaxy webs are similar in structure to the structures of neurons in the brain. What, if you go another level up, not planet sized life, but galaxy sized life, with stars as "atoms"/ basic building blocks. Such life would obviously happen on very, very slow timescales. What would life be like for it, especially regarding the different physics (limit of the speed of light, which is slow on such distances etc) Could we discover if this were the case?

[@SineN0mine3]

It does seem to be nearly impossible to discover the complex interactions which would give rise to a galaxy sized brain from within one, since we're essentially a part of it, perhaps similarly to the bacteria which live in our bodies. Given how slowly you might assume it takes for one neuron to fire and another to receive that signal, it seems like it would also be very hard to notice it in our neighbouring galaxies. Perhaps one day when we've collected more data about the star systems in our galaxy we could begin to piece such a puzzle together, but it seems as though creating an experiment to verify the theory could take millions of years if it's even possible.

[@spamfilter32]

One problem with a universe sized brain is that it would take billions of years for even a single thought. The expansion of the universe would tear such a brain apart before it could even leave its earliest infancy. Such an entity could only really exist in a universe that was not expanding.

[@corywilliams2255]

The living sentient planet in the Green Lantern mythos is actually called Mogo- the planet that is, itself, a member of the Green Lantern Corps..

[@mitchh3092]

Oa was the original Green Lantern Corps homebase, though. "Original" in terms of concept, I mean, not necessarily in-universe. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oa

[@eluminaryxarrais7735]

@@mitchh3092 Oa still is the home base of the Guardians. But it's more or less just a normal Planet it's not a sentient planet. Mogo is a sentient planet that also happens to be a Green Lantern, he has a ring in his planetary core.

[@xenspace5764]

I was hoping to hear a mention of Fred Hoyle's 'The Black Cloud' sci-fi novel. It's about a giant intelligent cloud of gas that visits the Solar System - well worth a read.

[@ProjectDarkWolf]

Oh this is going to be good, sentience and consciousness is hard enough to grasp when it's confined to a small organism, let alone a world or a group mind.

[@vp21ct]

A very important thing that I don't think gets brought up in your videos often enough in regards to evolution is the fact that survival advantage is not always the great filter it's made out to be. There are many traits which rise up that do so without conveying any survival advantage at all, or may even be technically detrimental, but due to circumstances are not so much so that they restrict the trait from progressing further.

[@asad2918]

Anyone interested in this topic should watch Tarkovsky’s sci-fi masterpiece “Solaris.” Best movie I’ve ever seen on planet consciousness

[@sa.8208]

and also take 2-3 grams of dried magic mushrooms.

[@asad2918]

@@sa.8208 oh that’s a given

[@Evildragonfirez]

Welp guess I know what I'm doing today

[@jerrysstories711]

Watching Solaris was one of those things that was on my list for years, that the pandemic finally gave me time to get around to!

[@asad2918]

@@Evildragonfirez report back!

[@leviathan6326]

"You think, therefore you am" -Issac Arthur, 2021

[@JimmyAkin]

The sentient planet in DC Comics is MOGO--who IS a Green Lantern--not OA, the home of the Guardians that run the Green Lantern Corp.

[@rommdan2716]

Isn't OA semi-sentient too?

[@rita_calamity]

Don't forget about Ego the living planet in Marvel.

[@4BThen2Say]

@@rita_calamity he’s tecnicaly a living planet, really he is a celestial

[@ASpaceOstrich]

That dollar in a bowl example kind of blew my mind. I just hadn't thought about diminishing returns like that.

[@dareldatt798]

On hive Minds : polistes wasps actually allow multiple queen collaboration on well fed / placed nests

[@mnrvaprjct]

Isn’t this similar to a Culture Mind? Their physical bodies are smaller than a room, but they have the physical memory storage equivalent to that of THOUSANDS of planets

[@jesseberg3271]

I don't think so, but only because IA has specifically limited this episode to consciousnesses which *are* the place they live. The presence of lesser minds and humans on Culture vessels and plates puts them in a separate catagory, I think.

