The Big Picture | Sean Carroll | Talks at Google

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.
Already internationally acclaimed for his notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings extraordinary intellect to our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, beliefs, hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless in the void? Does human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview? Carroll's presentation of the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is unique. He shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us.
“Weaving the threads of astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and philosophy into a seamless narrative tapestry, Sean Carroll enthralls us with what we’ve figured out in the universe and humbles us with what we don’t yet understand. Yet in the end, it’s the meaning of it all that feeds your soul of curiosity.”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson, host of Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey
Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the CalTech and received his PhD from Harvard. Recently, he has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. He has earned prizes and fellowships by the NSA, NASA, Sloan Foundation, Packard Foundation, American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics, Royal Society of London, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Carroll has appeared on The Colbert Report, PBS’s NOVA, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and serves as a science consultant for film and TV. He has been interviewed by NPR, Scientific American, Wired, and The NYT, and has given a TED talk on the multiverse that has more than 1M views.
This Talk at Google talk was hosted by Boris Debic.
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[@acerovalderas]

Sean Carroll seems to me to be one of the best popularizers of physics, cosmology and philosophy. He is aware of what is difficult and takes the time to explain it.

[@MarrowEternal]

Sean is so much more refreshing to listen to than Neil degrasse Tyson. He's humble and doesn't have that heir of self-aggrandizement. He simply wants to teach and he is clearly passionate about education.

[@HappyGoLuckyPanda]

Agreed except for his uptalking intonation

[@joegeorge3889]

Neil is into himself

[@homelander-enjoyer]

Sean Carroll is a beacon of clarity and truth. Thank you good sir!

[@glutinousmaximus]

Revelations - _The Missing Page_ Lo - the five horsemen of the Apocalypse managed at last to ride out together: Pestilence, War, Death, Famine and Rape. Rape was looking particularly pale and peaky. 'Are you all up for this?' boomed Death. War muttered that he was very busy in the middle east and world capitals right now and could hardly spare the time. Pestilence pleaded that he was busy creating a new ebola-like plague in California. Famine said it was not very convenient as it was time for his non-lunch break. Rape just rolled up his eyes and fell off his horse...

[@homelander-enjoyer]

Adam Mangler Its actually just a play on the four horsemen of new atheism, but nice poem!

[@glutinousmaximus]

Thanks - I thought you might appreciate it! *_:0)_*

[@gerrybutler3028]

A couple things about Sean Carroll. First, he has given the game away. What is the purpose of the multiverse argument? Certainly not legitimate science. No it is an admission that the fine tuning argument is devastating. There is no answer to it but absurdity. The multiverse must be infinite to have any traction as a reason for our universe or else it to had a beginning without a cause and only limited possibilities for what is possible. And once it is infinite, then there is no universe that is off the table of possibilities including an infinite number that are very similar to ours. So there are two headed cows and an infinite number of Judeo/Christian Gods or whatever else one can think of. Second, Sean Carroll is not a nice person. We tend to get persuaded by appearances. We should pay more attention to behavior. I posted a comment about Carroll almost 3 years ago which shocked Sal Cordova who was defending him as a reasonable person. Here is my comment from then: Sean Carroll is intellectually dishonest, a bully and a coward. A few years ago there was a discussion by John McWhorter with Michael Behe on Blogging heads. Carroll went ballistic and essentially told Blogging Heads he would organize a boycott of the site if they ever did anything like it again. McWhorter was forced to apologize for talking with Behe. Carroll is one of those guys who hides behind a nice smile and polite personality but will use his minions to silence anything he is opposed to. Remind you of anyone else in this world? I am very familiar with Carroll, having purchased his course from the Teaching Company on Dark Matter and Dark Energy and bought his book on the nature of time. He is a pleasant lecturer but his other behavior indicates what he is really like.

[@glutinousmaximus]

I'm currently compiling fiction. Can I buy the rights to your mails? You'll get a good price.

[@LoressaClisby]

An outstanding talk. Carroll is one of the best science communicators since Carl Sagan.

[@manuellopez1956]

This is one of the best explanations I've ever heard for how the Universe works. It should be inserted into every high-school syllabus.

[@bobaldo2339]

In particular, the distinction between low vs high entropy, on the one hand, and simple vs complex, on the other, was made clear.

[@johnrhoades4366]

Bifcake

[@MARKCREEKWATER1]

I like this guy: he talks like a real human, without a lot of incomprehensible jargon !!

[@davidfell5496]

Agreed - his talks are very approachable. The Royal Institution and Darwin Lectures talks are equally good. The RI talk is from 2020 (this year as I type) and he starts talking about ideas on unification at the end - and it seems maybe plausible!

[@StrawberrySoul77]

@@davidfell5496 what do you mean by unification at the end? Is it that the universe expands from a certain point, then collapses back to that point?

