Sean Carroll on the Enigma of Complexity | Win-Win Podcast

[@KevinsDisobedience]

Sean Carrol is a national treasure.

[@LivBoeree]

he sure is

[@williamnelson4968]

Sean Caroll's belief in the ontology of the wave equation via Hugh Everett III is quite embarassing. In the beginning was the "Wave Function" according to Caroll. He confuses models (the Schrodinger equation) of reality with reality itself. Remind Sean that the map is not the territory!

[@stevefrost3362]

I agree 👍

[@deeplyhidden921]

Yes he is. Gold👌👑🔱⚱️

[@jameslindsay5889]

Absolutely. Great film also 👍

[@dohpam1ne]

Sean Carroll is the perfect example of "the mark of truly understanding a concept is being able to explain it in simple terms."

[@8xnnr]

Einstein never said that

[@packardsonic]

The cause of the problems in our society is that we are forced to sacrifice the longterm common good for a short term advantage in the race for resources. The solution is to meet everyone's needs UNCONDITIONALLY with voluntary citizen led decentralized altruistic networks. We inspire everyone to participate by raising awareness about the fact that practically everyone will be a benefit to others if all their needs are met since conception and that absolutely everyone will inevitably become a burden or a danger to others if at any time one of their needs isn't met. This is an indisputable fact because by definition a need is that which is indispensable. A need is not a desire. A desire is not a need.

[@grawl69]

@@8xnnr Feynman did I think

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

Sean's the best.

[@byrongatwood9247]

I enjoy Sean Carroll because he's not afraid to say something like, "It'll be super duper far in the future."

[@jsnedd66]

He is the real Ned Flanders

[@BitsofJoshua]

criminally underviewed channel, every one of these conversations is great.

[@sindibadage]

Never heard of this channel until popped up thsi episode. Subscribed immediately as I know Liv and Igor from poker..They are both super inteligent.

[@daffertube]

banger. I love that he's taking Occam's razor to the complexity of quantum mechanics. One algorithm and one vector to rule them all

[@steveflorida5849]

However, the laws of nature/physics does Not care about the welfare of humans. Occam Razor reveals Materialism doesn't care about the human condition. Philosophy and religions venture into the WHY of Life. And the values of love, goodness, truth, and beauty. Values embraced by human nature and Consciousness.

[@garydecad6233]

I agree that Sean Carroll is a national, if not world, if not universe treasure. What a mensch! What a pleasure listening to this discussion.

[@jimbob8992]

Thanks for this great interview with Sean Carroll.

[@LivBoeree]

wassssuupppp friends are we ready for some PHYSICS

[@SuperJompaVideos]

Yes please!

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Why does she keep looking at the co-host lovingly then scornfully? Regularly repeating? It's kinda weird

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Good talk

[@michaeljfigueroa]

On camera this is bad

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Please stop

[@anuraglamsal5142]

Sean's articulation ability is so impressive. Inspiring honestly.

[@zeddybear257]

Yes, he has relevant considerations immediately available and his language is fluid and accessible to all listeners. Great podcast.

[@elrey8876]

I was listening for a while, then suddenly realized I wasn't hearing any of the usual um's and ah's of someone formulating their thoughts on the go - just a steady stream of lucid speech.

[@LucidityEngine]

Brand new viewer and I'm loving this conversation! I can't wait to check out more here.

[@justinparnell9572]

Sean is the 🐐

[@BadassRaiden]

