Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | December 2020

Getting into the swing of things here with monthly Ask Me Anything episodes. If you missed the explanation last month, there is a Patreon page for people who wish to support Mindscape with a small donation per episode. Benefits include a warm feeling, social status, access to ad-free versions of the podcast, and the ability to ask questions once per month, which I answer over the course of a hilariously long podcast. Thanks to the generosity of Patreon supporters, we are now making the fruits of these monthly adventures available on the regular podcast feed.
Here is the December 2020 edition. Note that there won’t be a January 2021 edition, as I take a break from podcasting for the holidays. Have a good one everybody!
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[@BrianFedirko]

I'm going to use your quote "me doing no work is a very common criterion for things i try to do in the world" as much as i can. Gr8 work, I love these.

[@rick15666]

Enjoy your break Sean! Thanks for all that you do.

[@sekoivu]

I could listen Sean Carroll for the pleasure of plain lure of his talk. Intellectual insight is of course the main reason, but never underestimate the format.

[@martinds4895]

Great video, thanks Mr Dr Sean.

[@88_TROUBLE_88]

I really enjoy these AMA uploads and I look forward to a new one every now and then but it seems like there's been a lot more lately which is great. Thanks Sean for putting out so much excellent content!

[@siddharthasankarmazumdar9530]

I convey my deep gratitude for your entertaining enlightenment and wonderful logical approach for analysing longstanding unresolved issues between classical and quantum world through your series of lectures on Biggest Ideas in the universe and also for your recently published 'Something Deeply Hidden' . Being 67 years old , I am feeling enough justification to live long to understand governing laws of Nature from the point of view of theoratical physicst like you.

[@I-0-0-I]

For me at least, these AMAs are like hearing The Voice of Reason in a mad world. I believe that listening to these truly lowers my general anxiety. I listen to your podcasts, and I really appreciate that you apply your substantial critical thinking skills to answering non-science questions, and that you spent over 3 hours on this episode alone! In the interest of keeping these AMAs public, Patreon here I come! Kudos to your existing Patrons for choosing to make the answers public.

[@edwardlee2794]

to listen to prof Sean is captivating. this time, a great learning to articulate answering questions. thanks for the effort and keep up with the good work. from Hker worldwide

[@Garcia-elf]

Wow I imagined he would have a Schedule. I work more when I’m inspired, might be mania lol

[@mistadimensions5436]

Hi Sean, my question is this: after watching a zoom out of Earth all the way out to the edge of the observable universe, shouldn’t the light from the edge have been blocked by everything in between us. With all the planets, stars, black holes, etc? Thanks and I love the show!

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Light is always being blocked by gas and dust, but it never reaches 0 at any point, it just becomes extremely faint at distances of billions of light years. the curve is asymptotical. The hubble ultra deep field exposure was nearly a full month. It shows galaxies of which hubble only received 100 photons (in that full month of exposure).

[@alexycho]

Accompanying video would be nice

[@dobbsmill3676]

3.5hrs of what?

[@robertfass9681]

How do you shift from one timeline to another?

[@mrloop1530]

Wauw, Christmas has come early this year. Thanks!

[@CMVMic]

Hi Sean Carroll!! I have some questions.. Is causality circular? What are the problems with Roger Penrose Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC)? Are there any steady state models that are better than CCC? One answer to any one question would be fine!

[@BrianFedirko]

about choosing to be a Theoretical Physicist: We are viewing and thinking about this because of the invention of the www that came out of the CERN project. Developing knowledge pushes things forward that we cannot necessarily see the outcomes. Sometimes high level thinking isn't even noticed for hundreds of years, such as Newton's Principia. High level thinking changes human kind and what we do to the planet. Just do it,

[@Jiggerj01830]

Hi Sean, If the Earth is held in place by a curve in space then shouldn't that fabric of space have some form of physical presence, and if so, why doesn't it RIP off our atmosphere?

[@cdorman11]

2:20:30 I took it to be a question of what topic to turn a GAN on, not a multi-universe, Sorcerer's Apprentice question.

[@Sinaqval]

I love your content

[@hershyfishman2929]

2:23:52 I get that quantum effects will cause large scale societal changes, but how can we be certain that every imaginable scenario (e.g. the election of every candidate) will occur in some branches?

[@nathanisbored]

yeah i was kinda thinking this too... like how do we know there is some path of quantum decisions that can lead to one election result, and some path that leads to another. its not hard to imagine that might be possible, but its also easy to imagine it might not be

[@LukePinna]

You are my new favorite human sean, thanks for all the fascinating insights!