[@davidfell5496]

@@StrawberrySoul77 Unification of quantum and gravity stuff. At the end just meant towards the end of the video, as opposed to the end of the Universe etc.

[@jorgecastro5834]

Sean Carroll does a great job of showing that particle physics is not incompatible but rather implies the possibility of human scale concepts, such as cause and effect, human thought, and morality. To the best of my knowledge the first person to do that magnificently was David Deutsch. I therefore recommend his books too.

[@Dr10Jeeps]

I love listening to this man speak. He's clear and informative. Thank you Dr. Carroll.

[@markanthonyk1504]

Dr10Jeeps he’s not a doctor fool

[@Dr10Jeeps]

@@markanthonyk1504 Well aren't you the complete fucking moron! Of course he's a doctor. Carroll received his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1993 from Harvard University.

[@takefivepaullucido]

Once again, Sean Carroll delivers his thoughts with clarity in comprehensible terms making it accessible for many of us to grasp. Great ambassador!

[@trustinjesus1119]

You have religious belief, I don't. = Freedom From Religion (or so the adherent to their religious belief states). This position is indefensible in the light of religious congress. Opting out with "Continuing the discussion, I don't have any answers" is the coward departing the battlefield before the war has begun.

[@tisajokt7676]

@@trustinjesus1119 wot

[@trustinjesus1119]

@@tisajokt7676 You have to be more specific.

[@HarryNicNicholas]

@@trustinjesus1119 i wonder if anyone cares what you think.

[@BrandonMather8]

KZbin comment sections: The only place where centuries of scientific progress are "refuted" by a few sentences.

[@patbrennan6572]

star trek theory, gods priests have already reamed their holes..

[@bobaldo2339]

Well stated, Brendon!

[@micahnewman]

Please distinguish between "amoral" and "nonmoral."

[@purplemonkeydishwasher9818]

And the only place where centuries of scientific progress refuted in a few sentences is refuted in but one sentence

[@silkyjohnson745]

wtf dude TL;DR

[@rutmm]

The only lecturer/public speaker on KZbin who never says, 'um'. He is great.

[@dsinghr]

he is a great speaker

[@bobjones5869]

his voice irritates me

[@HarryNicNicholas]

@@bobjones5869 aww. bless.

[@amiralozse1781]

What a great talk! Sean Carrol truly deserves sitting at Feynmans desk!

[@Keithlfpieterse]

Amira Lozse: I beg to differ. Feynman was in a class of his own!

[@japeking1]

I've heard a lot of great lectures...this is the best ever. Thank you.

[@e.l.r.e.b.e.l.d.e.g.8426]

...the purpose of life ;) 34:44 and it's OK to say we do not know, science is awesome!

[@HarryNicNicholas]

the purpose of life is to leave the place tidier than you found it.

[@ivanbigcock426]

@@HarryNicNicholas No it isn't.

[@Curiousgeorge78398]

Thank you excellent lecture. I am reading Sean Carroll’s book now and I’m finding it exhilarating!

[@7775Kevin]

He is a great communicator. Very clear and concise. I enjoyed this talk.

[@ashleylooksfab]

So many thought provoking points I needed to stop and rewind and rewatch many times to understand what he meant. I'll have to revisit what he said many more times and look into his other lectures!

[@georgepaul5843]

Marvelous gifted speaker totally organized with vast knowledge in many fields.

[@joycemesa4539]

Sean Carroll is a brilliant physicist. As a future physicist he's my role model.

[@katiekat4457]

Jebuscristo if your a future physicist, don't have a role model per se. Go in thinking that you are just going to be yourself and do your own thing and not emulate anybody. We need physicists that think independently and differently than other physicist so we can advance. Be you and maybe you will be the next Einstein or Witten.

[@drServitis]

I will never have a chance of being a physicist and he's my role model.

[@sciencecompliance235]

You should call yourself an "aspiring physicist" in compliance with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Best of luck to you, though.

[@LIQUIDSNAKEz28]

20:00 FINALLY, someone well respected fucking said it!

[@kimrunic5874]

'it's a wave - that's what it is.'

[@lettersquash]

I didn't understand that point, although it feels really important to have some basic grasp of it. Can someone link to (or provide) a good explanation please, and why he and others routinely describe the universe as made of particles? It seems crazy that most people with a lay understanding of physics either think it's all particles or wave-particle duality, and they're both wrong.

[@LIQUIDSNAKEz28]

lettersquash In a sense it's both. He described perfectly well in another lecture where he talked about how the universe and everything in it is really made of FIELDS. Fields are constantly fluctuating, creating waves, waves are comprised of crests and troughs. We call the crests, "particles." In other words, saying that the universe is made of particles is kind of like saying the ocean is made of droplets, which in a sense is true, but describing the ocean in terms of waves and fields make a lot more sense.

