Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | June 2022

Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Welcome to the June 2022 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! We are inaugurating a slightly different publication schedule, in which these monthly AMA will take the place of one of the regular Monday episodes, rather than being in addition to all of them. A slight tweak that will hopefully make my obligations a little more manageable.
These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of questions asked by Patrons, whittle them down to a more manageable size - based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good - and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy!
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
Sean Carroll channel: / seancarroll
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[@I-0-0-I]

I feel like I get a lot out of these. I think it’s the exposure to top-notch reasoning on a wide variety of subjects. Thank you so much for taking the time to do these. I am very happy to be a patron. Best deal on eduction in our universe!

[@Choofalong]

Perfect sleep aid (no offence) before a rewatch tomorrow! Thanks for all the effort, been a fan from the very beginning. Much love from Australia

[@thepocketboy]

My wife likes when I listen to Carroll at bedtime. She said he has a soothing voice that knocks her right out.

[@freehat2722]

Agreed.

[@TheMemesofDestruction]

I listen to Professor Carroll and Lex Fridman to fall asleep. ^.^

[@Armistice0]

holy cow my favorite cosmologist coming to my home town

[@sergeynovikov9424]

48:20 - very good set of issues concerning entropy and especially the conservation of Shannon entropy in the observable universe. can this Shannon entropy be a non-local hidden variable which influence what's going on in a local place? the issue becomes even more important in the case of the strong anthropic principle is correct -- then the conserved Shannon entropy can influence on how life is developing on the planet, since we clearly see life as the information processing phenomenon.)

[@miashay2524]

Well, Sean, happy moving. Hope you would continue to migrate to MIT, Cambridge so that we locals can attend your lectures. Love the talks you gave at RI over the years. Your contribution in public service for physics education is immeasurable. You are truly our National Treasure!! PS: please get Professor Brian Cox of Britain on your show. You both are equally loved in my eyes. You both have made our observable universe and beyond that much more attractive in our time.

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Thanks

[@dano2760]

Carroll rules.

[@martinds4895]

Great show! Thanks Sean.

[@mgenthbjpafa6413]

"The Pace of Time" is remembered as useful. Orientation must be object of mind control, given the plasticity of our brain and hability to evolve/change/cope/integrate/dostrangeness. 😊

[@williamgregory3786]

I have a piece of low-hanging fruit that all the pickers have overlooked. I am the gravity alchemist... the Forrest Gump of gravity😀 I've followed your MINDSCAPE podcasts for a while and wished to thank you for sharing your ideas.

[@FAAMS1]

I suppose you ought to put Lawrence Kraus in the same category as Feynman regarding poing in their own shoes...difference being Feynman at least had something valid to contribute in his day an age....it is also true that philosophers tend to dismiss all other philosophers around them. By the way a good chunk of fringe Physics is for all purpose for now mostly Metaphysics with Math. They call it "models"

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

Here's a question I recently thought of. It may or may not be original, but it is to me: I hear _"gravity is the curvature of spacetime"._ It's usual visualized as a depression in spacetime, and objects follow the _"downward"_ curvature... Now, I'm wondering -- doesn't that *PRESUPPOSE* gravity? Things are drawn downward, but where does the concept of _"down"_ come from? Isn't it merely the direction of the pull of gravity?

[@Lance_Lough]

Jack Bruce! -My admiration has soared..

[@gtziavelis]

Regarding the bass guitar talk @ 1:34:00 -- Tom Jenkinson a.k.a. Squarepusher is one of the best bass guitar players of our time. His main bass style is jazz, but he is also known for his experimental electronic tendencies. Highly recommended! A great album of his to perhaps initially check out is Hard Normal Daddy.

[@graccus7]

Just a recommendation from an old philosopher. The best advice I ever got as I started on my degree was to write papers and tests as if I was explaining it to my mother. You're pretty good but it seems your mother didn't argue with you enough and you could slip stuff past her..... Lenny Susskind respected his mother. The best physics prof.

[@freehat2722]

I find him very understandable and I know very little about his subject matter. Way better than PBS spacetime.

[@cademosley4886]

I'm putting this question here for future AMA reference, so I don't forget it. I think the interesting angle on it is the intersection of physics concepts and democracy. Why does effective radio or television propaganda unleash so much energy from humans in the form of mass social action? Or what's a good way of characterizing that phenomenon?

[@cademosley4886]

I come from a neuroscience background. Emotional signalling has always been very interesting to me. You can view the brain as a whole system of organized loaded springs following certain algorithms that can allow rather small signals to be registered and to trigger a cascade of targeted activity. The way systems like that can operate, connecting social concepts with physical mechanisms, is interesting to me, and I'd be interested to see someone knowledgeable take more of a bottom-up view of it.