[@ApexHerbivore]

Culture vessels had the best names. One that always stuck in my mind was called _Poke it With a Stick_ Dunno why but it made me chuckle

[@glyphknightmax]

I'm running a DnD campaign right now in an original setting that includes this sort of thing. A powerful mage in another plane of existence once tried to commune with his planet. His spell accidentally GIFTED his planet with the consciousness necessary to answer his questions. As a result, the planet could eventually grow lonely, as few could use powerful enough magic to speak with it. In turn, the planet itself learned to use magic, and essentially created a clone of itself with modifications so the clone would truly be an individual. Together, they are worshipped as The Binary, where one is the original that was modified by the advancement of civilization, and the other is a pristine natural example where it is forbidden to farm or mine for resources. The civilization realizes it is impossible to travel faster than light, so they use magic to instead create portals to other planes of existence and begin invading those places for new resources rather than further alter one of their own holy planets. The source book isn't out yet; it's one of mine I call Apocryphal Psychogenesis (the name a character gives a new form of magic discovered in the book). The DnD campaign, I call The Other Sun. I LOVE ideas like this, and getting to watch SFIA discuss it just makes me smile.

[@imdarrel]

One thing I didn't hear mentioned is that with a mind this size, the chances of multiple personalities increases. Just on our planet alone, we have data changes in ram all the time because of energy from the sun. So with something that size, and the amount of cosmic rays, there would have to be a ton of bugs that pop up if its electronic. Sure there are ways to protect against this, but even this mind wouldn't know everything about the universe at one time. It wouldn't know about some things coming it's way before it's too late. Image a beam of gamma rays going through one part of your gigantic brain destroying chunks of it in the process. Wait, this has happened to someone before, look up Phineas Gage. He had a large rod put through his head and it had changes to his personality. Imagine a planet sized brain damaged being, going around attacking planets converting them into new processing power. Just like he said though, Galactus anyone?

[@ClassicMagicMan]

Could you imagine? Lol

[@gammarayneutrino8413]

You just need a sheet or solid matter to protect your brain in that case. But in other cases, everything is possible in the end, just that their probability is often so small to be not disregarded. The Sun might also randomly teleport into the Earth and destroy everything, but such a possiblity is so miniscule it can be treated as 0. (And it isn't like there is a way to make it actually 0 w/o getting rid of the Sun, in which case then the remnants of the Sun can teleport etc.)

[@kalakritistudios]

@@gammarayneutrino8413 Thank you Gamma Ray Neutrino.

[@TrueMathSquare]

Hello world!

[@avi1enkin]

Program successful...

[@fleshmagi]

think this is the earliest I've been to a video drop. keep up the good work man. you're as much fun to me as the sci-fi anthologies I read.

[@theorangeoof926]

I’ve seen this concept being expanded up to the observable universe. Cosmic filaments (although stupidly gargantuan and would take unfathomable amounts of time and space to transit signals) were similar to the anatomy of human neuron networks. If the universe was considerably younger, and was somehow conscious via some unknown mechanism, it would have been a lot more feasible then due to more energy/heat and less distance and time, imagine being that universal mind in question and briefly existing only for your head to literally explode due to rapid cosmic inflation.

[@Luke_eb]

I wanna say Issac, with all your accomplishments, I really appreciate you applying what you know to sci-fi and presenting it in such an entertaining manner. Your channel is an example of how amazing the internet can be

[@ZENMASTERME1]

I truly always get giddy when I get an Isaac Arthur video notification in my feed, because I know no matter what the subject is it’s going to be epic! 👍🏽 🤖

[@Turnil321]

Kind of a shame that the stellaris hiveworld theme is not in the background.

[@tkgwildfire5339]

I think Sid Meiers Alpha Centuri is the background.

[@tkgwildfire5339]

@Lawofimprobability I thought you were talking about the thumbnail.

[@raidermaxx2324]

hahah Isaac told me once he doesnt play video games anymore, but he should really check out Stellaris.. .best game ever

[@jhwheuer]

Expensive

[@raidermaxx2324]

@@jhwheuer what is, Stellaris? I mean everything is expensive to somebody. Stellaris isnt expensive to me, but it might be to you. I mean a cup of coffee is expensive to a hobo, but not expensive to someone who works a 9-5 job.. So whats your point anyways, thats its "expensive" . In my opinion, it more than enough offers equal value for its price point.

