Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | November 2023

Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Welcome to the November 2023 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- 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!
Also we have the occasional reminder of the Mindscape Big Picture scholarship: bold.org/scholarships/mindscape/
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
Sean Carroll channel: / seancarroll
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[@BrianFedirko]

I honestly think Sean could do 6 hours or more, and it would get more interesting the longer he talks... He is amazing, and somehow I feel akin to the basis of his outlook on the construct of reality and thinking. Gr8! Peace ☮💜

[@NajibElMokhtari]

+1

[@eccentriastes6273]

Re: mathematical realism. Sean said that in recognizing the existence of two apples, he doesn't recognize the existence of "twoness." But I don't see how one can avoid it. I mean you're not just recognizing the existence of some apples, but also the fact that there are two of them. Surely we have to allow statements like "The number of apples here is two." But what does that statement mean if "number" and "two" aren't really real?

[@stoneman2023]

I love your books- I love your lectures… sitting around a table w 12 peeps you as professor sounds amazing, I appreciate your style, your commentary- which varies in different settings (book vs Big Ideas series) - it’s so awesome, much appreciation, gratitude (from a lay person sahm- many moons ago my degree in theater)

[@shanebyers1222]

Sean it is so good to hear you discuss your thoughts on lecturing vs. interaction. I'm nowhere near your level but I teach post-secondary and have this struggle. Knowing you do too makes me feel 1,000,000X better.

[@gadoatl5133]

I love these AMAs so much!! Thank you Sean!!

[@BrianFedirko]

I love love love these. Gr8! Peace ☮💜

[@JoeHynes284]

your videos during the covid shutdown were amazing! Helped me so much thanks!

[@StayPrimal]

Loving those episodes ! Cheers for all the work you put into it.

[@BrianFedirko]

Sean teaching again is something our population of thinkers needs, and I think it's a step forward in creating a discovery from future thinkers and doers. Gr8! Peace ☮💜

[@jach8047]

Another great AMA, thanks.

[@KirkpatrickSounds]

Fantastic episode. Thanks Sean!

[@IndranilBiswas_]

Always good to hear Sean's wisdom.

[@stephencolbertcheese7354]

vid length 4:20 OF COURSE!

[@neilgarb4543]

I clicked on the vid, saw the duration and looked for and found this comment before the first sentence was done.

[@Games_and_Music]

Hah, nice. Normally i notice those things as well, but it slipped past me this time.

[@FABRIZIOZPH]

Sean, thank you for what you do, and for who you are

[@leeFbeatz]

❤ usually catching this on Spotify!!!! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@sashakindel3600]

One of my favorite courses in college was a linguistics one where the professor gently nudged the class into rediscovering the fundamentals of the subject itself. I recall that the other professors who taught equivalent courses with more standard methods criticized that approach for not getting through as much material and, when the class happens to go down the path of a paradigm that was later overturned, allowing it to spend a lot of time exploring that paradigm rather than "correcting" it. I can believe that the criticisms were valid, but I doubt I would have enjoyed another approach as much.

[@steliosp1770]

Thats the socratic method and there s a reason its the best way we ve ever found to teach most people anything!

[@rinket7779]

No one cares

[@GoatOfTheWoods]

Yees my favourite show! Thank you Sean!

[@gilbertengler9064]

Excellent! never ever remove your contributions available on youtube!!!!

[@bryandraughn9830]

I didn't have any other plans. Really, I didn't.

[@nintendonoscopes6470]

Where can I ask Sean Carroll a question?

[@jonathansaraco]

Regarding Sean your idea of a definition for a question at 43:30, this sounds to me like commands like "State your case", would count in your definition. We don't use a question mark for sentences like that, so I suppose it isn't a question, but it is in spirit very similar to a question.