[@freehat2722]

People are dumb enough to listen and assume they speak the truth, then parrot out that information instead of doing some research on their own. At least a little fact checking to see if they aren't lying. It's good practice to have a variety of consumption to see multiple sides if you happen to engage at all. Most are designed to outrage you to cause you to stay tuned, furthering the brainwashing.

[@timgreenglass]

Shakespearean cats & jamming with flea. who knew.

[@gtziavelis]

The dimensional reduction of a black hole volume, encoded onto its surface (Susskind, t' Hooft, and others), and the dimensional expansion of a distant star exactly behind a black hole, seen as an Einstein ring -- as a layperson, these two things are equally strange and interesting. Is there a connection between these? (simplification: 3D goes to 2D, and 1D goes to 2D)

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Late in the party, but anyway.. 15:58 There's a subtlety that prof. Carroll overlooked: There's no way to deduce, from the fundamental "Wavefunction of the Universe", in which branch the observer will find herself in, after a measurement , so her perception/ self awareness ( that is an emergent *physical* property) cannot be derived from the more elementary physics. As the questioner says, this smells like "strong emergence": there is an irreducible stochasticity about the " in which Branch" question ( that isn't exclusive to self awareness of course, the same holds for the measuring device, the records , the other experimentalists and so on...). Not even the Everettian god(ess) him(her)self ( the Many Worlds analogue of the proverbial Laplace's demon) cannot "inform" the observer about the outcome of the measurement ( the branch), so , even if this randomness occurs at the emergent level, it is still "fundamental" in a sense, because it's irreducible. The other alternative is that the Wavefunction is not that "fundamental" as the Everettians think it is...

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Also, we cannot derive by the Wavefunction/ Schrödinger equation alone how this branching occurs ( locally or globally?) without some additional postulates. There's not enough information for this ( hence the disagreements between the Many Worlds proponents). Some people think that these issues ( the irreducible randomness and the Strong Emergence of the "in which branch" question, the local or global splitting of the worlds etc) are merely philosophical, so nothing to worry about, but all these emergent "things" are all part of the physical reality, no? So they are essentially Physics problems. If these subtleties are not worrisome, then why caring about interpretations at all?

[@EWischan]

If you perfectly simulate an apple, how is it distinguishable from the real thing?

[@myshow667]

Sounds like you need a good couple of nights at the Baked Potato by LA

[@endrawes0]

I believe he didn't say a black box. He described a white box. Iirc he said you could read the source code.

[@TJ-hs1qm]

It's little disheartening to see that the economic sciences hasn't come up with some models that would transition us away from the current mode of production into a more sustainable future. I'm not sure if there is any research going on at all.

[@OBGynKenobi]

In the multiverse Mini Me becomes Many Me!

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

1:12:58 - 1:15:40 : It is embarrassingly frustrating how many pop science YT videos about black holes/ General Relativity get these simple facts ( about the role of the coordinates and also the nature of the spacelike singularity) totally wrong... The implication is that too many people believe wrongly that something weirdly incomprehensible is happening with space and time in the interior of a black hole and that singularities are "points at the center" ... Sometimes I wonder if there's anyone else, besides Sean Carroll, that really does justice to GR on YT...

[@OldFartGrows]

My papa got his MD thru UR new home. Sure they will 💘 U like I do.

[@joshua3171]

So is the current universe the product of an everttian colapse/fold ?

[@joshua3171]

Good to see you and a lot if those like u can get some back from your profession choice with patron, sorry I try to buy a book but when I become a trillion air 👍👍👍

[@nathanaelsmith3553]

I knew someone who just hired a skip and threw away all their furniture, bulky items and most of their other possessions when moving house and then re-bought new things at their new home. Not very environmentally friendly but I can see the appeal.

[@maryannereilly7800]

!a!!!!aa!!a!!aa!!!aaa!!qaaaaaa,

[@how3986]

Do we have control of the tiniest of tiny particles?

[@huepix]

no. we can manipulate some but control would be over stating it

[@TJ-hs1qm]

We simply live in that part of the many worlds where the many world theory is wrong 😅

[@dcrook232323]

Given the news..... THE Biggest Question Now FOR Dr. Sean M. Carroll: Boston Celtics or Golden State!?? 😉 ♥

[@origins7298]

Comments ?

