Are We the Universe’s Way of Knowing Itself? With Brian Cox (Video)

What is truly foundational to the universe?

In this 9 December 2025 published StarTalk Podcast, hosts Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice welcome physicist and author Brian Cox for a discussion about emergence, particles, consciousness, and the very fabric of spacetime.

Learn about Brian’s new show and it’s focus on emergence. Starting with Kepler’s six-cornered snowflake, Brian unpacks why symmetry appears in nature and how simple molecular rules scale up to astonishing patterns. We explore how complexity arises, from birds flocking to consciousness itself, and why understanding the brain doesn’t require particle physics, even if physics underpins everything. Is life just computation? Are we just symbol-shuffling machines? Brian shares debates from neuroscientists and computer scientists, on whether AI might someday count as a lifeform.

We zoom down to quarks, protons, and the Standard Model’s mysterious triplicate particle families. Why do particles have the masses they do? Why does gravity resist unification? Could spacetime itself be emergent, built from entangled quantum bits or wormhole-like connections? Brian and Neil tackle black hole information, the Hawking chronology prevention conjecture, entropy flow, and whether casuality is what underpins the entire universe.

We explore quark catastrophes inside black holes, whether dark matter and dark energy might be relics of earlier cosmic phases, how tides emerge from curved spacetime, why particles decay when they do, and what limits the smallest possible wavelength of light.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction: Brian Cox

06:58 – Kepler & Complexity

10:10 – What is Emergence?

14:13 – The Advancements in Science

21:24 – Misinformation in the Information Age

25:31 – Examples of Emergence

35:53 – Is Life Computation?

41:34 – Emergence in the Standard Model

42:26 – What is a Particle?

44:29 – Why Particles Come in 3s

50:50 – Is Spacetime Fundamental?

01:03:28 – Infinite Quark Catastrophe

01:11:18 – Are Dark Matter & Dark Energy Emergent Phenomena?

01:19:25 – How Does Curvature of Spacetime Cause Tides?

01:21:41 – Will the Word “Particle” Maintain Meaning?

01:24:04 – How Do Particles Know to Decay?

01:31:28 – Light with a Wavelength of One Planck

01:35:22 – What is the Information in Hawking Radiation?

01:37:00 – The Limits of Newton’s Laws

01:40:18 – Galilean Transformation

01:43:40 – Closing Thoughts