[@captainbeefheart5815]

“State your case” is a command, but questions usually contain an implicit command. For example, “What’s your case?” is probably equivalent to the following command, “Answer the following question, ‘what’s your case’”

[@czerskip]

These might need splitting into episodes soon 😅 Unless you keep all episodes at 4 hours 20 minutes from now on 😎

[@GoatOfTheWoods]

😎

[@cwcarson]

😎

[@zack_120]

1:29:04 - Based on what is known now this sounds true, but is there any direct proof this is indeed the case, ie. atoms are uniform without personality? 2:33:00 - Acupuncture actually differs from the rest of TCM as it IS based on scientifically verifiable principle of neuronal stimulation, conductivity and propagation as having been demonstrated extensively. This is better demonstrated by the electroacupuncture anesthesia technique used as a stand alone procedure of anesthesia for some surgeries.

[@TR4V1STY111]

I LOL'd when Sean was talking deeply about dating, then I zoned out for a few seconds, and he was suddenly taking about quarks and quantum stuff again😂

[@zonkerpro]

you are a Beast!

[@tapksa]

2:56:35 For those interested, Sapolsky addresses this exact question (regarding his stance) in his books and ted talks etc.

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

Nobody ( from the anti-free will proponents) addresses this issue, because it cannot be addressed, for fundamental reasons: If someone believes that the laws of physics are strictly deterministic, then the history of the Universe ( including of course the history of everyone in it) is fixed. Initial conditions ( data specified on a Cauchy hypersurface) determine everything. Only in a world that has built in irreducible stochasticity/ randomness, so it is inherently probabilistic we can avoid this conclusion (in the sense that our future is uncertain, not in the sense that we can affect these probabilities!), or perhaps if everything that has to do with Self awareness, free will and the like, is a consequence of physicalist "strong emergence" at the macroscopic level ( where all these notions: consciousness, free will etc have meaning...) Anti- Free Will proponents are just trying to hide this issue under the rug, but their point of view is simply inconsistent.

[@shaunneal9981]

The key thing on free will is that choices matter even though you don't have free will. You should agonise over choices but do not agonise that you should have done differently once your choice is made. Your choices are based on things outside of your control such as where you were born, what education you received, what genetics you have, what happened to you yesterday etc. The lack of free will does not mean we should excuse bad behaviour but it makes you think about the solution differently. Instead of punishing people for this behaviour we should look at the root causes and address those and the root cause is not that they had the ability to act differently. If you were the bad person, with their past experiences, their genetics etc, you would have done exactly the same bad thing that they did. This does not mean bad people should not be prosecuted and locked up but we should do it to attempt rehabilitation and remove them from society to not continue to harm others. Addressing the problem is not about punishing these people but should look at addressing the root causes often linked to poverty, child abuse, lack of nutrition, poor access to healthcare etc.

[@dimitrispapadimitriou5622]

@@shaunneal9981 No, you cannot "address" these "root causes" because everything is already fixed in a strictly deterministic world! You have no choice...you never had! Everything you're saying is self - contradictory! Only in a probabilistic , indeterministic World with some kind of ( physicalist ) Strong Emergence the future is not predetermined. Our real world is indeed probabilistic due to quantum mechanics , thankfully. If there is some element of Strong Emergence in the physical laws , then some kind of free will is possible. But, even with mere stochasticity things are much better than with determinism. At least , History is not fixed!

[@gilbertengler9064]

Dear Sean, thanks for all you do but I understood that according to you, math is rather a description of reality. What about the math of quantum mechanics and the wave equation? I thought according to you the wave equation is the "only" reality!! Or is it just math to describe our world?

[@antifajesus]

Are you a firm believer in the physical reality of other dimensions >4 or is it still just a mathematical construction ?

[@dombelardo4909]

2 hours into this ama i fully concur with what u said well done

[@BRDRDRDAT]

Following univalence, if a mathematical statement can be equivalent to reality, then the two are equal. However, a mathematical statement depends on semantics, so only the interpretation of the statement would be equivalent, not the statement itself.