[@NaneuxPeeBrane]

Victor Wooten Les Claypool Marcus Miller

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

Not that mathematics was my strong suit, but it would seem that math is way _"ahead"_ of physics. IOW, math can describe things that physics hasn't yet discovered. I wonder if that implies that if math can model it, it must be capable of existence? Then I heard about string theory with nine dimensions of space and (only?) one of time ... Why only one dimension of time? Why not two? Or more? Why should the numbers of dimensions be limit to integers? Or even real numbers?l

[@hokiturmix]

Neil D tyson always says that for space exploration governments should be first then civilians. I think in the current democratic political systems there is no clear regulation who is the employer and the employee. Lets say Elon is the pioneer CEO who has clear vision. He employ lawsuit man to help him set up rules. Then comes the employee who also hire lawsuit man to oversee the contracts. Every company already uses security guards. ... ... In this way we can have a Clear Chain of Command. If we move to Mars we will need independent currency n such. Because of the light lag I can not figure out how to secure money changing operations. A single withdraw from bank accounts can be problematic. interplanetary trade only with hard currency or good exchange without money involved... :D

[@archielundy3131]

Jaco Pastorius was a true virtuoso. Gone way too soon.

[@Rattus-Norvegicus]

🤔....moist?

[@MrMdb81]

I appreciate when Sean talks about playing the bass guitar, because if I ever bump into him in an elevator or something, we'll have something to talk about where I'm not entirely out of my depth.

[@schifoso]

As you get older you collect more stuff. Can this be explained by entropy?

[@ChaplainDaveSparks]

Not that I want to regress to being a _Flat Earther,_ but would it be too much to long to be a _"neo-Newtonian"?_ 😃

[@snjsilvan]

If time were to go backward, one would un-experience everything. If it happens, no one would know.

[@hokiturmix]

Perfect... now i won't sleep for a week!!! :D :D :D

[@snjsilvan]

@@hokiturmix or maybe get the same 8 hrs of sleep tonight a thousand times over. You never know.

[@schelsullivan]

I would like to read some of your science fiction. You should give it a serious go.

[@UtraVioletDreams]

6:16 I say No. It can take 2 directions. Think of a happy moment in the past! Okay, so now where is you're mind at? Edit: you can even feel the positive emotions that come along with it. But that is apart from the true current time. Which is also you're own universe! Weird right.

[@chemquests]

Memories drift over time because remembering is mentally reliving the event. The memory is then overwritten by the reliving. The next instance of recall is that of the last reliving event, not the original event. Point being memory is always seated in the present

[@origins7298]

304.47! Yeah but exactly specified initial conditions is not even a real thing! It's just like a perpetual motion machine it's not something that is possible! Sean concedes this on his very next sentence but he still puts forth a mishmash or mixed up message whenever he talks about this stuff! Laplace's demon is like a perpetual motion machine it is something that is physically impossible and makes no sense given what we know about physics! It leads people to a naive view of reality that is incongruous with everything we know

[@dkierans]

Unfortunately for me the more I seem to hear the same questions again and again the more I’ve just lost interest. Too much philosophy way over my head. Loved all the biggest ideas series in the Covid times and before. Now I just lost or I dunno?

[@adfaklsdjf]

The child becomes a human life at age 20.

[@7heHorror]

We have to vote with our dollars while a handful of people have more than everyone else combined. It's hardly democratic.

[@turanoniz3557]

Do you believe that there's a higher invisible power which does govern the natural processes and progresses of the living organisms, including human beings ? (Love the way explain complex subjects and make them simple) Thank you 🙂

[@davidwalterhughes2258]

Hello reader, your being watched through your smart tvs. 24/7, on or off. How many people have smart tvs in your room? Mass data storage. The guardian permanent record mass surveillance mk ultra remote viewing. Dream and thought surveillance.

[@physicsismyfiancee...1353]

I am not very good at math .......i mean advanced level math.....that's why i am leaving this fasinating journey of physics .But I do not know whenever i hear u science appears to me as the easiest thing of the world

[@philswede]

Greetings from Sweden. If you found a 30 minutes old embryo (sperm/egg) on Mars, would you consider it to be life?

[@mechtheist]

The question of whether a fetus within the first few months is a separate life is a question that has no objectively correct answer, it really isn't worth arguing over. How is the correctness of any given position to be evaluated? It's going to end up depending on the definitions one chooses, these are subjective choices. For there to be an objectively correct answer would imply some authority that can deem this definition to be correct and the others incorrect. This is why the vast majority of the anti-abortion side are religious and how their justifications involve souls, or their god's commands or their religions' creeds/dogmas etc, they have a god as the authority. These are religious issues and have no place as justifications or motivations for laws in the US. Morality is not a part of this, religions don't get to define what is and isn't moral.