Sean Carroll: The Nature of the Universe, Life, and Intelligence | Lex Fridman Podcast #26

[@lexfridman]

I really enjoyed this conversation with Sean. Here's the high-level outline: 0:00 - Introduction 2:21 - Understanding the universe and the mind 4:03 - Universe as an information processing system 9:34 - Simulation theory thought experiment 14:33 - Intelligent life in the observable universe 15:34 - Defining intelligent life 19:34 - SpaceX and space exploration 21:05 - Origin of life 29:40 - Interdisciplinary science and conversation

[@Vladeeer]

Lex please double record your podcasts next time, I would use two independent systems with a backup power source, so even natural disasters won't break this gold

[@w00tbassman]

Omg, I'm so happy that this interview exists. Thanks you two!

[@DavesAcritic]

Lex. Did you lose video too? If not is there a lip reading system you can pass it though to subtitle or voice generate from text? Put a grad student on it! :-)

[@DavesAcritic]

@@ZeroOskul it would give whoever did it an awesome thing to put on their resume/CV. Using existing software libraries out there it wouldn't be that hard. I would know. Its work experience. Hardly a paid job but maybe expenses paid and bragging rights. But my opinion only. It's an nice to have. Not required work. Happy to hear your expert opinion. Or do you not know much about tech?

[@kevinfairweather3661]

Lex what do you think about there being other civilisations i the universe ? I think there are some but they are sparsely separated ! Liife is rare, multi cellular lise is rarer and civilisations are very rare !

[@newtonheath92]

I can never get tired of listening to Sean

[@Chi-town1369]

Huge fan of Sean’s. His book “something deeply hidden” is one of my all time favorites. His brain works on a completely different frequency . The way he grasps concepts, breaks them down and explains them while making it very easy to comprehend makes him invaluable to the scientific community. He just gets it. I’m so glad he’s been on podcasts like Fridmans and rogans, I have them on repeat often when I’m on a psychedelic adventure

[@The_Primary_Axiom]

I’m listening to that audiobook right now because of this comment :)

[@TheGreatAlan75]

Let's appreciate how lucky we are to be able to watch brilliant people , like Sean Carroll , talk about science... This wasn't really possible before KZbin.

[@JesusTrombone]

Please have another one. This was awesome

[@kushpandya3551]

Fullfilled

[@JackDanielThe7th]

Yes more conversations

[@EzFlyers10]

Anything Sean carroll does is awesome

[@ahpacific]

Lex! _This_ is the one you lose audio on? 🤨

[@jerickodoggo9595]

Omg when you said the audio recording died, my heart sank because I thought that some one had passed...

The ways this conversation flows is special. Amazing!!!

[@blakewisniewski3750]

Sean Caroll on Lex Fridman... maaaan, Christmas came early

[@mo-zb8gt]

......and so did i

[@Epoch11]

One of the best non-mathematical conversations I have ever heard. There is nothing wrong with including mathematics in a discussion, but when you do not, it doesn't mean you must dumb down the conversation completely. You did a really good job of balancing both ideas. Seeing the math in action is powerful, but by no means the only method to share ideas. Thank you for this!

[@leonenriquez5031]

Wow, you can see Sean getting wiser, more open to stuff he is not sure or even opposed to. That's very heartening... cool!

[@funmeister]

Excellent episode. Asks (and answered) the most interesting questions other podcasts would have ignored, be too afraid to ask, or have the creativity to compose.

[@CromwellCutaran]

Definitely the singular guest I was most eagerly awaiting to join Lex. To think this episode in particular was cut short by technical difficulties is indeed something I'd rather attribute to the paranormal than describe my disappointment...damn those phantoms.

[@savonic2112]

Spending the next portion of my life trying to learn more and understand intellect, and intellectual thought. Really appreciate all you do, and many of your personal views. You make it easier to understand the conversation. For that, I thwnk you greatly.

