Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | June 2023

Patreon: / seanmcarroll
Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
Welcome to the June 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!
Mindscape Podcast playlist: • Mindscape Podcast
Sean Carroll channel: / seancarroll
#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[@thiagovalle]

Anyone else out there look forward to these like the next episode of your favorite TV show?!

[@Games_and_Music]

I am! To be honest, i rarely click any of his other videos, i should do though, but i'm already busy keeping up with the rest of the channels and podcasts, but i do like to take out a day or two for these ones. I like that he's open to discuss anything, no paywalls or agendas, just straight up questions, answers and debating (albeit it with himself). But definitely a highlight of every month.

[@TheDigiDojo]

🤚

[@yeezythabest]

👋🏿

[@stevefrost3362]

Yes

[@2fast2block]

No, he's pretty much shot even by basic science. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@riggmeister]

How the hell do you get so much done Sean?!! Especially at such a high mental level of energy... I struggle to even do my 40 hours of work plus housework each week. 😅

[@2fast2block]

He gets it done by not having to think much. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@booJay]

Clearly an 👽.

[@2fast2block]

@@booJay clearly unsound, as I've shown already.

[@Rastlov]

He has Rick's portal gun. (Rick and Morty)

[@SnoopGotTheScoop]

same 😢

[@bryandraughn9830]

My meager budget allows me to join your Patreon next month! I can't wait! I have some good questions.😊

[@2fast2block]

Ask him why he ignores science. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@Khawalidmi]

Hi Dr. Carroll, your videos and first book of the series is absolutely amazing. I think you should include equations even if it’s a little bit demanding as it is a unique experience no one else can give.

[@2fast2block]

I think he should think. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@tau3457]

1:08:12 Stefan Milo's pov on this is interesting. He claims that if any sufficiently advanced prehistory civs existed there would be vast food / agriculture related fossil evidence (there isn't).

[@danielpaulson8838]

Having access to this knowledge is the most wonderful thing. I’m so happy yt came around to replace tv.

[@beschterrowley3749]

KEEP DOING THIS, PEOPLE NEED GROUND

[@2fast2block]

His mind is unsound. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@tankydhg]

I get so excited every month for SCs AMAs! 🎉 Love it 😊

[@2fast2block]

You're easily impressed. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@tankydhg]

@@2fast2block I have no idea what you're replying too. Did I make any reference to conservation of energy? Get a life neck beard

[@Farts4Hearts]

This was so well worded. U won me over sir. i agree With every word. Thank u for this. Very intriguing and enlightening

[@alexprokachev]

Multiverse Level right away ❤ Hope I can share my solutions to the problems raised in this and previous shows, can’t wait 🙈

[@derschutz4737]

1:20:00 I think you are right in a sense but there is more to think about. It is possible the ML-aided symbolic regression models could "discover" the underlying possible mathematical "laws" which govern a dataset (obviously the tech isn't that good yet, but nonetheless it will still be the same underlying tech we have today with maybe a new architecture or such). So, a hypothetical system like that won't be able explain conceptually "think of it this way" (maybe unless future LLM's get really good at explaining equations). But it will be able to output the equations which govern the data and maybe the human can look at those and think "oh, the system found some underlying novel math constructions which allude to spacetime being curved". But this only works because the system has quantitative observations fed to it. I think it is possible a future in which ML still doesn't "understand" but has vastly stronger statistical power than the models of today, will be able to find some novelties in the mathematical constructions of the same data that humans have.

[@spaceinyourface]

Loved it

[@michaeljfigueroa]

Sorry for the silly question that time. Thanks for being here

[@paatricko]

Great podcast. The employment situation in the United States should be that you receive more for non-tenured positions, not less. In most other developed countries job security is the norm.

[@SAMPATHBABU-rx2dq]

Hello sir, I have the following two questions 1. As per the time dilation concept if I am on Earth and my friend is on a planet near a black hole and if we have started to watch a video then does it mean that I will complete watching the video before he does 2. If we have started a civilization both on Earth and on a planet near the black hole at the same time (given the same resources and same thoughts to develop a civilization) and suppose the 1 year on Earth = 10 years on that planet and if it is 70,000 light years away from the black hole what exactly will happen after 10 years(as per earth time) on both the ends. Will the person on earth observe that (70010+time dilation) years into the past or will he observe and will the person on that planet observe (70001+time dilation) years into the past?