[@kimrunic5874]

LIQUIDSNAKEz28 uh - no. Something has to happen before the 'crests and troughs' render into what we recognise as matter. What comprises a droplet of water is the same 'stuff' that constitutes an ocean. Not true with with the wave function of a particle. Prior to collapse, the particle simply cannot be said to exist.

[@thaGkillah]

Liquid? or is it Master!!? Master... it's you. Man MGS was so good in the past

[@1iunie2012]

Sir, at 17:06 you showed us an equation that does not have purposes, causes, meanings, judgments. How would an equation look like that has purposes etc. Can you give us an example? Thanks

[@svendengen]

Sean Carroll for president 🤘

[@jackiereynolds2888]

Sean, - I have a thousand questions to your talk - any one of which no doubt would generate at least a thousand more ! ! ! But YOU DID answer one I have had for some time, - " Just what or why is it that philosophers and physicists are just never able to ever get along " ??? Sean I think that you pretty much spell-that-out as well as anyone I have heard in twenty years ! Physics and Philosophy just strike me as one on-going hellacious marriage; But the sex is just so great ! A truly fantastic talk 👍

[@schmetterling4477]

Philosophy is bullshit since 500BC. You can easily see this in the fact that most major Greek philosophers seem to have thought that slavery was natural.

[@MikeEnRegalia]

The usual problem with Google talks: they're edited so that the slides are always only visible for a nanosecond.

[@Uhmu]

It is cost cutting measure because of the Oracle lawsuit, kind of annoying but you can always pause the video at the slides.

[@MikeEnRegalia]

Uhmu Unfortunately the presenter keeps talking about the slide ... they are meant to be viewed with the explanations. LOL regarding the lawsuit remark. I guess that rules out a split screen view with the presenter in a small section of the screen and the presentation visible all the time. I get it, Google is a small start-up company, nobody could expect such cutting edge technology.

[@Uhmu]

In fairness to google, if they still were a small start up, the split screen solution would have been implemented ages ago within a week. From their point of view, we are just entitled brats complaining about an excellent free public service xD

[@MikeEnRegalia]

+Uhmu it's been like this for years. Apparently nobody cares, or their goal is to make the talks unwatchable. I'm really surprised that they allow comments and ratings now ... who knows, they might listen to feedback next. Btw: look for "poetic naturalism" ... a much better version of this talk, recorded at Oxford a couple of years ago. EDIT: I mean better in terms of editing ... the content itself is a little bit better here, Sean added a few bits since the early versions.

[@Uhmu]

Thanks, will do.

[@jrrtt25]

that last line though! "Space is just a good approximation of a low energy state." I'm going to be thinking of that and running thought experiments all week

[@Kavetrol]

I will be thinking of that whenever I have to walk somewhere on empty stomach.

[@kpwillson]

Sean's book by the same title is, in my opinion, a major step forward for Atheism in the modern world. Atheism and Naturalism have always been challenged by the fact that our "theology" is in many ways trapped inside dense scientific literature. Sean explains our scientifically constructed picture of reality in an approachable way and synthesizes it with our 21st century morals. Poetic Naturalism is the future.

[@Rico-Suave_]

Watched at least twice before, watched twice again, because I play it while working, 1:02:46

[@TheKoelnKalk]

I wanted to book that guy for my son's 6th birthday.

[@errmoc5682]

Enjoyable lecture. I wish our educational system did a better job of matching students and teachers together based on what they are passionate and interested in at all levels of school

[@Raison_d-etre]

You're not doing your job if as a teacher you don't try to introduce new topics to your students, ones that they may not be interested in at first.

[@macabnerolivar7366]

Well said in a real layman's terms. I now understand more clearly this world and the nature of the universe than to the other speakers and physicists. Thanks for this upload.

[@DanielBrownsan]

Any time I'm feeling smart, I watch 5 minutes of Sean Carroll and then I do not feel smart. Sorry, me no feel smart.

[@diyandimitrov3724]

Same with me, Daniel. :-) But, coming to that conclusion makes me happy, makes me feel good about myself, as I find that I'm capable of suppressing my ego to an extend, that allows me to learn further. And that's great fun :-))And, as I'm not the only one of that species, that makes me feel even happier. Sean Carrol, the Happy-Maker :-))))

[@naimulhaq9626]

Modern physics cannot define space, time, mass, charge etc., yet mathematics enables us to figure out the puzzles of QM, GR, emergent and complexity etc., and enables us to 'understand the mind of the Intelligent Designer who invented Mathematics'.

[@manuelricardogarcia]

Sure buddy, at least the last century modern physics cannot explain reality in a satisfactory manner according to you, but you KNOW that your imaginary friend did it all, without anyone creating him, and withou leaving any trace of his involvement or his supposed ultimate knowledge? hahaha publish it and earn several Nobel prizes, but that's not going to happen anytime soon, is it?

[@DanielBrownsan]

Naimul Haq Modern physics can't "define" our reasons for being here (nor explain our presumption that there needs to be one) so I'll invent a sky fairy and be fine with that answer. My neighbor's 4-year-old daughter believes in fairies too.