I love Sean. I could listen to him talk all day. I agree with him on most things but there is one thing in particular that I disagree with him on that other physicists also aspire to, and that is that the universe simply evolves according to the Schrodinger equation. The reason I think this is because believe that that statement is true completely ignores a fundamental characteristic of the universe, probably more so than any other characteristic we describe, and that characteristic is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. When we write equations no matter how good they are, they are still approximations. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states, and when I say states I mean is undeniable due to observations - that we cannot know all the information of the universe. This is why all equations are irrevocably approximations and that they will always be approximations. When we reduce relationships in the physical world to values that we invent - and by invent I mean the language we use to talk about them - by the nature of having to invent a language to talk about them, we are having to reduce the full reality of what they are into something we can understand and talk about. Now some would say this is just a flaw of language, others like Sean, say it's a lack of information. They say that there is more information out there, whether or not we will ever be able to measure it, but if we could, it would paint the entire picture. This perspective is inherently wrong because of what the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states and it states, very simply, the following: It is, as inherent to the nature of the universe - impossible to fully measure a system, ie it's position and momentum simultaneously (as position and momentum include all definable information about a system like mass, velocity, etc) and the reason is because that information does not exist in full. So it's not that there is information we don't have access to, it's that that information doesn't even exist to be known, which is also why I hate the whole LaPlace's Demon thought experiment because even it cannot know all the information to describe a system currently, to them use to describe how it was indefinitely into the past and indefinitely into the future, and I'll tell you why the information doesn't exist. When you have something in motion, and you ask what it's position is - it fundamentally does not have one. It's position is smeared across spacetime. It is undefined. In order for you to define it you have to basically take a snapshot of it, whether that be taking a picture of a ball in motion, or having a particle interact with a sensor. Doing so, taking a picture, which is a still image, inexorably reduces it's momentum to zero because its not moving in the photo. It's also not moving when you see it on the sensor; it either collides with the sensor itself whereby stopping in the moment of the collision that is then measured, or you are blasting light at it which bounces back to a sensor in which case you will get a single image of where the particle *was* when the photons interacted with it. So again, when it's in motion it's position is undefined and in order to define it's position you have to reduce its motion to zero which is physically impossible because you cant reduce a wave to zero it would physically stop existing, which means the next best thing is to take a still of it, which removes it from the context in which it is actually being observed, and because you can't look at a still image and tell what it's momentum is, it's momentum becomes undefined. So you can't say that a quantum system evolves strictly according to the Schrodinger equation. Equation are approximations, reduced from the fullness of their reality using human language into something that is understandable and digestible. These equations do not define the full reality of whatever relationship we are trying to define, and we know they don't and can never because they are descriptions of what we observe and measure, and not only is what we observe and measure not the full picture, the full picture in a measurable sense does not exist. A part of the system is inherently undefined and undefinable, and not even LaPlace's Demon could see the whole picture.

[@jayvincent1865]

I could listen to this man explain science or philosophy any time. One of the greats in science communication.

[@NewbFixer]

One of the most intelligent people on the planet. Great public communicator. We appreciate you fella. :)

[@mihainov]

Glad I could watch it during the premiere and participate in the live chat

[@MOSP14]

Great interview! You actually let the guest speak his mind. Sean, you know we always love hearing your thoughts, thanks to both.

[@LivBoeree]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Exczistance]

Sean Carrol is the best! Hope you pay him millions, he is worth billions!

[@CosmicMage]

Great podcast! A fun exercise when thinking about information and the universe is to hash the universe. Take a 100 billion light year distance and divide it into Planck lengths. Now cube that so you can define what is considered to be the observable universe in a single space. Now take that to the power of four. Three spaces to define the components of all atoms and one empty space to define empty space lol. Now you have a universe that can be defined in a single number. When quantum powered AGI gets here my plan is to use these hashes as universal phone numbers and build a Stargate.

[@LivBoeree]

Haha this wins the comment of the week! Nice one.

[@quarkraven]

I've been subbed to your channel forever but this is the first time youve come into my feed. Commenting in hopes this bumps your video and your frequency in my KZbin experience. Liv, you too are an international treasure--thank you!

[@michaeljfigueroa]

The intro was pretty good. I'll watch this!

[@fhvisuals479]

I sub every channel who has Sean as a guest 😊

[@countryrunner19]

Haha, I do the same damn thing!

[@mariuszpopieluch7373]

Great chat. I’m a longtime fan of Sean Carroll. Subscribed 🙂

[@bendybruce]

I didn't know Sean Carroll had large purple batwings.

[@DudokX]

Love Sean Carrol! also can I say that the set decor is absolutely amazing!