[@das_it_mane]

I wish this podcast had video

[@NaneuxPeeBrane]

BASS playing! Nice! Bass player here! What bassists do you listen to Sean!? Victor Wooten and Les Claypool !!

[@booJay]

2:35:05 if we can accept/internalize that observers moving at different speeds relative to us will have clocks that tick at different rates, but in their own reference frames experience time as ticking away at the usual rate of one second per second, the experience of Now consciously can be understood in a similar way. Your Now and a distant observer's Now are personal in your own respective minds/experiences and may seem unique, but even if they don't necessarily align, both are equally Real. That also means there are other temporal versions of you that can also claim to be experiencing their respective Nows and are just as real, but the limits of your consciousness only allow you to experience (and exist in) your own personal notion of Now. Bonus: Apply this to Many Worlds and it becomes easier to accept alternative versions of yourself that may also exist as completely separate entities of You, but your mind, existence, and the laws of physics only ever allow you to be in one of these.

[@trafyknits9222]

Does the destruction of information generate new information? Also, if the quantum "foam" is full of particles that appear, then annihilate, is that the loss of information?

[@Mattt303]

Yes. No.

[@zbyszekz77]

Gluons are massless charged particles, only with color charge. So massless, electric charge particles could have similar properties?

[@riggmeister]

"ChatGPT please critique the essay you just wrote."

[@yannisvaroufakis9395]

H Sean. I have your book, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe, and it is amazing. I was dying to ask the following question. As layperson, I’m having difficulty reconciling your teaching on what a field is with what other physicists say it is. You seem to state that fields are not made of anything at all, implying that they are mere mathematical constructs. But other physicists such as David Tong of Cambridge teach that fields are fluid-like substances filling the entire universe and that particles are but vibrations or disturbances of these fields. Professor John Spence gave a lecture in which he queried what an electric field or a magnetic field in a vacuum is made of, and answers that nobody knows, since it’s a vacuum and nothing seemingly is there, but in fact there is. Finally, Einstein himself commented in 1920 that an aether of some sort must exist, otherwise his teaching that space has properties would make no sense. Am I misconstruing what they say?

[@origins7298]

Sorry man Sean doesn't troll through the comment section looking to answer questions... He's a busy guy... Anyway I'll take a stab... Fields are mathematical descriptions of the probability of being able to locate the corresponding particles in any given location... So the higgs field is a mathematical description of how the higgs particle is distributed in the universe... Now you could argue the field is primary and the observation of the particle is an excitation of the field... In this case the field would be the actual distribution of the energy, or properties of the particular field, throughout space and the particle would be a mathematical description of the excitation of the field.... But anyway it's certainly not a fluid a fluid is a composite of molecules... And I don't think Einstein actually thought it was an ether but he was just using that as an analogy that space has attributes meaning it is not just empty and void it is something that has intrinsic properties...

[@yannisvaroufakis9395]

I’m grateful at least that I elicited a response from his scheduling secretary to explain that he’s a busy man. Anyway, thanks for your explanation. But I know all that, as I more succinctly intimated in my query. My question was how does he reconcile his categorical statement that fields are not made of anything at all but are mathematical constructs with the equally categorical statements of other renowned theoretical physicists like Tong who explicitly state that the fundamental building blocks of nature are fluid-like substances that fill the universe, the physical excitation of which is the source of what we call particles comprising the matter with which we can interact.

[@origins7298]

@@yannisvaroufakis9395 Well I told you calling them fluids makes no sense, they're obviously not fluids. Fluids are made up of molecules... I think people just give analogies and say whatever they can to try to give someone some semblance of an idea... Obviously there is a difference between linguistic descriptions and mathematical equations. So I think we just have to accept that any linguistic description is going to be somewhat limited in expression of what is really going on

[@Games_and_Music]