[@jmich54]

here from JRE - very glad to hear you started your own channel. this is the first video i chose to watch and i love it 5min in. youtube wise you're doing it right. post video conversations in long form and make your own sharable cuts a long with the high-level outlines. I really enjoy it man great work. i'm a fan. i work as a software engineer dealing primarily with corporate solutions servicing and breaking into AI in the way of machine learning - preemptive tickets being opened before a server goes down and transferring to a failover and automating the logging, investigation and startup - its wild to think and explain where all of this should and can go. i find myself explaining to clients the interconnections and how triggers are set as well as how the machine learning evolves over time to better suit their eco-system and i see their eyes glaze over and awkwardly try to stop talking really before i even get started .. .needless to say your conversations here allow for that outlet and mind to run. just started my own company too refining and standardizing the implementation above - cheers man

[@metafuel]

Fantastic discussion. Such a pity about the audio loss. Thank you for your work.

[@ubershmekel]

What predictions arise from the universe expanding and entangling qubits vs the universe birthing them? Also, please redo this convo asap, Sean is a truth bomb dispenser. All his answers were deep yet digestible. Amazing talk and I'm glad I at least got this glimpse of it. Thank you.

[@charliesteiner2334]

The whole "the qubits were always there" idea is really a sort of consequence of taking quantum mechanics seriously within quantum cosmology. It only makes sense if you suppose quantum mechanics is the gospel truth, and general relativity is just how it looks at large scales. The consequences would only be observable if we were able to do experiments that involve entangling different bits of space together. I'm not sure about the exact energy scale Sean Carroll is thinking of for this, but usually people think of this as involving the Planck scale, which is way way way way way way way beyond what we can experiment with. It's so many orders of magnitude of energy away that I don't think it's even realistic to talk about seeing secondary effects in particle colliders.

[@WicakMifta]

Keep up the great podcast! Totally inspiring and broadens my view!

[@xaindsleena8090]

Lex, thanks so much for doing these interviews and sharing it with us.

[@ronaldronald8819]

Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to watch and listen to your conversations with all these interesting people.

[@dadman9799]

I love how “normal” Lex is. Just casually twirling in his chair while Sean Discusses the mystery of the universe. 😂😂

[@ronaldohlund1985]

Sean in this type of setting is the man, just amazing, so much clarity he gives over interdisciplinary issues. I have never heard any better in any other context. My brain feels so good after listening to him. Lex is also great!

[@coryhoward3801]

Is it just me, or does Sean Carroll feel like an actualized Simpsons character?

[@michaelcallaghan9148]

It's just you.

[@brycel0812]

No he is not the only one….it would be easy to make him a Simpson’s character, I can’t unsee it now. Much respect for him obviously, but he could definitely be a resident of Springfield

[@Shadowdaddy87]

Yes, in fact it's creepy seeing this post because it feels like you read my mind. It's hard to explain why he feels like a Simpsons character, though

[@Jon-pw2ik]

If hes correct on string theory (which is highly doubtful it seems to me but still) he could possibly indeed be a Simpsons character!!!! Hahaha

[@bwp7420]

Holy shit! 🤯

[@modrus]

We need to hear the rest! One of the most entertaining conversations, please repeat Lex

[@joakimhulterstrom8059]

Asked Sean over on his channel if he could get you on about a week ago, and now I find him here on yours. Absolutely fantastic! Shame about the audio, but listening to my two favorite smartypants, if only for 34 minutes, works just fine by me. Keep up the good work Lex!

[@anthonycummings1652]

Lex you guys were gonna solve the mysteries of the world then the audio cut out. Thank you for the podcast, and what you do. It brings regular people closer to scientists that we may never have access to. Have a blessed year.

[@erpman]

I think I've only ever commented on a tiny handful of KZbin videos... But this was such a wonderful, brilliant, fascinating conversation. Many thanks to both of you.