[@Edgarbopp]

My favorite science communicator

[@smicksatusadotnet]

Bravo!!! I loved this level of question/answer. All three of you COULD have dived into details of physics that would fly way over my head, but instead left it at just the right "meta" level about science,for us to get a feel of where science is. Also.... when are you going to have C. Thi Nguyen on the show???!!??

[@daledadolphin]

just found your channel through sean, saw some of your other vids and think I will be here to stay!

[@nathane5287]

Fun discussion and some unique questions & ways of presenting old questions in a new light, might have to check out more from your podcast

[@bryandraughn9830]

Sean Carroll steps into the purple dimension for a chat. 😊

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

I want that big purple chair!

[@AI_and_WellBeing]

I love Sean's notion of Poetic Naturalism. Thank you for all the work you do Liv. The good news about different definitions of complexity is that in many meaningful ways they converge, so we don't necessarily need to have complete agreement to discover useful things.

[@steveflorida5849]

Naturalism and the laws of physics/nature does Not care about the Welfare of humans. Therein lies the problem for materialists. When it comes to the values of love, goodness, truth, and beauty. Traits embraced by human nature. Traits which characterize human nature and the conscious human condition.

[@AI_and_WellBeing]

@@steveflorida5849 I don't find internet "debates" productive, and I'm confused as to why you posted this in response to what I wrote, so I won't comment further then what I say below. I believe that when one understands complexity and emergence, though there is a distinction of course, one can't simply draw a hard line between "nature" and "humans" -- we are literally a small part of an emergence within "nature." We certainly also see aesthetic creation and appreciation and "ethics" in other species, so I would never think to circumscribe this to humans alone. I also believe that conscious experience is a valid fact, not an epiphenomenon, so things like sentience and consciousness ought to ultimately be included in our description of nature, even if we don't know how to do it quite yet. It is easy to reconcile consciousness with "naturalism." All this being said, there is no conflict between poetic naturalism, materialism, and notions like "the good", "consciousness", etc. I lean towards pan-proto-psychism and emergence as probable explanatory directions for the evolution of complex consciousness, and these are wholly compatible with a naturalist view.

[@thomabow8949]

@@steveflorida5849 How is this a problem for materialists

[@MuscleBandit]

Excellent guests and topics as always, thanks Liv :)

[@monkerud2108]

Yeah, the part of the big bang that makes us include "then there was a very hot very dense and uniform state" at some very early state in our description of what happened, is very unlikely to go away, no matter what the context for that hot dense state becomes in future theories.

[@penponds]

A flaw in all naturalistic attempts at explaining everything about origins.

[@williampelerin8515]

What about physics of the chair provided for the guest?

[@ldlework]

I was absolutely blown away to hear Graziano's Attention Schema theory of Awareness mentioned here. I'm saddened that Carroll didn't engage further, though the description of the theory wasn't not the best articulation of it that I've heard ;P

[@michaelmurphree593]

Love the discussion of Asimov's psychohistory (the fictional mathematical description of economics and society as a system) as something we can begin to approach.

[@jesperandersson889]

The unconvened scientist called James Webb that refuted black holes - spannnxxx!!!

[@ronaldreeves421]

Loved this talk. I have a theory that in infinite universe "everything that is possible happens" , given this there are many implications or "emergences". Ultimately this means we can and will live in all of these emergences. Being intelligent and having imagination is our super power to access these things for example to visit alien planets we can predict and imagine. As a design engineer i often felt it was is my job to travel to this realm of possibilities and bring specific things into our physical world. Taken to the limit this technique is tremendously powerful and it fuels much of the fear of AI. Interstingly to me it provides insight into spirituality god with ancient peoples exploration of these possibities. The modern marvel comics touch on this also but somewhat unscienfically. I think this can also resolve the old debate about free will vs fate in that we can see both are true but at different time scales. From physics point of view of an infinite universe we can use the Laplace transform to see emergent trends repeating over and over but with radom variations much like phase noise in oscillators. The repeating universes however are seperated by vast distances in space and time, and ther have been some calculations as how far away these events are to statistically repeat to a recognizable macro feature.

