Discovering Everything

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer, for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing Birkner Island. So we're talking about Birkner Island, Nick. I presume you've just come back from Birkner

Speaker B: 00:00:30

Island from your holidays. Is that about right? No, I was actually in Wales, then Alton Towers, but it's not that far from Birkner Island, which is in the Antarctic. Birkner Island is what they call an ice rise. What is an ice rise? Well, it's basically where the ice is slightly higher up because of some land underneath it in the Antarctic. So it's called Birkner Island, but in fact it's all covered in ice. In fact, if the ice wasn't there, Birkner Island, so-called, would be underwater. This sounds like a pretty rubbish island.

Speaker A: 00:01:08

So it was discovered... Isn't an island that's something that sticks out of water? Yeah, well, it does because of the ice. Because of the ice. Oh, it does because of the ice.

Speaker B: 00:01:16

What? Yeah. The ice on top of it makes it stick out, but it wouldn't stick out if it

Speaker A: 00:01:20

weren't for the ice. Does it stick out more than the stuff around it? Not really. It's an ice

Speaker B: 00:01:24

United States Navy Reserve in: 1957

Speaker A: 00:02:01

Well, I'm actually more confused about how they even saw it, because if it was all hidden by ice, but I don't think we should get bogged down in that. Because it's higher up. It's a nice

Speaker B: 00:02:07

rise. It's like, how can you see a hill? Because it's surrounded by land. But I mean, because

Speaker A: 00:02:11

it's higher than the rest of the area. How did they figure out there was land on it? Anyway,

Speaker B: 00:02:14

let's... it was the... until: 1957

Speaker A: 00:03:34

They bought the bucket and spades. Exactly. They're looking forward to a lovely weekend

Speaker B: 00:03:39

there. But no, no, no Sandy Island. So anyway, you know, it's a bit sad, isn't it? That we've discovered everything on earth. The age of discovery is well and truly ended. Have we lost something through getting rid of all this mystery? If not, where is the mystery that's still out there? And do we sort of need it psychologically, need the feeling that there are still things that are undiscovered? And if not, you know, if we lose that, what have we

Speaker A: 00:04:05

lost? So a big bunch of questions there. There are a lot of questions there. How do you want to kick

Speaker C: 00:04:11

off, Chris? What do you want to? Well, I mean, I think it's quite informative to look at our rate of global discovery, exploration, you know, so if you look at the time of homo sapiens speciation, so you know, 300,000 years ago, the first ussers, you know, were kind of recognizable. And that it took about 100,000 years for them to make their way out of kind of the East Africa, Ethiopia bit that they were they were being into the rest of, you know, outside of that sort of immediate vicinity. And that, you know, it was then another 75,000 years before they were down to the sort of tip of southern Africa. So, you know, it took him 100,000 years to get not very far, another 75,000 years to get quite a bit further. But then, you know, 70,000 years or so ago, coming out of out of Africa, and, you know, reaching places like India, 3,000 years later, getting into Southeast Asia. So again, you know, moving more and more quickly. It's like they got the hang of it. They got the hang of it, exactly. Or presumably more numerous by this stage. So more of them to go out, you know, for 40, 50,000 years ago into Australasia, you know, Europe, maybe more like 40,000 years ago, you know, one of the great ironies about, you know, Europeans discovering everything is actually Europe was a, you know, one of the best places to actually be inhabited. And then, you know, North America, 25,000 years ago, but parts of Northern Canada and Greenland 4,000 years ago, and then yes, Polynesia 2,000 years ago, you know, they think that the last sort of notable, you know, place to have been bumped into with, you know, human habitation was the Auckland Islands off of New Zealand. So obviously, there's a rate of acceleration. And then, you know, but clearly, those humans didn't all stay in touch with one another, which is why you then get, you know, the discovery of the new world, even though it had already been discovered. Well, it sounds like there were people living there. I know. I know. How dare they? Secondhand. Yeah. So I think that is quite interesting that actually, it took us a long time to find anywhere, really, you know, and these places, actually, you know, Europe was already inhabited by Neanderthals and parts of Asia by other sort of, you know, distant relatives to Homo sapiens. But, you know, and then, very rapidly, everything was suddenly discovered.