[@user-my6yf1st8z]

Спасибо за эти подкасты, продолжай в том же духе👍

[@zmanx88]

Keep up the good work Lex! Although I may not be as accomplished as you, I identify with your story. I too came to this country at 13 from a country with a shitty political situation (vzla) and have a career in software engineering. I am extremely interested in all the topics you put forth!

[@chessandmathguy]

Thanks for posting this. Subscribed!

[@Oceansideca1987]

I listen to Sean’s podcast love it

[@jsn355]

I think your assessment of consciousness is closer to the truth than most people want to admit. Very interessting conversation

[@ukasztrojanowski3149]

What a shame, that the rest of this conversation went missing :(. This was still super interesting. Thanks for making this podcast

[@trebledog]

Sean Carroll is in my top 10 most interesting humans alive. His mathematical? Co-ordinate explanation of the space-time cone changed my understanding of the fields of influence around me and brought new awareness of the universe and how it functions. Using this virtual knowledge with practice I've begun to observe certain events in everyday spacetime as collapses of the wave function. The many examples are when coincidences occur that are supranatural, intuiting a future event that is realized, recognizing a particular vibe or energy when meeting new people that is corroborated by future behaviour, observing a discrete set of data collect in a manner that solves a nagging problem or obstacle, recognizing "strange attractors" as the vortex of a seemingly chaotic pattern or fractal, recognizing in dreams metaphors of events, relationships, red flags etc.

[@richardavery2807]

Great channel and nice work! Appreciate it!

[@robertmatthews8992]

Could listen to both these guys talk for days. Thank you for doing this!

[@imlost5978]

Thanks for the podcast.

[@charliesteiner2334]

Great episode! Normally I'm kind of a Lex critic, but the view on consciousness at 25:25 was a really great way of putting it.

[@nasseh3587]

i def agree

[@cuongbui9708]

Sean” I would argue that” Carroll

[@geoden]

Sean Carroll is an excellent physicist, I enjoy his output.

[@elfootman]

centuries ago conversations like this must have occurred at churches and temples... metaphysics. it's wonderful.

[@JD-5250]

He is basically telling everyone that he's not human this whole time "Your species" "You've never met me, how do u know I'm human. May come out later I'm not"

[@MrRayne911]

These were great questions, I really appreciate how on point you are. Sean Carroll is definitely among the first 100 people I would let on the ark in a drought scenario. when/where can we get a peek at the notes of the missing footage?

[@seanbrent8294]

An ark, in a drought?

[@MrRayne911]

@@seanbrent8294 yeah I don't know either. Flood is what I meant.

[@jonathanbassett3816]

Nice work 👍. Love Sean

[@sergeynovikov9424]

nice talk, great issues for the discussion.thanks! i think we are on the eve of the next revolution in physics for understanding life on much better level because the TOE to which we are close enough right now has to include life (as the obserber of the observable universe) into its consideration. surely, understanding of life, as a very specific thing/physical process in the physical universe, is the leading edge of modern fundamental science (of physics and maths for the first turn).

[@ItssBrian]

This was excellent. Too bad about the recording. I hope you have him on again soon.

[@markculp1992]

Two great minds right here!

[@DaveWhoa]

i just wish this was longer!

[@solomontruthlover5308]

It is! There's a part 2

[@winryanYouTube]

Can you tell us what topics were covered in the missing segment?

[@niclasdyrendahl2683]

These guys makes me happy!

[@jaimehta5200]

Ah, I think it would be fun to extract the content of sean speech just from the video footage. Should we use GANs for that...??

[@koho]

This is a good one. I always enjoy listening to Carroll, but had not heard him talk about most of these topics. I tend to agree with him more on life in the universe, consciousness, and the origin of life more than with most of the experts working in these fields. Aside, I would not call Pinker optimistic. Listen carefully, he recommends a way forward based on progress through history (which may make him sound like an optimist), but he is not reticent about how far we are from the ideal and what can go wrong.