[@naimulhaq9626]

Daniel Brown The reason for us to be here is proved, verified and observed. The Standard Model proves how fine tuning of the parameter space, created the self-organizing property of matter, which in turn delivered life and consciousness, although we do not know how FT occurred. Consciousness can take our thoughts outside our universe, like ID, and the neighbor's 4-year-old daughter. Hope you are a science guy.

[@MARKCREEKWATER1]

I just learned something new today, from the schematic diagram @ 32:30 ... an interesting concept, and easy to understand.

[@shirleymason7697]

Thank you. Keep us informed. Us, the general public, that is.

[@420MusicFiend]

Amazing talk! Cannot wait to pick up your new book. Particle at the end of the universe was such a great read and this talk has me pumped to run to the bookstore and grab it asap haha Q&A at the end was really interesting.

[@restybal]

An amazing talk.

[@ggrthemostgodless8713]

This talk given here and at the Royal Institute are the best physics lectures given in recent times, Feyman would be so damn proud of this man. Talk about big picture vision!!

[@Doge00]

*Very good explanation, I think consciousness should be added here, how 5 sense organs combine to produce consciousness to survive from Predators, and how humans after ensuring survival developed intelligence*

[@TheBruces56]

There is a theory that our essence or "consciousness" comes from outside our physical reality with our brain acting as an antenna of sorts. When you die the receiver no longer works but the source of your ( self, animas, soul, consciousness etc) continues.

[@Tridhos]

Always worth listening to Sean Carroll, thanks for posting this video.

[@attilaszabo8605]

Sean Caroll is great and I wish I were half as clear and to the point as him. Giraffes do not have long necks to be able to reach 'those leaves' though as the majority of their norishment do not come from leaves of tall trees. They have long necks because of their combat techniques called 'necking'.

[@WeeWeeJumbo]

_Listening to the Great Teacher_

[@climbeverest]

Sean Carroll is fun to listen to

[@bryantav6843]

Interesting stuff here. This man is more of a contemporary philosopher for intellectuals which is what we call a "Physicist". Primarily because he's informing individuals & shifting their fundamental axiomatic presuppositions which their interpretive framework rests its fundamental perceptions. Essentially he's causing a paradigm shift & altering the framework by which people perceive the world subconsciously. Interesting stuff. Much much different than what you would get from say Jordan Peterson or Joe rogan or Jocko willink , Dave Ruben , Etc...

[@bryantav6843]

The fundamental Presuppositions are interesting. Dull yet clarifying.

[@StrawberrySoul77]

Yes, he wields much power as he becomes better known and influential. Hopefully, it is for the benefit for us and our realm as the ones who’ve controlled the paradigms of late are insane and controlling and mean. Speaking to employees at Google makes me question what side he’s on.

[@MoshkitaTheCat]

I LOVE Sean Carol!!

[@maxheadrom3088]

I'm currently running an experiment that aims at proving entropy can lower spontaneously. The experiment might not run for the time I intended because people have started bugging me really hard to tidy up.

[@dylan3657]

I'm 50 mins in is Excellent

[@dimitriedgarmetz3147]

Regarding the initial story about the 2003 law case against Lucia the Berk; there is no jury system in Dutch law cases as Sean Carroll suggested. A single judge decides in the Netherlands whether to convict the suspect or not. In this case the innocent woman was in prison for 6 and a half years, before finally pleaded innocent.

[@eupraxis1]

wonderful. literally.

[@brian_mcnulty]

are the numbers of arrangements synonymous with the number of micro states as described in Chemistry courses?

[@TheRobdarling]

I looked on your website for the t-shirt and I can't find it Sean. I'd sure like one...

[@filthyfilter2798]

hahahahahaha 4 min i am already laughing with his thought sequence which is amazing! We need to blame someone :'D

[@MikeLisanke]

how does the new form of light which interacts with electrons differently (statically orbiting) affect Sean Carroll's assertion that we've discovered all the particles of everyday life we're going to discover?

[@ThinkHuman]

Very well put together talk, amazing ideas expressed in understandable terms, just a joy to watch and think along!

[@jmah9578]

The Netherlands does not have a jury system

[@RichBatsford]

What is meant by Ekinological? 28.01

[@RichBatsford]

thank you, Peter, very helpful.

[@albertomolina8908]

I'm reading The Big Picture (the spanish translation. My english isn't good enough to read the original) and I want to ask a question. Carroll writes that dark matter / energy don't have any influence upon the basic properties of atoms and the physical laws that describe them, although this dark matter / energy represents more than 75% of the entire matter and energy in our visible Universe. However, He writes in other section of the book that any supposed non physical feature of the reality should exert some influence on the behavior of atoms. Can anyone explain me this apparent contradicition? P.S.: I'm sorry for my bad english.