[@jonfranconia3061]

@ Linda: (A and B) is true only if A is true and B is true. Thus the credence in (A and B) should be the minimum of the credence in A and the credence in B. Linda going to a bank every day then, on its own, doesn't increase the credence in the statement "Linda is a banker and a feminist" at all.

[@paketisa4330]

Hi! This isn't questioning the big bang theory(including inflation(probably true), as a beautiful precise theory. Is there a way to explain the following completely noncontroversial fact- .we know all about time dilation that affects objects because of their speed and gravity. Time stretches, objects travel to the future, to a photon the history of the universe is a single moment. - YET, cosmologist talk about - 1min, 2hr, 1 x10-34, after the big bang so confident that the preposterous blowing in size of the universe itself does not affect time in a weird and massive way, such that measuring in seconds would be impossible and unuseful. Thank you.

[@JAYMOAP]

Bring Xiao Gang Wen on the podcast would be an interesting episode

[@donald-parker]

Gary Shandling face - Seth Macfarlane voice - but with more physics

[@immunitycorrupts3641]

hello Kin folk

[@jackfrosterton4135]

I disagree that falsification isn't taken seriously...

[@carmengodoy984]

blame it on tik-tok 😅

[@TheCosmicGuy0111]

Ooo

[@stephencolbertcheese7354]

Noo

[@Games_and_Music]

17:00 This is probably the biggest thing that i disagree with you on, as i am definitely not a 'believer' in Many Worlds. At least, not in the way that i currently understand it, maybe i just need a proper lecture that clicks. But yeah, the index problem, i just don't get why it is supposed to be normal that everything is already existing even if it will have no relevance on my current reality. Why should there be other versions of me living a slightly (and others completely) different lives? Doesn't this leave an 'infinite' backlog and possible coming-uplog? Where is this supposed to go? I don't get why all of this has to be conjured up, it makes no sense to me. To me it sounds adjacent to the misconception of superpositions, thinking that things can somehow duplicate and merge again. The universe is weird, but to think that everything gets multiplied endlessly, that's just unnecessarily weird. Also, what is the expected "interval" for the indexing? Time as in seconds etc., does not exist, it's all one giant malleable space(time), so how does one imagine to be making slices and rejoin in this fabric? This also makes me think of the people getting their hopes up on time travel, as these kinds of questions are right up their alley, with little science to back their fantasies up. In that sense i am more leaning to Pilot Wave, but honestly, it all still feels a bit off, nothing is really satisfying my gut feeling. And i know that there's nothing scientific about gut feelings, but i am always left with a feeling that something's not quite right, or missing. 24:19 So, do you mean that there's not actually multiple worlds/universes at the same time, but that every path that is chosen is the eventual single path being taken? Aka, other probabilities collapsing once they're not used? Kinda like how lightning strikes, once it connects to something then the electricity will run down that trajectory. Because the only way i can "justify" having multiple realities at once, is that dark energy turns out to be this invisible backlog and futurelog of paths, which is causing the expansion around us. But then i'd think that the expansion would be exponential, which i don't think it is. I don't know man, it just feels like physicists and mathematicians getting carried away.

[@7heHorror]

Many-worlds is a feature of the math, the wave function describing any quantum system splits into different branches according to the Schrodinger equation. Standard quantum theory gets rid of these branches with a hand-waive, many-worlds instead accepts them for what they are. That's the origin. Branching happens many many times a second and the different branches cannot interact or rejoin. Standard theory treats the observers of quantum experiments as classical objects that cannot become entangled, many-worlds instead treats EVERYTHING as a quantum system. I'm no expert, just watched many a Sean Carroll KZbin lecture.

[@hoolioh3721]

.

[@user-gj7vp6wk3e]

IF ALOT OF PEOPLE GET THEIR WAY, ME AND YOU ASIDE, THE TOOTHFAIRY AND A CRUISIFIX WILL BE THE U.S. PRESIDENT.❤