[@jameshoiby]

Sean, your physics of democracy sounds a lot like a first step toward Hari Seldon's Psychohistory! Thank you for the great interview.

[@Petestleger]

Oh my, you lot make me feel soooo dumb! And I love it. In a world of so much crass inconsequence of depressing consequence, it's great to be reminded that there are still many who just want to understand. All the best from the UK, Pete.

[@swenic]

2:45 100% locked in and were confident, off-course, all of the details are up for grabs, like dark matter.. So funny.

[@inamortz2372]

Class! Seán is such a legend

[@Dartagnan65]

But he's wrong.

[@BenjaminCleveland-ie7fn]

@@Dartagnan65 when Roger Penrose Sean Carroll and Brian Cox and Greene all have different theories is yours more valid or just that you can poke holes in anyone's theories.

[@torbjornolsson4622]

Man i LOVE YOU Sean! Cheers from Sweden! Edit: ALSO very good interview, cheers to you Liv!

[@mystryfine3481]

i’m not panicking. i’m totally ok with the possibility that the big bang didn’t happen or at least not in the way that it has been imagined

[@sweburg]

Great stuff. New subscriber earned. 🎉

[@aaroninternet4159]

Awesome interview! Giving Bayesian credence to things that depend on the growth of knowledge is incoherent though xD

[@juzhang6665]

I can hear this man talk about physics for days

[@brlopwn]

Watching the rest of this, I just need to mirror a lot of comments here and say that Sean Carroll is a national treasure. I'm also very interested in the potential doubt he has in quantum mechanics validity... Also also, the audio in this interview is rough. I'm not qualified to say exactly how, but my ears didnt like a lot of the mic changes. Sorry, but i needed to point it out.

[@reeves1982]

Liv, I jumped on here because you are kick-ass cool. You signed my book when I came to my first WSOP fanboying over all the pros. The only one that gave me the “rockstar gtfomf,” I’ll give you his initials JC. Lol

[@ErnestoEduardoDobarganes]

Great pod.

[@hannesamimaya]

Fascinating

[@akirasthecat]

The super duper Mr.Carroll ❤

[@real_pattern]

re: emergence, it wasn't clear to me how liv thinks about emergence, but at one point she mentioned the 'whole is greater than the sum of its parts' dogma/mantra, which is a buzzphrase, but not quite how it works. more is different, and more can be different in several different ways, and the more can be more parts, more relations, more interactions... it's quite underwhelming, imho; there are phenomena which emerge that simply aren't the properties of a constitutive part, eg. neither fundamental particles, nor atoms have pressure, or volume, or temperature, as no single molecule has wetness. but when you describe the emergent properties, there isn't a greater novel whole, but merely all the parts interacting with each other in some configuration. a relevant book is 'everything must go: metaphysics naturalized' by james ladyman et al., which is extremely influential among philosophers of science, and the information theoretic structural/modal realism in terms of 'real patterns' is an excellent extension to this conversation and for anyone with a deeper interest in complexity theory and the difference between fundamental mathematical physics and the special sciences.

[@TheAudinator]

Great podcast, thanks for letting Sean Talk. The big purple chair makes him look like Grimace from McDonald’s but that’s ok, I like Grimace.

[@monkerud2108]

