Sean Carroll Explains Quantum Field Theory 

As a big Sean Carroll fan but a first time listener of this podcast, Michael Shermer was a great interviewer.

35:00 abstract the vision of the world 36:18 duality 38:00 atom model cartoon and mental pictures 39:20 pauli-X 41:15 QF & other fields 42:35 la place explained sun gv field 43:30 unification of classic and q physics (macro and micro) 46:40 rubber sheet analogy 48:00 atoms smashing are changes in fields 49:15 what’s below atoms and particles (fiends and energy - set of fields) 51:00 when things gets unnatural in standard model 52:15 strings theory 53:15 Dark M & E 53:38 cosmological constant 55:17 neutrinos not DM 55:40 Higgs&Boson 57:45 nothing can’t come trom nothing? 58:40 we don’t know about universe beginning 59:39 causes and effects (causality) 1:01:35 nothing and then 1:02:30 God 1:03:20 free will and determinism 1:05:35 compatibilism 1:06:40 self reference 1:07:20 you are not god or LPD 1:09:20 individual humans 1:11:45 Einstein and time condolences letter (block universe) 1:14:00 end, 3rd book and so on 16:50 how do you know

Sean is an unbelievable science communicator. As a Baltimore native, I am proud Sean teaches here at JHU.

Michael Shermer is one of the best, most honest, active listener interviewers out there.

I love the really hard questions and Dr. Carroll's ability to eloquently answer everything.

Thank you. Excellent interview with Sean. You asked everything I’ve wanted him to explain

Great discussion. Carroll has a way of cutting through the misconceptions that have clouded our ability to correctly understand physics.

This is the highest compliment I can bestow. I love how you eviscerated fine tuning. First you steel manned their argument. Then you utterly destroyed it so well. Yours is still the best refutation of fine tuning I've ever heard.

Sean is my anchor to reality, not insofar as his reality is my reality, but he’s great at being hard nosed in a way that is actually conducive to progress. It’s fun to have provocative and exciting ideas, but if they are scientific ideas, they need to be rigorous and plausible. He’s also great with regards to guru’s, conspiracy theories and divisive politics, always giving advice about how to think about a problem so as I can solve it myself, rather than explicitly telling me what to believe. He’s careful and serious and fun, and is taking the foundations of quantum mechanics, as well as the interplay of philosophy and science, very seriously. Sean is so far from “shut up and calculate”, in his approach to the big questions. Thank you!

Sean Carroll is an amazing teacher. Micheal Shermer is a great facilitator. 😊😊😊

Wait, two of my favourite skeptics in conversation with each other?! I must watch this. Okay, I did watch it. Really good conversation! Michael Shermer & Sean Carroll are actually two of the people on my list of people I'd like to meet in person while I'm alive. I recently met Richard Dawkins, and that was a huge moment for me. If I ever get a chance to go to an event, where either Michael Shermer, or Sean Carroll are speakers, I will certainly be there. There are so many wonderful people out there in the world, and to meet them in person is surely an honour. Great video!

Thank you, Michael Shermer. Really interesting.

Sean is at his best here. Thank you for the interview.

sean carroll is so eloquent with explaining these complex ideas that makes me want to learn even more🥰😀

i love listening to sean carroll

Sean is a great physicist explains things well

Sean for president!

My first cat developed the theory of everything. She was frustrated because we could not understand what she was telling us. Unfortunately she died before she could tell us the theory.

I did a double Major in Math and Physics back in the 70's but took another path to earn a living.Never lost my interest, and now in my twilight years, born on the first anniversary of D Day, if that helps date me, I have just ordered Sean's latest book to see if my grasp of the subject still will enable me to follow the Logic.Although I don't buy into the Many Worlds approach, for one major reason, I still think he dots the I's and crosses the T's with most of his explanations.Looking forward to reading the book.

Difficult subjects very practically and well explained. Congratulations for the program.

If you want a deeper, richer and coherent understanding of ontological physicalism, there is no better teacher (or resource) more qualified than Sean Carroll. Dr. Carroll distinguishes himself in taking abstruse ideas and making them more reachable to both the general public and those schooled in the natural sciences.

Big Sean carroll 👏🏽👏🏽

New adjective : “mathy” I like that. And I’m not mathy

Wow, how did you get this interview? Sean Carroll is the goat. 🐐

I listened to this at double speed. The more I hear this guy talk the more I want to be his friend.

Yes. I prefer Sean’s simple explanation. Because he is more into knowing the truth and sharing truth. 🧐

Thanks for the good questions! Sean was very eloquent in his speech as always. P.S. One of his best interviews, actually. I learned a lot from it.

Sean have enjoyed many of your podcasts especially those concerning quantum field theory will look for the book quanta fields at the book store. Thanks for your wonderful explanation of science to the layman.

Wonderful episode!