[@matterhorn731]

Great episode, really interesting topic! One thing I noticed (around 25:04) was the discussion of the plausibility of an insect hive having multiple queens. This is not just plausible, it exists! Some eusocial species have "polygyne" colonies with several queens laying eggs rather than just one. (An example would be the argentine ant, which features in Kurzgesagt's episode on the "Billion Ant Mega Colony".) For that matter, in some eusocial species workers _are_ capable of laying eggs, though this may be punished by their hivemates if discovered. Really, eusociality might be thought of as a spectrum of various reproductive strategies, which I think makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective (both in terms of how eusociality originated from conventional reproduction and in terms of adapting to diverse ecological conditions and other evolutionary pressures).

[@mikelfunderburk5912]

Whoo! Another Sci Fi Sunday! Perfect topic to listen to while I mindlessly put up stock.

[@renderproductions1032]

Last time I was this early, the Big Bang just happened

[@benjaminconnor6640]

The psychology of such a creature would be fascinating, like would it get lonely? Would it try and process that by 'adopting' some species or moonlike body? Would it suffer from multiple personas? Could they do math? would they even how how to communicate with others? All fascinating questions that change based on the type of Intelligence were dealing with.

[@WonkelDee]

Watch videos on Boltzmann brains.

[@PunkWyrks]

SOOOO much love for the Alpha Centari shoutout!!

[@0dWHOHWb0]

"you think therefore you am, and you are where you am" I don't know what this is a reference to, but it buckled me anyway

[@jimmyshrimbe9361]

"Glacial" is such an awesomely crazy story! It's so short but so wonderful!

[@EliasMheart]

Hey, love these Sunday episodes, they always catch me off guard and it is a great surprise! :) In regards to the "new singularity isn't instantly smarter" and diminishing returns thing you said near 9:00: I agree in principle, but with access to the internet I think a mind that is smart and has barely limited space or time to understand things, so basically the first general scientist in centuries, would not need to be way smarter to find a lot of new connections, but it would surely help.

[@dav9104]

That feeling when you are getting ready to eat and are searching for video to watch and suddenly Isaac Arthur uploads a video.

[@TraditionalAnglican]

Remember the Drink & a Snack!

[@muninrob]

Isaac Asimov's "Nemesis" covers a kind of planet brain.

[@JosephHarner]

"Hives have a single queen" not true, actually! Many species of ant form massive multi-queen colonies or supercolonies. These species have spread across entire continents and are known to cooperate internally and wage war against other species. (Hello Kurzgesagt and Ants Canada viewers!)

[@arcturuslight_]

Went to comments to find someone like you! Hi)

[@MarkM001]

I sure like the idea of a staggering intelligence being the answer to the Fermi paradox. The thing comes to the conclusion that the best thing to do with its power is just to literally and figuratively chill? Sweet!

[@cedricrobertson2893]

The evidences that Issac is actually galactus keep pilling up

[@seldonwright4345]

Cue scary music 🎵

[@LordStradh]

Ants might be a better example than bees. There are several species of ants that may have several queens in a colony, or where colonies of the same species merge into supercolonies.

[@gabrote42]

Argentine Ants are the most prolific of them

[@evensgrey]

You've somewhat misunderstood Galactus. He's not really a villain. He's doing what he needs to survive, and he needs to survive for the universe to survive. If he ceases to exist, Death will merge with Eternity, and the universe will cease to exist as a result.

[@Falcodrin]

My favorite planet brain is from "so you want to be a wizard" series. Someone lands on a plant where volcanic activity had laid down millions of thing layers of silicon across the surface. Below the surface microbes were eating pathways like worms in dirt. The character uses their magical laptop to interface with it and it starts creating little animal like forms all sharing it's consciousness. Beyond that point it gets wack since every being it creates counts as a new entity that's a wizard so with a planet covered in them and capable of generating insane scale magical runes and circles it decides that to stop death it should just stop time.

[@Shatterverse]

You forgot about Unicron at the beginning there, from the Transformers universe(s). He's got a lot of different interpretations but it's a planet that eats other planets.

[@traildoggy]

Small icy comet brain Honestly, just hearing this phrase has already made my day worthwhile.

[@WulfgarOpenthroat]

24:40 Some species do have multiple queens in a nest/hive. Mostly ants, AFAIK, and it can be situational/temporary, but not always, and it does happen.