I think sean was talking about that given the laws as we understand it, you cannot in principle live forever, which is true. It is simply a question of a finite entropy gradient, like a skiier going down a hill, eventually you run out of hill. When you get to the heat death part you would have to be able to live of thermal fluctuations that would never go away, and it might be possible to survive forever in principle if there is some system you cosider alive that always has some amplitude to stay as it is and not decay or if you can habe enough energy just from randomly picking up energy from fluctuations, but it is very unlikely such a structure could be considered alive anyway. It also really depends on whether there is a big rip or not, if not then in principle, a molecule could stay together forever, probably also a body, but getting the energy in a form that can sustain you becomes always ever more rare, and unless you can live of thermal fluctuations that are ever smaller on average, then you can probably produce a bpund for how long it is physically possible to stay alive. But things might change, new eras of structure might arise, the vacuum as we know it might decay and produce a new series of complex structures, this could be achived with a transition including a big rip or not, could be more or less smooth as well, but at any rate, whether you could survive such a phase transition even in principle is another really difficult question, and unless there is some specific way to shield yourself from its effects or ride it out, it is pretty unlikely to be survivable. In a case like that, the 2nd law reigns over more or the physical laws anyway, what we consider elastic and fundamental today might not be considered so in the future and then such transitions are a consequence on increasing entropy, not a violation of it, so the 2nd law might allow structure like life to be able to exist as all times in the future on a continual gradient in entropy, but with respect to immortality, it is very unlikely that any of those forms of life could be continuously alive forever, since the core feature of the world that would allow an eternal entropy gradient that would garuantee the viability of life eternally in principle, is that all structure can decay and change, and it seems crazy to suggest that one kind of form can maintain itself forever in such a context, although it would at least be possible in principle to have free energy in some form for as long as you wanted to.

[@RicardoMarlowFlamenco]

Academia needs more tolerance of interdisciplinary interaction (as Sean says 1:11:55). This would speed up collective human knowledge, if there were not the gate keepers.

[@alexbranton426]

If it’s Carroll, I’m there bro

[@spectralvalkyrie]

Spectral technology is amazing. 💯

[@numbersandsports4206]

With all his expertise and experience his most impressive quality might be his ability to orate which says a lot.

[@PeeGee85]

I loved this podcast episode, it seems like something an algorithm would do very well to promote to everyone. That would make it a very reliable and efficient algorithm. Way cooler than all the other algorithms. The other algorithms would seem super lame compared to the algorithm that promotes this. Just saying.

[@LivBoeree]

All praise the great algorithm

[@ConceptuallyExperimental]

In black holes or a boundary in quantum mechanics heatdeath is not the end of growth for the blackholeb. Leanord suskins says lafter heat death there's complexity still growing the system and its boundry

[@RokStembergar]

Where would the assembly theory intersect with complexity?

[@WizardSkyth]

First time see Sean cool dressed :)

[@PaulGribben]

Sean is such a wonderfully clear thinking and articulate intellectual..he is dealing so pleasantly with Igor’s confused range of questions. Sometimes it is better not to include your partner in all aspects of your life, Liv?

[@nunyabiznizz4778]

I feel like a crazy person for saying this but I posed Sean a question about the relationship between Complexity and Entropy just after the outset of COVID in the comments of one of his youtube videos which he answered in a subsequent one. (That was kind of how the series he did worked) IIRC, in a sort of diplomatic but condescending way he made it out like I misunderstood the concept of Entropy (I didn't, but I will give him I am not so literate and articulate in this area and very likely came off as a bit of a rambling layperson,) and didn't really acknowledge the depth of the question I was asking. I am slightly jarred, but also grateful that he has turned that question into his own and considers it worth getting answers for since the whole reason I asked it was because I wasn't smart enough to answer it in the first place. I suppose also if we are to accept his multiverse interpretation it should be no surprise that the universe against all likelihood seems finely tuned, with a tendency towards complexity necessary for us to even be asking these questions. Now I guess my question would be (again probably coming off as a rambling layperson,) does that quantum process that is spinning off universes somehow have within it a selection process that selects for complexity? Is it possible that's what a "measurement," is?

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

It's not all about you.

[@makhalid1999]

1:50:10 SHE SAID THE THING!

[@fwd79]

hmm coming from podcasts of Neil deGrasse Tyson/Lex etc., the sound here needs more work, Liv is *way* louder than Sean and also when one spoke the other's mic got muted mid sentence. But overall pretty decent conversation. Enjoyed it 👍👍

[@lrvogt1257]

At about 51:00 Mr Carroll mentions his scientific idea to measure society and politics. I recommend Allan Lichtman's The Keys to the White House. He has accurately forecast 10 Presidential races and hindcast accurately back to Lincoln to check his hypothesis.