[@lettersquash]

Most mind-blowing talk I've seen for a long time! But left me with lots of questions. How is entropy very low just after the big bang, when presumably everything was much the same? It's a curious instance of "highly ordered", surely? Also, his putting simple-complex as a different continuum from low-high entropy is a different explanation from the usual (e.g. on wikipedia) where the complex (like life) is acknowledged as being more ordered, and low entropy, compensated for by increased entropy elsewhere in the system to satisfy 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. So when stars formed from matter attracted together by gravity, was this increasing entropy in the universe combined with increasing "complexity"? How can stars and planets represent less "order" / more "randomness" than a previous state, say, when matter was mostly evenly spread out, just with slight density variations?

[@MOSMASTERING]

This is not a problem either.. Entropy doesn't 'break down' creating life or even seemingly ordered systems like the Earth or Solar System. Taken as a whole - inside the system (which is the universe) everything IS tending toward disorder, but there can be regions of lower entropy within it that still eventually tend toward chaos (ultimate entropy - heat death of the universe). It's overall.. don't consider little tiny regions as a decrease in entropy. Think of balls mixing in a box, maybe you might get a point when they all end up in the corner briefly, but they're still all mixing overall.

[@lettersquash]

Yeah I understand that, Tom - that's what I referred to as "low entropy compensated for by increased entropy elsewhere in the system". Yes, these still tend towards chaos, as you say (additionally, the theory goes - at wikipedia, etc. - that these regions of lower entropy only exist temporarily because they simultaneously coexist with complementary regions of increased entropy. Usually, high and low entropy are described as less and more ordered. However, one of my points was that Carroll didn't say this, he said that low-high-entropy is a different continuum from less-more-order, and that order increases then decreases while entropy just keeps increasing (I think). My other question was more fundamental (i.e. dumb, maybe!) - why is the condition just after the big bang thought of as very low entropy, as I assume it must be according to the theory of increasing entropy? If you have one type of stuff with perhaps random minute variations of density or whatever, it's kind of odd to call that 'highly ordered'. Maybe it's a semantic issue and the maths would pronounce the singularity the most ordered thing, while colloquially we resist the idea of calling something that's all one thing 'highly ordered'. We might ask 'How can you order oneness?', when the maths just says it can't not be. Similarly, most of us would naturally call the state just after the BB pretty 'chaotic'. But you've made me wonder about another fundamental question - how much the idea of increasing entropy is mere conjecture when considering the universe. Possibly measurable in lab conditions, I find it hard to believe anyone can say how ordered the whole of the universe was before the stars formed compared with after, particularly considering the fact that we've only just woken up to the possibility that most of the thing has been hidden from view - dark matter and energy. So much to learn about, so little time.

[@MOSMASTERING]

lettersquash Good points. Well, every time I think I have an insight because what I'm being told seems counter intuitive, the more I look into it, the more the maths begins to get too dense and I have to trust that a physicist knows what he is talking about. Entropy is a good example - they say the entire arrow of time is dependant on the fact that chaos increases, despite pockets within the system where it tends to decrease (before eventually increasing). Supposedly, the way I understand it, because everything was squashed into a very small point at the beginning of the universe, it took on characteristics of say, a crystal, a very ordered collection of atoms (think carbon within a diamond). Everything was fundamental (ie no atoms, everything was a force or particle because it was too hot and dense at that point) before inflation/expansion allowed them - but at that very early point, it was incredibly ordered. Quantum fluctuations were blown up to macroscopic scales allowing gravity variations and eventually stars and galaxies to form. But the initial conditions were as ordered as can be.

[@TheXitone]

No one knows why it was low entropy at the beginning that's the big question.Why is there a universe? We're beginning to grapple with what the universe is but as to what brought it about?......fuck knows man.

[@jomen112]

If I understand your question correct you are not asking why the entropy was low but why physicists says the entropy was low. If so, then answers has to do with how entropy is defined in physics. Entropy is defined as the number of possible state a system can be in, not what state it is in. In the big bang this number was 1 or close to it. The limitation of possibilities is what is considered to be "more ordered", and that makes one possible state the highest ordered state. The reason the entropy is seen as being increasing is because the universe is said to be expanding, i.e. performing work.

[@avadhutd1403]

Can we use time dilation to live or see the future that we not able to see in this life time (using that one man from this generation can go in 1 Jan 2500 WHAT ARE PRACTICAL DIFFICULTY?

[@Koos_R]

So I'm watching a talk from Sean Carroll @ Google and @ 28:00 I'm like "Ekinological, WTF!" so I Google it and the first result is a link to this very lecture...WHAT DOES IT MEAN ?!?!?!

[@eklim2034]

I watched this lecture from my lower to higher enthropy

[@Russ442100]

Sean Carroll and Lawrence Krauss are just the best. Gottainclude Alan Guth ... er can't leave out Susskind or; Sussybaby (you had to be there) as well as Dr Sheldon cooper.