[@kertas1991111]

There are argentinian ants that form supercolonies with ants from thousand of nests spanning thousands of kilometers. They all treat each other like members of the same nest.

[@avishalom2000lm]

At 34:10 I almost thought I heard him say "noosphere", which was an idea thought up by French theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He also imagined humanity being able to master and understand the material world and merge together to form a global consciousness- albeit in a more spiritual manner.

[@MalcolmJones-bossjones]

Just started this episode, so excited

[@Plamkton]

People are saying Solaris, my first thought was deadspace with the brethren moons.

[@christse3467]

Ah yes, they tick all the boxes of predatory/expansionist planet minds.

[@Pcr12]

Your missed Avatar, the sub optimal blue natives one. The trees were a planet sized brain. Also, I would love an entire planet to myself.

[@malevolent7650]

I know a lot of people hated that movie and I understand why. The political messages in it were very blunt, bordering on propaganda. However, there were a lot of interesting ideas in it. It was also a technical masterpiece, the effects were so good that most of them went unnoticed.

[@alethearia]

I was about to say. Ewa is an emergent consciousness, presumably formed from an organism similar to our fungi, that has a symbiotic relationship with every organism on the planet. And it's coevolved to a point where it can communicate with other sentient creatures! Or facilitate communication between unrelated species. (At least that was my assumption.) It's a good example of a planet-mind communicating and cohabitating with other sentient species.

[@Skeleton-bs7zy]

There are some hives with many queens(polygyne), as well as hives that cooperate(super colonies)

[@deadlyviper3]

Love being this early! Thank you for your work!

[@Kiwimaster76404]

There is also that planet in stellaris you can find, Xandar I believe it's called? It is actually the only remaining survivor of a pair of sentient planets in a system where it and it's "lover" for all intents and purposes just existed watching the stars and universe around them until an empire of psychic beings stumbled upon them and killed his lover, he then retaliated and killed them (doesn't explain how but if you anger him he is pretty tough and will wreck you unless you have a pretty strong fleet)

[@pikpikgamer1012]

This was what I was thinking instead of fungus filled planet

[@problemecium]

Regarding the speculation at 25:00 - large ant colonies sometimes have multiple queens.

[@weluvmike]

Great video Mr. Arthur!! Awesome stuff; LOVE Me some Science’y things!!

[@jintarokensei3308]

A technologically advanced planet... I can't imagine the feeding cycle of such a creature.

[@ENiceGeo]

Orbulus, look it's Unicron!

[@agalah408]

A planet sized intelligent mushroom? Sounds like a fun guy.

[@chemputer]

Hey Isaac, have you read the short book (available as a PDF online or as an unofficial audiobook on Alt Shift X's channel) "All Tomorrows: A Billion Year Chronicle of the Myriad Species and Mixed Fortunes of Man" (Also known as just "All Tomorrows") by Nemo Ramjet? It's quite interesting, I think you'd like it. It's very much along the lines of "if there aren't any aliens, just wait, there will be aliens, and they'll be related to you." I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read or listened to it. :) Similar, but still very different, is Man after Man by Dougal Dixon.

[@dfgdfg_]

"We welcome you, EarthDeirdre and earthwheat and earthtree as honored guests, for you add great power to our ancient song--planetfungus and planetworm and planetmind sing and play here, and you are welcome among us." - Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations with Planet", Alpha Centauri

[@tomimantyla8236]

Saw the title and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri was first thing that came to my mind.

[@Falcodrin]

Best civ game ever

[@EdMcStinko]

The Overmind was my favorite Star Craft character. It needed several Cerebrates (lesser minds) to help administrate, and you got to play the game as if you were one of these Cerebrates. It was pretty neat. Realistic? Who knows.

[@richardgreen7225]

Earth already exhibits an amazing amount of homeostasis due to "passive" feedback mechanisms. However, those same feedback loops can also "tip over" into regenerative feedback mechanisms that can rapidly change the stasis from temperate-age to hot-house or to ice-age. Humans have the capacity to augment these passive mechanisms with more "active" mechanisms. There is also a SciFi theme where one or more A.I. are involved - In one such story the A.I. is named GAIA. - The sentient planet theme is also present in the "Avatar" movie. But the mechanism behind the sentience seems to be a complex neural net that permeates the planet's ecology. - The robot "Marvin" in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" claims that his brain is somehow the size of a planet.