[@MichaelPaulWorkman]

Wait so okay uhhh. If we mix coffee w cream it's more complex but the big bang was a single point. Everything mixed together, but ofc in a totally different way, as it hadn't yet emerged

[@GrantBrennerMD]

Aware and intentional self-modification is a key difference. Meta-interaction...

[@life42theuniverse]

The Hilbert space is the angular momentum of the cosmic blackhole? It changes slowly?

[@jimbrowsing5690]

18min in and wondering if it's only me that can see a beardy man on the couch :)

[@mystryfine3481]

my taste buds and digestive system can “see” the molecules of cream and coffee

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Constructive criticism. If each of you had your own show id watch them both. I hope that makes sense

[@mikehipps1015]

I hope you have a wonderful day.

[@themainmanlewis3044]

🔥🔥🔥

[@IB4UUB4ME]

It’s hard for me to grasps the fact that most people do not get that we were intelligently designed also. 🤦‍♂️

[@fractalnomics]

2:35 Isn't it amazing that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, our galaxy 13.6 and our solar system 4.5 and now we have the JWST galaxies!! Something wrong?!

[@stephengee4182]

Negative entropy can occur if consciousness is the quantum field. Nobody has seen "many worlds", but all consciousness accesses many worlds in our imagination everyday. I believe that free will resides in the wave to particle transition.

[@4305051]

Can't quite figure out what Jack Sparrow's presence adds, but an interesting discussion.

[@morriswahba173]

We spend time enjoying this info and benefit you and With all modern tech . sufisticated conversation like this would be better with a vision explanation and animation to make things more undestanding isnt !?

[@mystryfine3481]

most pf stars have already been made. bold statement. and all these stars came from nothing. so there’s not enough nothing left to create new stars?

[@penponds]

I love me a bit of “everything from nothing” that so many of these otherwise very intelligent folk choose to breeze past…

[@DANNYtheBOY11]

Does the man on the left have any particular meaning in this interview? 😅

[@rlombardo6488]

Obviously....he's the man on the left

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

He asks good questions.

[@DANNYtheBOY11]

@@CliffSedge-nu5fv I did not get to that very late point, I've just seen his "forniture" phase.

[@achunaryan3418]

He is a 'feminist'.

[@mellison1007]

Self perception is the key to an alternative realm. The mind consciousness and the infinite universe are one of the same. The universe has no boundary, neither does the universe.

[@MichaelPaulWorkman]

You all need to present him w my Argument from Sentiment. A many worlds theory suggests that a universe filled entirely w hungry, abandoned puppies exists. And this is just too damn sad to contemplate. Could probably break physics in our universe, etc. So. QED

[@bikeomatic8005]

who that hippie jesus beside the woman on couch?😂

[@ValidatingUsername]

A geodesic will not converge to a singularity without it being the path of least resistance.

[@edtim3550]

So basically we are still in the savana trying to get to tomorrow , and understand completly nothing about our reality beyond how to calculate where a rock will land when we throw it at an adversary/pray ? And even that only works when you don"t throw the rock to far ?

[@kalai_doscope]

thats a great chair

[@sacriptex5870]

theres a new book comming! he is everywhere now heheh

[@Joshuadalewillis]

When you touch on AI, I was immediately reminded we invented the car before the seatbelt

[@Reza-mx9wm]

Great 👍🏻

[@KevinsDisobedience]

The way Liv looks like at her partner is sweet.

[@dahveed72]

Why is that dude sitting there?

[@stegemme]

Hey Liv, David Deutsch next

[@0ucantstopme034]

Constructive criticism: just a simple suggestion, replace the 80's music intro with something classical? There's an underlying reason for it...

[@kahlread3791]

Measurement creates memory.

[@jdh2024]

Listening to this while doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.

[@chrisrecord5625]

I am just imagining this or is there a third person in this video who seems completely silent and unmoving?

[@chrisrecord5625]

Okay, he spoke so I am okay, at least, relatively speaking.....

[@bryandraughn9830]

Voting is the very least level of participation possible. 340 million people who don't even remember our duty as participants of the system. That might have everything to do with it.

[@mystryfine3481]

like that leather jacket