I think there can be many words to describe the "field". The consensus has landed on calling them fields, but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's physical attributes to this field. Some might call it a force, or cloud, or energy, or fluid, or indeed a field. It's kinda like calling the sky blue, while the "sky" is not actually there in the first place, the blue is an effect caused by interacting particles. Of course, the atmosphere is an actual layer filled with particles, but "sky" is kind of a redundant word, but popular among people. I do think that Einstein tried to argue for some kind of ether, but i think that was proven to be a wrong model or something, he wasn't right every time. But i do get the "logic" for calling it some kind of fluid, because of the forces at play, as some are still looking for dark matter and dark energy to explain it all. But to origins7298's point, by calling it a fluid, you imply that there's a substance that's filling space, a physical matter comprising this fluid, which seems very unlikely, as we would have stumbled upon these "fluid particles" by now. Then again, there's things like bubbles in space... and i do often think about what's outside of this all. If there's an outside, then there's an inside, and something that's inside of something can be put under pressure, or possibly automatically behaves like it's under pressure as it is likely surrounded by "foreign" matter. If it would be possible to get stuff into supercritical states within these bubbles, or in some constant state of phase transitioning, maybe somehow we would not spot it right away. But i assume that phase shifting will result in bubble instability/collapses, and yeah, i'm not really sure what a benefit of, or effect of living inside a supercritical fluid is like. My guess is that it's more like the atmospheric onion layers on Earth, to ironically hark it back to this. Maybe if you zoom out a LOT, these fields might look like fog or faint gas clouds, but i don't really think you're looking at the field itself, but rather the particles that ended up in that field. Particles always move in orders, so i do think that there are parts where they will hit their "energy limit" and stall at certain point, as pretty much every system we've observed does so (the forming of an atom, the thinning of the atmosphere the higher up you go, or the Heliosphere around our Solar system caused by solar wind etc., creating these bubbles in the bigger picture). The fields are not physically there per se, but they're defined by the limits and characteristics of the particles that move within them. But yeah, i do always wonder about how this supposed most prevalent particle/force is also the least observable, something doesn't add up. I've personally held a long believe that this dark energy is indeed a thing, but it is so much more powerful or energetic, that it has basically moved away from what we call the Universe, and it's leaving somekind of wake/slipsteam that the rest of the particles travel through, causing the vaccum effect because of the exponential growth. The energy is still felt, it's out there stretching the fabric, or charting our course, but it's not actually physically present anymore in our "local" Universe, which would explain why we can't find anything. It's basically the ultimate onion layer, encapsulating it all, we're inside the egg from which the chicken will rise... (i don't know, yeah, i got stoned while writing this comment)

[@EinsteinsHair]

Don't take the descriptions too literally. In the November 2022 episode Sean answered someone's question by saying there were no particles, no little spinning balls as the questioner was imagining them, and as they are often illustrated. In the comments someone said, "So, there are no particles!" somehow not noticing that in later answers Sean kept talking about what particles were doing. The particle picture is too useful to give up. Science Asylum did an episode on fields. At one point he asked himself, do we talk about particles or waves or excitations in a field? His answer was that it depends on what we are trying to measure. The old aether theory was dead, but Einstein was trying to come up with a similar, but different theory. He only knew of the electromagnetic field. The weak and strong forces were unknown, and he was not trying to quantize anything. Scientists now would say that space itself does have properties, that space is the field of the gravitational force, while Einstein was still trying to view it as a background in which something else sat. If you carry forward his view from this early time then you would need to say that space is filled with the electromagnetic fluid and with the weak fluid and with the strong fluid, and that space itself is a fluid, and that there is no background.

[@daringumucio2779]

Hello Dr. Carroll. I have always heard that Einstein tried to create a Unified Field Theory by unifying GR with Electromagnetism but gave up some promising starts due to the complexity of the math? Could something be gained by going back and continuing what Einstein was doing but now with the aid of computers etc? Since Electromagnetism has already been unified with the weak force, it would seem reasonable that unifying GR with electromagnetism would be a way to earnestly begin to bridge GR to Quantum Mechanics through Electromagnetism. He may have been on to something! Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, Darin

[@2fast2block]

How does anything get around basic science? 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@Biskawow]

I dont get many worlds because what happens to probabilities? If all the options that could happen do happen and universe branch out whats the point of probabilities?

[@2fast2block]

Sean doesn't even follow science. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@danielpaulson8838]

All of the probabilities don’t have to occur. They can.

[@user-vadimsirbu]

How can we prove that we have your original Podcast at the end of the 'wire' ??? ? ... not because sound is so easy to Simulate, because a video is also Simulated, but at the end of the 'wire' could be thousands of versions for this Identified Podcast, Simulated to a Specific Audience .. Back to the Question: "How can we prove ?"

[@kadourimdou43]

If a “measurement” is made. How does the rest of the Universe know what branch they’re on. Is the Many Worlds similar to pre determinism.