[@Yezpahr]

35:01 lol, seeing those dinosaurs getting Thanos-snapped raised an eyebrow here.

[@jerrysstories711]

Been waiting for this topic!

[@johnydl]

A bit flip of computation isn't a FLOP, a FLOP is a FLoating point OPeration, you need several bit flips to do a single addition, subtraction or multiplication. For 64 bit machines 128 bit flips per addition, assuming that the numbers are already in situ. I'd hazard a guess that a FLOP is on the order of 1,000 to 1,000,000 flips especially for something planet size (makes sense to have a wider bit array / data bus on that scale)

[@MountainFisher]

I thought the World's largest living organism was an Aspen Grove covering hundreds of square km in CO?

[@joshuarichardson6529]

Nope, it's a massive underground fungus. It covers (or rather hides under) a third of the state of Oregon.

[@Arosk.]

All hail the Giga-brain

[@some_haqr]

All hail the giga shadow

[@delgardner1753]

His divine shadow

[@some_haqr]

@@delgardner1753 ❤️

[@delgardner1753]

I just got done binge watching Lexx for like the 900th time probably a week ago lol

[@kylewatson952]

Oh yea it big brain time

[@com-ev5wq]

Hope they add it to scp foundation universe.

[@FjrnVR]

I love this dude. Isaac is so awesome.

[@JeremiahCecil]

In this episode: "Isaac Arthur confirmed Mormon"

[@erickojuaya]

This is another incredible topic worth my time

[@wizardtim8573]

It might be an interesting game to make. You play as an intelligent space ship (kind of like the Reapers from Mass Effect), you explore the universe and do the things. An old game that I loved from WAY back in the days of floppy disks was a game called Nomad, where you were a human who was launched into space and, from there, you just explored the galaxy and talked to aliens and stuff. Earth didn't really have any mission or anything in mind for you, they just launched you for giggles and you just did whatever you wanted. The absolute first open world sandbox game I ever played.

[@bbirda1287]

If you had light based electronics, you could double your processing power in parallel by making receptors sensitive to different wavelengths, so a red channel, a green channel, an ultraviolet channel. Not necessarily parallel processing, but linked parallel processors, so sort of a type of hive mind. Sounds like that cartoon about the different color emotions.

[@beowulfshaeffer8444]

Isaac, I'm probably not the only one to point this out here, but there are real-world species of honeybees and ants that regularly have multi-queen hives. Otherwise, awesome video! 👍

[@aznazg]

This channel alone alone is a good reason to learn and practice english

[@TheConspired]

Hey Isaac, im a little late but happy bday for the 20th of last month, its nice knowing I share the same bday with someone who loves space as much as myself, thanks for all your videos you have taught me alot

[@MondefLP]

There are several ant species that have colonies that include multiple queens. They usually get their own egg laying chambers but the worker ants don’t care which queen they are birthed from and treat the entire colony as if there was one queen. This allows the colony to lay many more eggs than single queen species, they bounce back more easily from severe environmental effects that can kill “normal” colonies.

[@ReubenAStern]

When making AI for a computer game you realize speed intelligence is a massive deal. Simply increasing the clock speed seems to make your AI creative, using it's code in ways you didn't forsee to achieve it's task better... and usually with a lot more style. Of course it's simply running so fast it merges functions together. Like my ninjas in little big planet. They could do a flip to intercept you while you're up a tree. They could throw a Shuriken. I never expected them to throw their shurikens whilst doing a flip!

[@raidermaxx2324]

Hi Isaac! you mentioned that Alpha Centauri was a personal favorite of yours, also one of mine.. so i know you dont really play video games anymore( we had a convo about that a long time ago lol) but i was wondering if you have checked out Stellaris, since its basically what Sid Meier would have made back in the day, had he access to the technology and computing power back then, that we have now.. . Terrific game, you can colonize the worlds around Proxima Centauri and the other two stars, as well as thousands of other "worlds" in the Milky Way. .. Anyways, been a fan of your kick ass channel since the first episode, love ya!! take care brother

[@nuke___8876]