Speaker A: 00:07:21

But also, it might not even had a sense of discovery about it. So let's say there you are, 40,000 years ago, in Southern Europe. And you might just be, oh, let's go to the next valley, you know, and you just hang out there for another 100 years or so. And there's so...

Speaker B: 00:07:37

Yeah, but here's the thing. What it means is that throughout the whole of human history, there's been a next valley. I mean, it's only really recently, we're talking about the last 4,000 years, that someone somewhere hasn't had a bit of land they can go and explore, or at least move to where there aren't any other humans. Now, I know most people weren't in that position, but someone was in that position.

Speaker A: 00:08:00

So Chris, I mean, you've sort of sketched out there sort of, you know, the evolution of human movement.

Speaker C: 00:08:06

Well, yeah. So I think this sort of shows us that our capacity... So obviously, the prevalence, the number of humans has increased massively, which has driven migration, presumably, right? You know, that people have been looking for virgin territory, and so on. But that, in turn, has... So as soon as you find a new place, you can stick more people in it, and you can have more people and support more people, right? So there's a little bit of interreliance there. But the rate at which we can explore has accelerated. And we've now got to the stage where we've reached the limits of our planet. But obviously, our technological abilities and the resources available to us have enabled us to get to the moon, for example. So we've put people on the moon, which I still can't quite fathom. In fact, I was out walking the other night with my wife along the seafront, and it was a harvest moon. And I had this moment where I actually doubted that we had got there. I had that sort of conspiracy moment. And I thought, wait a minute, they actually got there the first time they tried in earnest without loads of people dying. You know, you think about most of human exploration, you know, getting across to North America. I bet hundreds of humans died in that process. And you think, they made this kit, they tested it, and then they actually used it in earnest. And they landed and they got there. And I just had this moment where I doubted it. But obviously,

Speaker B: 00:09:45

you know, they... There's probably other reasons to think that it did happen.

Speaker C: 00:09:49

Yeah, exactly. But the point is, you know, we've kind of, as Nick said, exhausted our ability to walk around places on our own planet. And people talk about, you know, underwater being this great unexplored area. But we're not actually going to go there and see it, really. We're driving space exploration now, and you're getting commercial space exploration, accelerating SpaceX and Virgin and all of these companies appealing to this notion of where can I go? You know, so we've got this fundamental drive to go to virgin territories. And where's that going to take us now we've reached this point where we can't do that on our own planet.

Speaker A: 00:10:33

But also, I mean, are there other things that we can go to as interesting as what we could find here? Right? Well, that's my concern. I think the Congo is more interesting than the moon.

Speaker B: 00:10:42

life, were only discovered in: 1949

Speaker C: 00:15:14

explore. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I find it when we had lockdown, I was doing when it first happened and they were like, oh, right, your kids aren't going to school. There's no support. You just have to sort something out with them. And so I went back to some fundamental science and was doing this. And I was watching this video with my kids about the size of the universe, right? So, there's the observable universe. Well, our galaxy is something like a quintillion kilometres across, a million trillion kilometres. A hundred thousand light years, I think, is the figure I've got. And within the observable universe, they think there are potentially two trillion galaxies, right? So our galaxy is unbelievably large. You've then got this huge number of galaxies, all with an unimaginable space between them. And that's just the observable universe. They think that the observable universe could be a trillion times smaller than the actual universe.

Speaker B: 00:16:24

How on earth they know that, given that they can't see it?