[@h.astley2113]

Around 9:10 Lex: ‘whadda you think about the bing bang’

[@TheUltimateRage]

9:07

[@JohnComeOnMan]

Mind. Blown. Well done.

[@WeLoveMusicStudio]

Somehow Sean Carrol wearing tshirt with a gecko from self organising cellular automata makes me even more excited about the future..

[@bitdropout]

I'm sure you're sick of hearing it: always have an independent secondary recording of the audio. Most people would be happy to hear the audio even if the video failed. I've listened to ;podcasts where they had to fall back on an iphone recording. Still a lot better than it being completely lost.

[@nathanholbrook1693]

I like that idea of consciousness: something you convince something of by programming it never to disbelieve it.

[@farkarf]

Enjoying this! Aside: No the sound engineer did not die during this interview. Thankfully! (I misunderstood at first -- until you said these accidents happen. 😆)

[@akarshrastogi3682]

Great Podcast

[@kingmiura8138]

The universe that we see is mostly ancient....light just travels too slowly......most of the universe that we see is more than a billion years old....if life out there started 100 million years ago.....light from it has not reached earth yet.

[@SpacePonder]

But one of the most fundamental things is that we think billions of years is a long time but what does that even mean outside of our minds?

[@Relbl]

The scope of our galaxy is 150,000 LY... I don't believe we would ever be able to detect signals or signs of civilization for outside our galaxy.

[@darishennen898]

Our earth is more than a billion years old.

[@bonesjones3421]

The farthest object that we can see with the naked eye (if you have good eyes and know where to look) is the andromeda galaxy and it is 2.537 million light years away. No where close to a billion light years.

[@TrangNguyen-pz9ht]

Sean Carroll is so articulate.

[@SauceGPT]

14:02 what about higher dimensions? Is 3+1 dimensions not an incredibly low resolution?

[@lukethornton1744]

The Sauce I think his point is that we’re not at the lowest level since we can theoretically make lower res simulations ourselves. Sounded like he was using the anthropic principle and assuming that the typical observer would be in the lowest possible resolution simulation, which in this case would not be us, but then questions the anthropic principle giving credence to a potential that we exist in one of those “higher res” simulations.

[@heavymeddle28]

If I ever ouch my knee, Lex... Your voice would soothe me😊 "it's gonna be aaaaaall right, buddy"

[@trebledog]

The podcast cut short is an example of the awareness (I call it a wave function collapse example) I was talking about and the coincidence that it occured during the podcast when SC was the guest.

[@mattgraves3709]

I love this podcast

[@roberthowe1041]

While this guy is awesome very humble and very very intelligent love listening to him

[@GuillaumeVerdonA]

You could use a lip Reading neural net on the video from the part which has missing audio and correct the transcript manually. Then you could upload the video with subtitles

[@chrisstewart4288]

Dang too bad the audio is gone. Its so short. Just do another one :)

[@alessiomarin1218]

I was wondering why this episode was so short relative to your others. I thought maybe you could only get a hold of a little bit of Sean's time. Oh, well. Shit happens haha. It was obviously a good choice to upload what was recorded; it's gold. Good to see there's another, longer episode, too.

[@kdaleboley]

S.C. looks like he's getting younger.

[@senjinomukae8991]

where is the Seth Lloyd , martin Rees clip on yourtube ? can't find it.

[@kevinfairweather3661]

Subscribed !

[@ritchgordon8137]

I just watched the podcast with Jeff Hawkins and find his description of how he thinks brains work (frames of reference) to be similar to how Sean Carroll explains (around 9:00) how degrees of freedom become entangled . It has echos of the same mechanisms. As you add more frames of reference or degrees of freedom entropy of the system gets larger over time but the system functions the same, but better? . Time is also key component of each description.

[@napoleonbonerfarte6739]

I agree, as the brain seeks to expand (the universe) the neurons intertwine and form part of one connect system (again, the universe) it gets increasingly complex until eventually the complexity forms one random planet perfect for intelligent life, and i think that intelligent life is inevitable, because without it there would be nothing to witness the lack of it.