I'm glad Solaris by Lem was mentioned as it kinda falls into the 3rd Fermi Paradox category -- Intelligence is there but we can't recognize it. I say kinda because "we" actually can recognize it, but it's so bizarre and simply different that it's obvious enough that it's there but any attempt to interact with it is pointless. The manga Blame! has a similar vibe with the builders and Central AI. For those not familiar, Blame! takes place on an unfathomably huge artificial habitat probably the size of the solar system. Tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of years in the past, humans lost control of the OS that builds the habitat. The Central AI continues to expand that habitat using its builders. What is builds is nonsensical to humans -- stairs to nowhere, halls with a door every meter for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, large open spaces the sizes of an entire planets. While most of the characters just assume that it's just chaos and that the builders are corrupted, I always thought that maybe there was a purpose of sorts behind the enigmatic architecture that was far too grand for any single person to understand while making observations from inside the structure. That is, when the Central AI isn't trying to murder all the "illegals" :p I think these two entities would represent how we would probably perceive and "interact" with such entities -- obvious that they're there but observing any sensible behavior(s) would take many, many years of observation from many different perspectives.

[@mattstorm360]

A guy named Isaac talking about sentient planets and worlds? First thing that came to mind are giant moons that eat populations and chunks of planets.

[@samotdengode]

Keep your plasmacutter and stasis module nearby just incase!

[@tiagotiagot]

Regarding the speed-based super-intelligence; you left out one factor: with a big enough speed-multiplier, the odds it will come up with complex theoretical models and evaluate enough facets of each to stumble on easily testable predictions or potentially even retroactive "experiments", aspects of already existing data, get much higher, potentially opening the door for recursively improving recursive self-improvement; or in other words, there night be a threshold that once crossed will keep bringing improvements at an accelerating pace.

[@MrPetrochelly]

The Unique and Best Steampunk Channel!

[@blackoak4978]

On the last example, I think it is important to consider what type of stimuli a world brain would develop. Would it develop sight? What need would that fulfill? I can see a world brain being sensitive to the gravitational pull of other planets in its system, to wavelengths of light that are either useful to use or harmful to be exposed to, and to magnetic fields. But would they develop organs to focus any of these to be able to "see"?

[@jackbrown3985]

Yo Mr Science space man, is the music you used in this video on soundcloud or something, cause that stuff slaps!

[@KainSpada09]

Don't forget to put in Type Moon. The celestial bodies are sentient and are capable of manifesting incarnations of themselves known as The Ultimate Ones or TYPES who are considered to be the strongest beings of each planet

[@blackcitadel9]

Watched on Nebula, came to feed the algorithm. Great vid as always. o/

[@businessproyects2615]

Feed the algorithm, there's starving algorithms everywhere you can help them for 1 dollar, just one dollar. :)

[@Z3rk]

I remember in 6th grade science class I asked if a planet could be alive. And of course the teacher laughed and others laughed. Glad on the internet that at least it's sort of considered lol

[@codemaster2861]

I'm sure many have mentioned it but incase they have not we do have insect hives that have multiple queens, there are ants that makes super colonies that cover areas comparable to continents.

[@antoniomaglione4101]

Lovelock Gaia hypothesis, so much loved by Isaac Asimov...

[@outrageous-alex]

MorningLightMountain! Omg omg omg. Thank you, best book series ever.

[@Zurround]

SOLARIS starring GEORGE CLOONEY based on a book that was mentioned in BARLOWS GUIDE TO EXTRA TERRESTRIALS. In the GREEN LANTERN comic books one of the green lanters is an ENTIRE PLANET. Was the planet in Avatar Sentient? It was some kind of spirit named Ewa? In TRANSFORMERS (the cartoon not the modern live action movies) I think Unicron was a giant robotic planet?

[@Ozzy_2014]

Different origins but the first g1 after the movie ( animated) suggested that Unicron and Primus fought until their universe was consumed. Their spirits were each emboddied in a large chunk of rock that became planets. Unicron shaped his body into a planet eater. Even developed a robot mode. Primus turned his home into cybertron.

[@MarkM001]

Quality Sunday episode Mr. Arthur.

[@robertaylor9218]

Multiple queens (Pleometrosis) is a thing, it’s not normally stable beyond early phases in a colony. But apparently there it does happen in a number of kinds of eusocial insects.

[@kairon156]

Nice, I started referring to moons as worlds when talking about an area people might live. Makes sense to include constructed worlds and bio ships into that line of thinking too.