Speaker C: 00:16:28

But based on calculations about the acceleration from the Big Bang and so on. So the thing is like, inconceivably vast, right? And we've got this issue where we can only physically observe a tiny, minute portion of it. And we can only hope to get to an unbelievably small amount of it. And so that is quite an intriguing challenge to us. Because at one point, presumably, getting to North America felt unachievable. I mean, albeit not by the laws of physics, but did feel difficult. And we've now got this incredibly vast space that we're starting to comprehend and learn about and observe, to some extent, that offers all these possibilities. And so I think that if you look at the fundamental thing driving why people explore, it must be curiosity about the unknown, right? And so we've now got all of this unknown to drive our curiosity. So I do think-

Speaker A: 00:17:45

It's all the more tantalising. It's actually all the more exciting. And yet, it's seemingly forever beyond reach. I mean, it all seems quite theoretical.

Speaker B: 00:17:55

Yes. Yeah, I wonder if that's- Is that better or worse? I mean, at least on Earth, you think, well, it's just over that horizon. As you say, we're not prevented by the laws of physics from getting there. On the other hand, maybe, you know, people must have felt that way about the Moon. Through nearly the whole of human history, people have thought, what is that thing? And wouldn't it be fun to go there? And that desire, I suppose, has been what's driven our ability to do that at all. Who knows? I mean, I know our current understanding is that faster than light travel isn't possible. But what would people have said about what was possible 500 years ago,

Speaker A: 00:18:33

compared to what we know now? We need to stop fairly soon. We have probably time to discuss if there's any other points you want to make. We've got time for that. If not,

Speaker C: 00:18:44

we can move on to some other things. Yeah, well, I think there's a sort of interesting- the crux of this is not just about, well, you know, what else is there out there to discover? We know there's loads of things out there to discover. But I think the sort of analytical question is, why do people go and do that? Why do you have these Shackleton's and Degamas and so on who wander off and find these places, or the US Marine or whatever he was who found the ice rise? And what is that about? And because, like space exploration, the NASA justification is, well, give us billions of dollars. We'll give you a Teflon frying pan. And we'll give you a nonstick frying pan. And we might find some sort of cool stuff. So it's the process of exploring things that drives technological change that give you ancillary benefits in the rest of your life, as well as you might find something. But I don't think that cuts it. I think we're after El Dorado, right? We're going with some specific aim, but without without knowing what it is, it's that, you know, it's almost like Rumsfeldian. It's that we believe there are some unknown unknowns out there. And we're kind of hoping to bump into them. And I don't think it's any... I mean, we had a podcast years ago about flies in conservatories, and why flies can't get out of conservatories. And we were looking at the idea of random bounce, that they pick a direction and they just fly down and that's why they just bounce around in your conservatory. And that's a strategy for finding stuff. Bees do it to find the next plant to get the nectar from. And ants do it in order to bump into a pot of jam or something. And I think that's what we're essentially doing, is we are random bouncing around our environment in order to hopefully turn up a flower or a pot of jam. I think you could make a plausible argument.

Speaker B: 00:20:58

I mean, obviously humans are driven to resolve uncertainty for its own sake. It's something that is an end for us to try and do, is if there's uncertainty, we want to resolve it. We have a primal urge to resolve uncertainty, to find out what's over that hill. And this is one of the reasons people claim that there's such a thing as addiction to the internet, because information is always, we just like it for its own sake. And I think Chris touched on this, the sort of expansion. I mean, perhaps it's not so much the expansion which drove humanity's success, but our desire to expand, which enabled us to do that in the first place. That actually we evolved the desire to, well, let's walk across that plane and see what's there.