[@Petrov3434]

Many worlds.... Where the energy comes from for all of them?

[@johnimusic12]

Many worlds are being divided from 1 original Universe. They are parts of a whole...not additions to the sum.

[@thelocalsage]

2:00:00 my alma mater, Western Washington University, has an interdisciplinary college (the Fairhaven college) where you can build your own major! Not the same as no departments, but very interesting. I’ve heard of majors built from Environmental Journalism/Communication to BDSM as Psychotherapy. There’s even a rumor someone got their degree in the color “blue.” Quite fun stuff imho.

[@charliejg]

What is the rebuttal to those who adhere to the ideas of Tesla, Steinmets, etc regarding dismissal of "atomists" who deny the existence of electrons and photons? They speak in terms of the ether and dielectric. They speak in terms of Einstein being a "fool".

[@johnharding9634]

"conciseness" or precision.

[@kevinclark7243]

Hey Sean, I want to preface this by saying I'm a big fan of yours; as a science communicator, a scientist, an advocate for morality and naturalism. I wanted to listen to this AMA, and I couldn't get past your preface. I listened twice hoping that I was wrong that you spoke about this global pandemic exclusively in terms of how inconvenient it's been to traveling (including Santa Fe, where my family is from and NM where I am from) and going out, and that the massive loss of life we've endured as a country and as a species didn't occur to you. 100% this is your AMA, and (certainly earlier in quarantine) I can understand how lock-down can feel like a forced staycation which we can measure on a metric of boredom, I grant that easily. But at this point after this much loss of life, with some several thousand American families guaranteed to lose a family member on Christmas Day, and Eve, and NYE and day, and the many days before and for many months after, it feels callous and cold and ultimately wholly out of touch at this point not to recognize that reality when speaking of the optimism for a "return to normal". It's the reality that listeners like myself have experienced and that you, I'm sure, would recognize that no small amount of luck and privilege has kept you from experiencing. I hold a great amount of respect for you, so much so that I felt compelled to say this. if I didn't I wouldn't have bothered writing a comment you may never read, and I hope your AMA was fruitful.

[@YB7517167]

general relativity/ gravity/ classical physics interacts with matter but quantum is... wait I'm confused maybe it's different matter if an object is quantum but gravity is emergent (my head hurts)

[@HarryNicNicholas]

on the question of clothing, it's a bit misleading to say "i only have white shirts so i don't waste time having to choose which shirt to wear" cos surely you still have to choose WHICH white shirt. once you have stuff in your wardrobe surely any choice is as easy as any other, you don't waste time at the wardrobe, the time is wasted shopping, choosing what you put in your wardrobe. lol. ther science of dress sense. i dress the same as i did when i was at school, as long as i don't repulse people i just wear similar things day by day. i am a it pissed off with my neighbours, especially the women, who traipse around the building in dressing gowns, i mean, how lazy is that? "i'm up but i want to look like i'm still in bed".

[@Blowfeld20k]

@AllSeansPatrons Thanks for choosing to release these Q&A sessions to the rest of us who contribute nothing. I honestly find it hard to properly communicate how much i am coming to value them. So just wanted to let you all know how much i appreciate your generous pro social attitude.

[@llibressal]

Sean, I'd love to see your content uploaded to Rumble.

[@jyjjy7]

Professor Carroll I don't think you are quite following the big bang as a white hole theory you discuss early on here. When one enters a black hole time and space essentially switch roles, with the singularity becoming an unavoidable future point in time for anything entering the event horizon. The same thing would happen upon exiting a white hole with the surface of the event horizon (the big bang in this case) being a necessary point in the past. So... necessarily we could not see any "interior", it's where time would begin for us.

[@ssshurley]

Sean, Soul DFS 🚨 Simmons + Embiid + Harden = Wave Function Collapsed.

[@thomasbowen8112]

I have so many questions for you! They will most likely be stupid questions as I am very new to this field. Only gained interest after watching you and your ability to make complex information into understandable terms. I have what i think to groundbreaking findings but are most likely something wildly known or seen on a molecular scale. Sooo first question for you might sound ridiculously stupid. What is the image displayed behind MINDSCAPE? In this video. And is it photo evidence or a rendition?

