MIT professor and author of “Einstein’s Dreams,” Alan Lightman, spent the evening of Nov. 9 engaging in an intimate conversation about the intersection of science and the arts.

The event was co-sponsored by the Stanford Storytelling Project and the Stanford University Speakers Bureau. It was co-moderated by Jonah Willihnganz, director of the Stanford Storytelling Project, and Robert Harrison, professor of French & Italian studies.

Before the talk, Lightman held a private master class for students in the Notations in Science Communication program, tailoring the conversation around student questions and interests. He gave a glimpse into his writing style, noting that when writing essays, he enjoys experimenting with fictional elements and balancing different forms, such as fiction and nonfiction. 

In response to a student question, Lightman cautioned against the desire for young writers to write articles on vulnerable communities to further their careers — what is known as “extractive journalism.” He advised going directly to those communities and asking them for their stories, then having them critique the piece to ensure the most accurate representation. 

Students were also curious about Lightman’s writing process. He shared that he starts off by writing down on paper every idea he has and creating an outline with a logical flow. Then, he polishes and filters the ideas within the outline.

The official event kicked off by showing a short clip of Lightman’s burgeoning television series, “Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science,” produced by Geoff Haines-Stiles, who also produced Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos.” Willinhganz inquired about the series’ creation process, curious as to why he ended up producing the show. Lightman said he was approached by Haines-Stiles to produce a show on science. Through the show, Lightman said he wanted to not only touch on science but also grapple with philosophy. The show was an attempt to reconcile the scientific world with the philosophical one. 

The conversation then transitioned into discussing a thought experiment Lightman had proposed to a variety of scientists across fields: if given the opportunity to press a button that would give you the answers to all the scientific questions you have, would you press it? He wasn’t surprised that there were a range of answers. Across the board, however, people all seemed to be looking for meaning.

“There are questions with answers and questions without answers, and both these kinds of questions are part of being human,” Lightman said.

Lightman then proposed an interesting analogy to contrast the binary of science with the multitude of possibilities of subjective art. There are many kinds of love — familial, platonic, romantic — that we all experience in our own unique ways, but there is only one kind of electron, he said. He then drew on the subjectivity of emotion to emphasize the room for interpretation in written works: “You don’t want to tell your reader how to experience something,” he said. In essence, each and every reader will experience something in their own unique way and each subsequent reader adds something new to a novel.

He concluded that “Every electron is identical, but every love is different.”

Harrison then touched on Freud’s cynical interpretation of the “oceanic feeling,” a feeling of being one with the universe. Lightman chimed in, sharing that testimonials from folks who have experienced it say they can feel something of being outside oneself. The “feeling of being connected to something larger than yourself is a transcendent moment,” one that’s ego-free — the feeling in which you’re not even aware of the self beyond the individual, he said. Lightman quipped that it was much more ethereal and emotional than having your teeth pulled, which was met by laughter from the audience and the moderators.

A student then asked Lightman about whether or not it was possible to predict love, referencing the Marriage Pact. Despite his scientific background, he said he personally resented that a computer would tell him who he would fall in love with. Science cannot and will not get to the “why” of love, leaving room for philosophy. Nobody claims to know the truth; you can predict things, but you cannot know something with absolute certainty, he said. He implied the two work in tandem to give us a more accurate understanding of the world; science tells us “what” happens, while philosophy gets us closer to understanding the “why.”

The moderators then opened the floor to audience questions. While there was not enough time to address each question, Lightman took the time to thoroughly reflect on each.

An audience member, concerned about the end of humanity, asked Lightman to elaborate on what he meant by the end of the human tapestry, which he’d mentioned earlier in his talk. Lightman elaborated that because we have become more reliant on technology, homo sapiens may eventually evolve into “homo techno,” implying that we may eventually become part man, part machine. 

Another audience member brought up the Buddhist idea that we need some kind of revolution to free ourselves from dualistic thinking. They then argued that the electron Lightman was describing earlier exists in the context of other things, so how does one describe a physical item or a concept that exists in one’s mind? What does it mean to have a non-dualistic scientific approach? In other words, how can we not look at things in a black-and-white, binary approach in the context of scientific thinking?

Lightman went on to argue that the mind and body aren’t separate things in a non-Descartian sense and, using his electron analogy from earlier in the talk, said that electrons have certain intrinsic properties as subatomic particles that are independent of their surroundings. He described an electron’s spin as not being related to anything around it, but fundamentally able to interact with its surroundings. 

The conversation then transitioned from more technical discussions to questions about what constitutes a life well-lived. Answers ranged from being in the present moment and cultivating an awareness for one’s surroundings. Lightman underscored realizing the impermanence of everything — living and nonliving alike. As he put it, finitude is a basic condition, not just of humans, but all things, and realizing that leads to a natural arising of compassion.

To close, he responded to a question regarding very advanced AI and consciousness, by saying that consciousness is a continuum, not an all or nothing. He said that we will honestly never know whether or not an AI is conscious. Consciousness is a feeling, and while AI can check off every item on a finite list of consciousness manifestations, we may never know if it can feel the same way we do.