[@fidrewe99]

He withholds one thing: Since the discovery of quantum mechanics we know that one cannot know in principle the whole future of the universe, even if we know the present exactly and have infinate computing power. What we may know is just the probability distribution, all myriads of possible configurations that could became realized. So it can't be ruled out that some nonphysical force (a force not in the physical sense) is able to influence the development of the physical world, perfectly in accordance with the equations. Similary if information is conveyed to and stored in some non-physical entity, the equations are not violated. If you are playing a video game and then switch off the computer, you still remember what you have done in the game, although the software that makes it up is not running anymore and it's not written in the ruleset (the code) how someone might be able to watch it. Some people like to sell it as scientifically proven, but the idea that our behaviour is totally determined by physical processes is, at the moment just a belief.

[@naimulhaq9626]

Puzzles of Quantum Mechanics that remain not explainable are not the only puzzles, the absolute speed of light (General Relativity),says if you are moving with speed s and focus light out, it keeps traveling at the same speed c. As for the second law of thermodynamics, how it breaks down, producing entities like life with lower entropy are not fully understood. Lee Smolin did a good work explaining how plasma keep up their temperature to a high level for a long time, has newer explanations, explaining how the 2 nd law breaks down. On the whole we have a long road ahead and may never get the job of finding the mysteries that keep us occupied, finished before we are finished, by an asteroid, or a virus, or something.

[@MOSMASTERING]

Those are explained. 1. The absolute speed of light has nothing to do with light, it is the speed of causality. See PBS Spacetime on 'The speed of light have anything to do with light'. There is no paradox in light travelling at the same speed for all observers. 2. This is not a problem either.. Entropy doesn't 'break down' creating life or even seemingly ordered systems like the Earth or Solar System. Taken as a whole - inside the system (which is the universe) everything IS tending toward disorder, but there can be regions of lower entropy within it that still eventually tend toward chaos (ultimate entropy - heat death of the universe).

[@naimulhaq9626]

Tom Walter Science of the Standard Model shows how the fine tuning of the parameter space produce 'self-organizing property of matter', that delivered the universe, life and consciousness, with perfection and with probability one, eliminating randomness/chance, like winning 20-30 lotteries in a row (each with one in a million chance to win). If that does not imply intelligent design, I do not know what does. However, at the big bang, dark matter and dark energy were produced with opposite properties, followed by production of particles and anti-particles, followed by production of matter and anti-matter....and on to hot and cold, male and female, up and down etc., otherwise called the 'dual nature of the mathematical/physical world/existence'. The consciousness we possess, enabling our thoughts to travel outside the universe, is essentially different from what may be called the 'universal consciousness' which maybe non dual and if you can fancy 'eternal', which can invent the laws of mathematics, while we can only discover them. First referred to by Hegel, 200 years ago as the ubiquitous 'universal spirit', like his 'laws of dialectics', or better still, his law of the 'unity of opposites'. He even conjectured the 'evolution is a dialectical process'. Although he had no idea of anti-gravity or negative temperature, the power of his theory laid the foundation of modern science.

[@RobSinclaire]

This is really wonderful - thank you!

[@sureshapte7674]

do you believe that consciousness could be an emergent property of some configurations of particals?

[@HardKore5250]

Seems likely

[@billgoldbergmania]

What else would it be? There is nothing else.

[@sureshapte7674]

Hmm. But then someone somewhere need to start research project on "mechanism and nature of emergent properties"

[@neilmcintosh5150]

I don't think you need to add "configurations of particles". Its reasonable to just say consciousness is an emergent property.

[@HardKore5250]

Neil McIntosh Emergent of what?

[@xit1254]

Wow! So interesting!

[@joshuad31]

I love this video. Hard to explain

[@RickDelmonico]

This is very unsophisticated, we are beyond this already. Complexity and information.

[@marcioamaral7511]

Amazing some real knowledge !

[@beksinski]

See you in Portland february 22!

[@VfletchS]

That was awesome.

[@dlbattle100]

I have detected a definite pattern in the Universe Sean: although you have started verbally acknowledging glossing over the difference between and proton and an anti proton, you never change the slide.

[@okfanriffic3632]

Great talk BUT is he correct (at 48 mins) when he says "before modern medicine we lived 30-40 years? The ephors of sparta were only eligible for election at age 60 and the bible (it's not always wrong) suggests three score years and ten (i.e, 70) as a reasonable age so those ages must have been common (or at least not rare). Anybody out there know if we have really doubled our life expectancy?

[@benjamin_markus]

i think what spartans could do to heal in this aspect counts as 'modern medicine'. his point is that without any technology whatsoever, humans as pure biological beings had a life expectancy of 30-40

[@mellowfellow6816]

"Zeptosecond" That sounds pretty fast.

[@billkeon880]

It's the lesser known Marx Brother. That's how long his career lasted

[@MichaelJonesC-4-7]

@17:10 - all one really needs to know.