[@lomiification]

Muppets are some specific puppets. Miss Piggy and Kermit the frog etc

[@AdamAlbilya1]

2:38:50 Lol I'm pretty sure it was a joke 😄

[@laxr5rs]

"AMA?" I kept thinking, "American Medical Association?" Then, "oh! I got it! Yay!" Yay me.

[@iruleandyoudont9]

caught a small error at around 2:50:00 the V in the ideal gas law is volume not velocity (but I know you know that lol)

[@ricksminecraft]

Hi Sean. Wouldn't the election have been much closer if states like PA would not have change their rules to allow late votes, votes without postmarks, the count of votes that arrived late, or were somehow lost and showed up all of a sudden. How about is legal observers were allowed to observe the process as allowed for by law? Again, like you, my question is only offered to learn, not to judge. We are hearing a lot of different things. Thanks.

[@llibressal]

Being an expert in one (or several), fields doesn't necessarily qualify one to be an expert in all fields of study.

[@ezbody]

It would be even more closer if the ballots didn't arrive at all.

[@ezbody]

@@GalloPazzesco Woah, hold it there Patriot, should you be out there fighting the war on Christmas, or something? Or defend some persecuted all-powerful God?

[@Caleb-zu1pk]

lmao

[@lomiification]

The inefficiency of the code is the memory usage of running it, not the amount of code

[@freehat2722]

Great episode. I wish other educators could be as honest and straightforward.

[@Mannipth]

Okay.

[@Xxoax]

Was that Kash. 😃

[@ricksminecraft]

Can the father be allowed to have any input on the abortion question? He certainly will be included in child support issues when there is a birth. I agree with a woman deciding what happens to her body, i.e. when she allows her body to be involved in the sex act or not. While it is reported that 5% of pregnancies are due to rape, and it seems hard to believe 1 out of every 20(!), I am only asking here about the overwhelming 95% that are consensual, and yes among those, the ones that are between adults that are not related to each other. In other words a normal pregnancy the way any reasonable person would assume.

[@cullenarthur8879]

In my opinion, no.

[@bongani2269]

The good news 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@BillEFabian]

Identity politics has pushed the divide. Like the universe, the cultural divide is speeding up. Identity politics is the dark matter.

[@Epoch11]

Let me preface this by saying I think you're a brilliant man who has an intelligence far above mine but when you were speaking about politics and saying that both sides are to blame and that we should not be using this terminology because one side is often more to blame I can only agree to a point because the true problem is the campaign finance system which essentially allows legal bribery to politicians we can never have a just State a just country until we get rid of the ability for people to lobby and for campaign contributions it's my 2 cents

[@Epoch11]

PS I am requesting my change back

[@timw3241]

My question would be, and I hope I can ask it in a future episode is... Why do I constantly hear scientists who are puzzled at why we appear alone in an infinitely large universe? I universe of vastly large distances where Einstein demonstrated physical objects cannot travel faster than light. Why would anyone any EXPECT to see anything? Our telescopes can only see images of celestial objects as they were in the distant past because of the time it took that light to reach the lens of the telescope. Even time itself is not consistent across the universe. There is no "now" with respect to our relationship and 99.9 % of the observable universe. Warp drives or other such devices may in realty be nothing more than sci-fi inventions and impossible due to the physical laws of the universe. Given that premise, I'd be surprised to see anything other that what we observe.

[@CorwynGC]

Those who think that we should be seeing things, are expecting to see Dyson swarms, among other things.

[@timw3241]

Expecting to see Dyson spheres still requires that light to reach us. Also, looking for such technologies that we as humans envision is shortsighted, in that it assumes other life think or create technology like us. Alien life is likely so far removed from us we might not even recognize it or things the do. Especially an advanced civilization.

[@CorwynGC]

@@timw3241 Can't think of a reason why the light wouldn't reach us. A dyson swarm is a huge thing radiating strongly in the infrared.

[@timw3241]

@@CorwynGC The universe is a big place. The light would only have reached us if the civilization has existed long enough for that light to make it's way to us.

[@CorwynGC]

@@timw3241 Sure, but the universe is an old place as well. It is thought that it would only take a few tens of million years to completely colonize a galaxy. The universe is a thousand times older than that. Any civilization in OUR galaxy would need to be less than 130,000 years old. Or 0.001% of the life of the Universe.

[@ddavidjeremy]

I'm a trailer park in a nerdnado.

[@corypride5096]

I'm sorry, Doctor Carroll, but the sweat pants have to go!