Speaker A: 00:21:48

And well, that sort of brings me on to a question I want to ask, actually. But before I do, there's just a quick memory I want to share, which I remember about 13 years ago is when I was in Honduras. And I was a dive master over there, which I've talked about a few times. But I remember on this one particular day, we were diving, you know, you'd have your usual dive sites that you go to. But on this particular day, we went to what was essentially a set of underwater ravines, probably about 20, 30 meters. And I remember, and they really were quite narrow. And I remember, and they get quite dark as well. But it's not scary, because you're not in an overhead environment, you know. And I just remember being at the back, as a dive master, you're always at the back of the group. And I remember being at the back of this group, in this, what to me felt really like an obscure place on Earth. And just quite dark. And I let everyone go away from me for a bit. And just sitting there thinking, I'm not the first person to have swum here. There will have been others, but not many. And it did really feel like, it was quite thrilling, actually, being in this what felt to me like quite an obscure little place. And it was a nice moment. It was a nice moment. My question is this. Let's see if you think it's a good question. If you could have been an explorer, which actual explorer or what, where would you have liked to have discovered? Who would you like to have been? What do we think to that? Would you like to answer that? Yeah. Yeah. Because I know who I would like to have been. But that's only because I've been thinking about it for five minutes. Or shall I start off? Yeah, if you've got an answer. Captain Cook. That's who I would have liked to have been. Didn't end terribly well. Didn't end well. Like, I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, he thought to himself. And it all went wrong. No, it didn't end well. But I think discovering, I mean, I've got a thing about, I've never been, I've got a thing about the South Pacific, that I would love to spend some time there. And just the thought of discovering all those islands and the people there and going to places like Tahiti. Yeah, the South Pacific and discovering those islands. And this bloody great big continent size sort of place as well. And just the thought of the sea and there's that sense of adventure about it as well. So that's kind of

Speaker C: 00:24:05

my thing. I think the thing, yeah, the thing about Cook, which is sort of, you know, by the time they were going in that direction, they must have had a degree of comfort about the, yes, it was uncharted territory and so on. But they must have been reasonably confident about their technological superiority and the safety of what they were doing. So it was sort of like exploration, but exploration from the perspective of having a safety net. Yeah, you've got a bit of a safety net there. And yeah, so in a way that feels like not quite true exploration. Like, you know, when I think about the people who went across to North America, for example, and apparently this was by the ice bridge that was there at the time. They kind of had no knowledge of what was beyond them, nothing to fall back on other than what they were carrying with them. And that to me is utterly terrifying. And I have no idea what drives people to do that, you know, to go completely, you know, completely blind into territory where you don't know if there's going to be any food or anything. And you might walk off the end of the world. You might walk off the end of the world, exactly.

Speaker A: 00:25:27

But would that be your choice? Or that's your...

Speaker C: 00:25:30

Well, I think...

Speaker A: 00:25:31

Because I agree, you're right, you've got to, there's an element of safety net about, you know...

Speaker C: 00:25:34

I mean, I think undoubtedly what would be amazing, right, is to be standing on the moon looking at the Earth. So, you know, your initial, you know, moon landers, I think that kind of is incomparable, you know, very few people can ever have possibly had that kind of experience. But the actual process of getting up there, there's no way I would be equipped psychologically to do that, you know.

Speaker A: 00:26:09

But also I feel with the moon, when you get there, there's not a whole lot there.

Speaker C: 00:26:13

There's not a whole lot there, but actually, you know, they weren't, the journey wasn't that huge, you know, it's what, 400,000 kilometres or something, you know, it's not that massive. It didn't take them that long to get there. It's not like going to Mars or something. But so, you know, you're kind of, it's manageable in terms of journey. But just the terror of going through space, I just think, yeah, that's...

Speaker A: 00:26:39

Yeah, no, absolutely. You'd have to be quite a special kind of personality. Nick?

Speaker B: 00:26:45

Yeah, I've got a board game about Polynesia. And I have to say, I think that's, I mean, this is more being impressed with it, really, rather than... What's the name of the game? It sounds brilliant. Oh, Conquest of Paradise. Oh, wow. Okay. So it's the fact that, you know, it's just still, it boggles my mind that in an era, you know, well before we were, Europeans were, you know, going for the sort of long sea voyages in the middle of nowhere, you know, they were, had this ability to make maps and, you know, explore in what seems to be some sort of systematic way and survive long sea voyages. And then, you know, then they would turn up on an island which was uninhabited and genuinely new. Imagine that. Imagine being the first human to set foot on Hawaii. That's been awesome. You know, whereas when the Europeans got to all these places, they're already humans there, by and large.