[@annwatson4755]

To be or not to be, may your particles ever roam free, Is it better by far to stay where you are and contemplate one's neighbour, Or make the jump to a different state, that is if one is able. Perhaps you should just wave if you are uncertain and string along for the ride. ; )

[@MichaelJonesC-4-7]

Ann Watson You's a thunker. Always wuz. ; )

[@annwatson4755]

Takes one to know one. ; )

[@MichaelJonesC-4-7]

Ann Watson (blushing furiously!) ; )

[@annwatson4755]

Hot flush? ; )

[@sciencecompliance235]

This talk really opened my "third eye".

[@daanthijssen7512]

Thank you for sharing that. Knowledge does it indeed. Understanding.

[@twstdelf]

Awesome.

[@anthonytindle5758]

The first topic this speaker mentioned is that's how a human brain understands instances we can't think that a person is innocent then prove guilt the instance he mentioned at first is if babies die in a place ment to help and keep them alive someone is guilty and that's how we think and if we know someone has no children we automatically think that they are guilty we don't even think that they can't get pregnant for some reason, no we automatically think they hate children so that makes them guilty for the children's deaths. We forget about how good they are, our brain automatically thinks that they hate children enough to end another's life.

[@genecat]

1:01:13 "But again, the idea that things have points is not part of the fundamental nature of reality...this level of meaning and purpose and causality is a higher level emergent thing". Hmm. So is awareness of the 'fundamental nature of reality' independent from the fundamental state itself? If so, there's a contradiction.

[@capitanmission]

Very clear and to the point. However I think that some deep issues are more open to question than what Sean thinks. This deep issues are metaphysical in nature, like it or not. He takes a valid position, but that position is not the only valid metaphysical position. Why think that the physical laws describe pattern "laws" and not simply describe the way that a particle behaves? But is not a law, a constrain inherent in Nature. In this view, the "randomness" in QM is a consequence of the lack of constrains. Im not telling that a particle could do anything, but that a particle could do anything inside his/her :D decision space (degrees of freedom). Another deep difference in view is that Nature is not "made of things" but of process. This view is not in contradiction of Sean insight, because Time in some sense is fundamental, but not space. Nature consist of a co evolution between its components, this ecosystem evolves his "laws", so these are not real laws. The only real laws are the laws of the logic behind this. See Whitehead work for the best philosophic work in the last century.

[@zetvanzacharias9553]

About the case of Lucia de Berk: We don't have a jury (to be convinced of guilty or not guilty) in the netherlands. That's up to the judge(s).to decide.

[@Pidxr]

So can the reason why an idea is funny be because the universe has an inherent sense of humor?

[@AbhishekSingh-op2tr]

Great talk! but the example of file size for computer people didn't just click. Anyone listening to you have some basic interest in physics and science in general, therefore, they know a bit too, so that's fine not giving examples from the domain you are not much aware of.

[@MikeEnRegalia]

Why does he say Anti-Proton at about 22:00? Should be two protons colliding ...

[@ugowar]

+Mike EnRegalia The rotated graph on the right is incorrect ("glossed over" as he said) in comparison to the one on the left. One of the protons should have the direction pointing in the opposite direction of the vertex, the same for particle "X". That is, a particle going back in time since time evolves to the right in these graphs. A particle going back in time is equivalent to an antiparticle going forward in time (which is what the diagram shows), so that's why he said antiproton.

[@MikeEnRegalia]

+ugowar thanks!

[@contemplatico]

IS 'time' really a 'dimension'? If so... it seems to be a 'one-directional' '1-dimensional' phenomena (perhaps '½-dimensional'?). As far as we know - no 'entity' can 'travel' in a 'negative' time direction. The same is not true for the spatial dimensions. If time was '1-dimensional' - like a spatial dimension (a line) - you WOULD be able to 'travel' in both directions? ... a thought :D Great lecture!

[@larsalfredhenrikstahlin8012]

How would you even know if you are moving backwards in time? Maybe every 10 seconds, you are living time backwards for 5 seconds. How would you know? To you it would seem like time is moving in only one direction. Forward.

[@contemplatico]

@@larsalfredhenrikstahlin8012 True i guess :-) There does seem to be a "fundamental" difference between the past and the future though.

[@NewMessage]

The real lesson here is that while the over all entropy of the universe steadily increases, the overall entropy of physicists hairdoos decreases over time.

[@szolanek]

It is weird that without any knowledge I got to the same result, as the core of our questioning has to be entropy and space-time. With my Winnie the Pooh approach all is information, even God if existed and entropy will make him insane by some circle clock time. So those (non existing) entities has to go through on purgatory (this place) in order to revive themselves, cutting back on entropy. 13 level of consciousness zip-ped in by the main chakras and unzipped. About time, I sense it was 3+1 dimensional and space is low energy= frozen time. ... By the way, I don't think that particles can be influenced by other particles only. It sounds like a caveman wouldn't believe in magnetic field, for he can't touch it. There has to be a such a jump there as quantum mechanic was over classical physics. ... I love the way he explains things! Good job!