[@seriouskaraoke879]

There for a minute I thought sure he was going to ask "Sean, where do your ideas come from?"

[@seriouskaraoke879]

Sean's got that just-bailed-out-of-jail look going.

[@dohpam1ne]

He's transforming into a proper mad scientist. It's the natural progression of every competent scientist as they get on in years.

[@alithejumbo]

This is a credit IMO

[@deniseandjohnchapados6991]

great discussion

[@bryandraughn9830]

Wouldn't it be great if we created a conscious computer but we can't figure out how we did it? I'm hoping it goes down that way. Great interview Lex! I'm a big fan of professor Carroll!

[@edwardlee2794]

To cap it all, these wisdom titan s should have a wisdom of round table lasting a day or two ( just to be in line with the legendary scale ) exchange. The line up.. Richard Dawkins, David Suzuki, Tyson, Angela Merkel and others. Just a humble wishful thinking. Heartfelt Thanks . From HK

[@JaySeeThunder]

You da best Lex

[@devasreegogoi2753]

great podcast. Also, i believe the real science experts(physicist, data scientist, neuroscientist, AI scientists, cosmologists, etc) who are doing some actual science should reach out to other fields. There are lot of us who are interested and curious about science but not professionals. Science can expand faster with more people getting involved. u doing a great work. love it.

[@pseudosmith9945]

Kicking back.. closing my eyes and listening to Alan Alda explain to Lex his version of the universe.. lol

[@jacklcooper3216]

He is a great educator

[@wesfloyd]

Love the black suit and tie. Very MIB ;)

[@spongebobsquarepants7388]

I definitely think some of the implications of quantum mechanics are interesting in the context of if we live in a simulation or not. Firstly, the idea that our laws of physics suggest the Planck length to be the shortest distance scale seems similar to the way computer code necessitates a discrete building block to build any structure in a simulation. Secondly, the measurement problem and the idea of being uncertain of everything until observing it.

[@raimundoimundo]

He gives me the vibe of Robert California

[@galactictravels224]

I would like to hear his ideas on the diehold foundation

[@leonidiogansen8855]

A major obstacle to the simulation argument is simultaneousness. Any two events cannot occupy the same time frame if executed by one processor. And yet, we know that this is possible in the reality we live in. To simulate down to Planck scale, the simulating computer would need a dedicated processor for every Planck unit.

[@paulinesz15]

learned a lot from this man. more human😍 and not robot😎

[@mspoints4fre123]

The biggest impasse to advancing technology to the point of extending our lives for thousands of years is not knowledge, it is large companies that will do everything in their power to quash it so that people still need their products to stay alive.

[@mikhailfranco]

Lex certainly does the 'Reservoir Dogs' sartorial style. You half expect him to say: "Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite? "

[@FacelessProjects]

Such a shame that the rest of this conversation was lost because the beginning was so interesting. I experience lots of productive disagreement with both Sean (on simulated world) and Lex (on consciousness).

[@goodman2050]

you are the master of eye contact

[@reddragon2335]

"I'm a big believer in emergence" *Tribe has entered the chat.*

[@kurry6060]

Sad we missed so much

[@OfficialGOD]

Omg this is it, no bs scientist, happy to see

[@ErnestoEduardoDobarganes]

how I missed this one... I don't know.

[@ayasalama7965]

Lex is one of the Men in Black 🕶️

[@freonholderlin2941]

How the hell did you manage to turn off the phantom power?

[@manfredadams3252]

At very small (and large distances) in a simulation you naturally get a quantum foam like effect due to floating point precision errors. The way games get around this is by moving the entire universe around the avatar, who never moves from the origin. Precision is therefore always high.

[@JackDanielThe7th]

I appreciate the conversation. But I hope for more positivity’s