Going Deeper with Joseph Gordon-Levitt

About This Episode

What do you dream of while working on Inception? Neil deGrasse Tyson sits down with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt to explore time travel, dreams, and the science and philosophy behind his projects.

We explore breaking time travel rules in the movie Looper and the grandfather paradox. Learn about Stephan Hawking’s time travel conjecture and how time travel to the past is different than time travel to the future. What is the purpose of science fiction? We discuss the definition of science fiction, plus a cut scene from Looper.

What’s a lucid dream? Find out what Joe was dreaming about while shooting Inception. Can you even have a dream within a dream? We also discuss subjective experience, the illusion of time while on drugs, and the concept of originality. How do you know if you are in a dream or not?

We get into the nature of creativity as we dive into Joe’s career. What’s his relationship to acting and how has it evolved with the creation of his online community HitRecord? Do we really have agency in what we do or is everything predetermined? Learn about free will from a physics perspective and how the quantum realm helps us disrupt determinism.

Thanks to our Patrons Victor Ray Rutledge, David, Benjamin Behlke, Jay Naranjo, and Judy the Extrovert for supporting us this week.

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.

About the prints that flank Neil in this video:
“Black Swan” & “White Swan” limited edition serigraph prints by Coast Salish artist Jane Kwatleematt Marston. For more information about this artist and her work, visit Inuit Gallery of Vancouver.