[@SecularAdvocate]

It seems to me that time travel is impossible for one simple reason. Time is not a stand alone concept. Space-time is the problem. If you could find a way to move through time, you would also need to calculate space. For instance, if I wanted to travel back only a year, I'd have to calculate EXACTLY where the Earth was one year ago, else I could end up a year in the past, but somewhere in the vacuum of space. Since we don't know the whole of the universe, we can't calculate the speed at which anything within it is moving, or predict where any object in it will be at any given time. There is no anchor in the universe with which we could use to make any calculations. IMO

[@kokomanation]

I just got a little confused what an egg has to do with the Big Bang it is like a metaphor for the birth of the universe like cosmology meets biology

[@christat5336]

At least he brings another theory for the existence of the universe....

[@katiekat4457]

I can't decide whether I like the instructor's hair piece or not? My ex had one and know I can spot them everywhere. definitely the first guy has one.

[@TechyBen]

Entropy is a requirement for an expanding universe. A static universe would have zero entropy. (Possibly a contracting universe would have a reversed entropy)

[@dodgyass11]

The big bang was a reversed entropy?

[@life42theuniverse]

45:00 The thing about just being a pure physical entity; I feel justified in calling myself a automaton and I have doubt about the reality of morality.

[@TheRobdarling]

Did you mean the reality of mortality?

[@enterprisesoftwarearchitect]

Sean Carroll is awesome ... but one critical comment here - it you believe that consciousness is "more than what it is those equations" then you DON'T have to explain that the equation is wrong, as he asserts ... you simply are stating that those equations scope is limited. The equations are right, just as Sean would say that Einstein's Field Equations are right, but don't have the SCOPE to explain quantum mechanics, which is also correct. Sean is very humble in all his videos, which makes him and his genius easier to respect.

[@enterprisesoftwarearchitect]

Hmm ... he seems to believe that the Quantum State is somehow more fundamental than the reality we experience ... when the whole of math and quantum mechanics is nothing more than a "simple" (relative to reality's complexity) tool to help us describe reality in a way that allows us to reason about it as a whole. If humans didn't have limits to their cognitive abilities, we wouldn't need math. But we have to make whatever we can simple enough to understand.

[@enterprisesoftwarearchitect]

Time and space are the same thing, except that there is a factor of "i" - Minkowski in 1913 showed us we can think of time as another space axis, albeit in an imaginary direction (imaginary as in the square root of -1). Lightspeed is a conversion factor between time and space. I recall Roger Penrose pointing out that Quantum Mechanics cannot yet reconcile this consequence of relativity theory. We don't live in momentum space ... we live in regular space!

[@meowcus_]

Time is a way to measure the changing state of matter, speed and gravity alter the rate of change.

[@TrollinJoker]

Oh wow! I spotted a mistake. At 43:38. It is not true that there are charged particles jumping from one neuron to another. Just not correct. But great talk (: I loved the book!

[@TrollinJoker]

The vast majority of neurons is connected via chemical synapses, so the charge of the transmitters involved there really plays no big role in the sense of it creating an electrical field. The fields that you can measure from outside the skull come into being because of the way the signal travels through any given neuron. (Not between many, but inside many) There it is, that you actually have charges carrying the information.

[@neddyladdy]

Alex Are you, in this discussion, trying to convince an audience or yourself ?

[@Polly_99]

neddy laddy "I spotted a mistake" he says

[@1440PC]

28:10 he fucks up big time by saying "for existance" lol what a fuckin niwit, this whole talk is now bullshit to me

[@vampyricon7026]

Isn't acetylcholine charged?

[@papamitrou1]

The inverse of a black hole is the lowest entropy state any “thing” can achieve within its governing system or universe... to reason with the big bang was the lowest entry point of our universe, and a reference, is because every time that happens it creates the universe independently isolated within itself, but still a fundamental part that compromises the multi-verse ...where the big bang created our universe, Brother Banks, big or smaller than the actual big bang, or occurring as well in their own independent universes...This explains why it was at his lowest entropy, they fluctuate is pretty expensive high and then crash is back in itself creating another universe forever 29:49

[@Neme112]

Where's the six hour version?

[@daverumpel]

He was referring to a hypothetical 6 hr version

[@Neme112]

David Igboanugo I know, it was a joke because if there was I would watch it.

[@daverumpel]

+Neme I actually thought you might be joking after I posted my response but I was like whatever.

[@Kavetrol]

He did say that his book is a six hour version of this talk.

[@life42theuniverse]

29:15 "why are you able to draw such conclusions about its past and not its future? ..." Its not a low entropy big bang. It is the low entropy of protein folding and crystallography! Temporary geometric order out of chaos.