[@Atheistbatman]

It has not happened this year yet but past two years just 1-2 nights warmer than days shut vegetable crop down. Days 75s but couple nights got to 80 and all the vegetables plants just halted in place and did not start back. It was a micro climate in town and farms were only stunted but in town they stopped completely. Okra tomatoes eggplant corn sat still. And worms in county have been gone for two years. See plant DIF for old growth control techniques used before hormones. This is not in any models not a thing expected. I’ve called directly every research horticulturist I can find on planet and we all see the SHTF now. We can see the asteroid now. - Horticulturist in NW GA

[@jacobb6953]

Why the font change, Sean?? Lol

[@Games_and_Music]

It's June, let's go crazy, let's switch to Wichita!

[@natekryn9840]

Sean, per free will. Theres a notion that physics operates in different orders. "Probabalistic fields" arnt just probabalistic, they are doing something many places, over time as well as space. And in this veiw, its easier to say what a macrostate may do NOW, and statistically say what a particle does over time. And there is a mathmatical, many possible worlds in this scenario, and a large blank spot, which needs no filling in, for what are why particles connect to space and functions in this, craggly fork mathmatics.

[@derschutz4737]

36:00 Othello GPT shows its possible, but developing a world model of the actual world is a lot harder than othello...

[@capoeirnesto]

when's the next one? I have a good question for you, which I now pose: in the same way that particle-waves exist, and considering that thoughts, specially these involving words, but also the focus of attention, subjectively *appear* to be granular: you feel remembering your mom's face, and now I mention your dad - you jumped from one face to the other (or voice, etc) and, for you, there was nothing in between. But, at the speed that these cogitations unfold, they can be nothing more than waves of spikes (and other undervalued physiological mechanisms involving glia cells, etc). Is there a wave-particle conundrum in the making right there? Thank you Sean. Yours in science, Ernesto

[@capoeirnesto]

don't know whether mentioning I'm a neuroscientist would increase the chances of you responding to it - I hope not - so yeah, I'm doing what I hate doing: "pulling rank" - or just being an arrogant prick, you choose, as long as I can hear your opinion about what has been troubling me a lot these last decades. ;)

[@capoeirnesto]

😏 decades... ahahahaha it's been some years, ok, but not decades! ahahhahah

[@capoeirnesto]

it sure feels like decades though!

[@capoeirnesto]

oh so it's only for patreons? well, the question is served, and is now in your (you, the internet) side of the court. Cheers, E

[@2fast2block]

My question is why do you ignore science? 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@sylviarogier1]

So....does a person who works on quantum physics experiments end up in more worlds than a farmer or a shop assistant? Just wondering.

[@2fast2block]

Sure, why not since they can make anything up as possible.

[@deil_s]

Why the fart always escaping water ? 🏊‍♀️

[@Chutkoo125]

Hello Professor Scan 🙂, Just watched you on KZbin explaining (What is Time?), You are among few people I came across who can explain what I can understand easily, Since I am not very qualified in terms of higher education, but can comprehend difficult possibilities present in nature. I honestly feel your thought process mechanism is amazingly incredible. Since I am a Muslim, therefore my belief is that Allah(God) created this universe and there will be a judgement day in the near future. My Question to you is that without going into a debate whether Allah(God) exist or not, can you or have you tried to read Quran to seek answers as physicist? The reason I asked this question to you is that I read Quran every day and strongly feel that someone like you would definitely will find many answers on which our historians or scientist are scratching their heads. Please don't feel that I am trying to preach you religion. I also strongly feel that If all scientist from all over the world together study deeply the Quran text, they can find many answers & it will be beneficial to all mankind.

[@2fast2block]

Don't follow this misfit. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.

[@c.f.3503]

First

[@bobbrereton4785]

Sean, please differentiate between theory and hypothesis. You use theory too frequently when you really mean a pending hypothesis.

[@scottsherman5262]

I can't stand Sean Carroll. He's always out there saying objectively true things, or at least measured statements guided by reason...it pisses me off. This is the interwebs!! How am I to own his stupid ass if he keeps this crap up?!?! Are hashtags still a thing? If so, let's hashtag cancel Sean Carroll.

[@2fast2block]

Sean doesn't follow science. It ruins his stories. 1LofT states that energy can't be created or destroyed, it can't happen naturally. One aspect of the 2LofT shows that the universe is winding down, usable energy is becoming less usable. Creation had to be done supernaturally at some point.