Speaker C: 00:27:43

But the question is, how many rafts didn't get to Hawaii, right? And that's where I think that, to me, is the most heroic kind of exploration and one which I'm utterly unsuited to. But the idea of getting on a raft, thinking, yeah, there's probably, you know, there's probably an island out there that we're going to land on, but maybe there isn't, right? And, you know, I don't know if there's any data on the rate of survival of those things, but certainly, you know, I know there's talk about the most likely to survive people, you know, are the ones who now exist, you know, in some of those places.

Speaker B: 00:28:27

Well, I don't think, I mean, the populations weren't enormous, so they couldn't have just been going out in every conceivable direction in well-supplied ships, hoping to hit something. I mean, there must have been a systematic element to it. So, yeah.

Speaker A: 00:28:41

So that's fired my imagination. I'm just imagining all three of us as, you know, Nick as a Polynesian seafaring type, Chris as an astronaut, and myself as a, you know, as a seafaring... As a plunderer. There we go. Yes. Seafaring plunderer type person. Yeah. No, I like it. All right. We'll stop there. I enjoyed that. As always, thanks for listening. If you have any thoughts or suggestions for topics, you can email us at podcast.alephinsights.com. We'd love to hear from you. Also, if you enjoyed the podcast, Nick, what should you do?

Speaker B: 00:29:16

Make your way on that long, lonely sea voyage to the like button.

Speaker A: 00:29:21

Indeed, you should. Thanks, as always, for listening. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye. Right, music has just faded, but here is a little postscript. It's me and Nick, as we're speaking to each other after the episode, which you've just heard was recorded. So we're speaking at a later date. Nick, why are we speaking to each other at a later date?

Speaker B: 00:29:50

Well, we've just been telling the listeners all about how there's nothing left to discover on Earth. And in a remarkable twist, the very day we recorded that, there was an article in the Explorer's Gazette, which I happened to pick up when I was in the Reform Club. And hold on, hold on. You were really in the Reform Club? No, it was on BBC News. I was trying to hark back to the golden age of travel. Exploration. So some scientists have gone to a place called Greenland, which you might have heard of, and they've discovered a new island there. So remarkably, on the very day we were saying there's nothing left to discover where this new thing appears, apparently it's called Udark. No, the thing they were looking for was called Udark. And they found this entirely new island while they were trying to find the other island. And it is, sadly, there is not a huge thriving civilization there, full of people with unusual customs, because it's only 60 by 30 metres. But it's nevertheless apparently the most northerly island in the world. So there we are.

Speaker A: 00:31:04

Okay. Well, actually, to be honest, I just find this hugely annoying, because it just means actually that, you know, we've just had to record this. I'm going to have to re-edit and put this back into the episode. And so what we're saying is, can they stop doing it, please? Yeah, stop this.

Speaker B: 00:31:22

So as far as I'm drawn a line under it, that's it. No new islands now. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:31:27

It's a bit like no more nation states, like Douglas said, no new islands. Okay, well, that's it. You know, like I say, I'm glad this whole age of discovery thing is over then, because it's just very, very inconvenient thing. So that's my thought. Yeah. Do you want to know what it's called?

Speaker B: 00:31:42

All right, go on. What's it called? Keketaka-Vanaleck. It's not, is it? It is Keketaka-Vanaleck. But why is it called Keketaka-Vanaleck? And its mate that they were looking for is called Udark. It means the northernmost island in Greenlandic, apparently. That's what they want it to be called. I think there's probably some official process whereby it actually gets officially named that. But look out for it in all your maps. Yeah, island. Take your maps, take your maps, throw them away. You'll need new maps now. Thanks to this astonishing discovery. Yeah, there we go. All right. Well, thank you very much for that update. And good to speak to you again, Nick.