Mind-blowing and mind expanding

Some great questions addressed here

Dan Winter has helped tremendously. Thanks to all the helpful ! 😊

awesome discussion. lovely

I am always impressed that Sean is prepared to say that he thinks the Everettian interpretation is the right one, even after all the talk about evidence and priors etc. Sometimes you just have an opinion :-) I also think he is probably right

I got very upset at the part near the end, with the mistaken quote about compatibilism, and then Carroll _immediately_ responded to correct it quite neatly. The more Carroll I read or listen to, the more I like the guy. What a clear thinker!

Love both you guys.

I'm a big fan of both you guys. Keep making more vids together.

So many things i learned just from this discussion. 😊

great questions! you were asking the (simple) questions i was having whilst listening SC.

It's true that over the last century or so the vast majority of physicists "haven't tried very hard" to understand / interpret QM - the "shut up and calculate" attitude has dominated - but many have and the "quantum foundations" field is certainly thriving now. But even before it was thriving some key advances were made in our understanding of the theory which advocates of the MWI (and other fringe _proto-interpretations_) seem either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge. Even without going into all that it's hard to understand how anyone familiar with the conceptual and mathematical basics of QM could make the "rookie mistake" that Sean makes in his description of entanglement. It's crucial to any discussion of entanglement - to showing, if nothing else, that it does in fact differ from mundane classical correlation! - that the necessity of the involvement of (pairs of) incompatible observable quantities isn't overlooked. As Ray Streater put it: "For example, if Alice measures J(3), and sees the result, it would be wrong for her to claim that Bob's particle has the opposite value of J(3) from hers. She does NOT know that there is a classical pointer showing the opposite result from her pointer; the experiment might not have been done. Indeed, for all she knows, Bob has already measured his J(2), and has a pointer to prove it, before she did her measurement. Thus, the only safe claim for Alice is that Bob would find, or would have found, the opposite value of J(3) if he were to make, or has made, the measurement of his J(3)."

I think that the 'world' is fully deterministic yet not at all predetermined because it is fundamentally chaotic. Chaotic systems are deterministic, just not predictable in detail. I do not think this imbues us with any sort of 'free will', we are still nothing more than complex chemical systems doing complex chemical processes.

One of the best books ever - philosophy made simple

If consciousness is fundamental and mind emerges with quantum events and there are more than two types of electricity and magnetism will be understood we will be smart. In the meantime Sean Carroll and those like him are the best.

Great interview!!

Question for Dr. Carroll is that the concept of solid like behavior of atoms, i.e. the electron clouds does not fit with the Rutherford gold foil experimental data. Alpha particles being larger and positively charged were thought to act like bullets going through the gold atoms unless they happen to encounter a nucleus in which case they get scattered. The apparent solidness of say a table can stem from electron repulsion at close range between atoms of one surface against another leading to the feeling of rigidness or solidity. In this case, could we view the electron as localized but executing a Brownian motion around the nucleus, perhaps due to the action of virtual particles around it?

quantum mechanics however does not posit these influences, it simply predicts the stats of outcomes contain them. not accepting them as real is simply an aesthetic choice, quantum mechanics is a theory that simply does not go into those details or tries to, so it is a matter for extensions for the variables deciding the outcomes we see in applied quantum mechanics but not a prediction or result of quantum mechanics itself, the correlations are the prediction these kinds of theories that account for the correlations through such influences try to explain.

It is essentially irrelevant to the free will debate if determinism is true or not.

Re. the concept of something from ‘nothing’, some scientific theories (e.g. Quantum Tunnelling from Nothing) say that the hypothesised Big Bang singularity - and hence the Universe - was created out of nothing in the form of quantum fluctuations in a pre-existing quantum vacuum. In Buddhism, consciousness in its ultimate sense is similarly likened to an empty clearing - a ‘vacuum’ - in the middle of a forest. Within this *mental* space, manifestations - things, processes, events, and systems - arise or appear. It is a no-thing (as distinct from nothing) in which ‘something’ can arise. It is the ‘Yin’ state of being limitless and formless (a no-thing that is something) from which the ‘Yang’ state of forms that have boundary limits emerge - a something that is ‘nothing’ (as distinct from no-thing).

I wish Sean would explain how if the block theory is true that it wouldn't defeat his compatibilitism?

1:11:16 Economics has everything to do with economics. I found QM through economics and my investigations into the fractal. I have since published in the International Journal of Quantum Foundations and have (not in that paper) posited the de Broglie wave function is the demand curve, and that goes for labour markets too.

We are and forever will be, falling into a series of never ending blackholes, infinitum. We just haven't realized it yet, just as the distant stars don't look anything like they actually do AT PRESENT TIME. This effect DOES NOT have an escape route, nor does anyone even see it.

Part 2 Understanding this, allows you to begin to seperate the difference between the journey towards (as reflective matter) and the eternal reflective existence (of all accumulated experience) that accents all resulted experiences, as well that experience always being added to as it is rightfully sewn and essentially supported. Studies related to Pyramid religion, psychics, quantum reality’s etc usually end up suggesting, that they themselves present existence as not being a psychical reality. Even though equating infinity is an aspect that is largely incomprehensible to mankind, because it struggles to detach its own nature from its capacity to learn. For example, due to the certified awe, the continued path of riddled failure uses time signatures on it’s simulators, processors, equations and theory’s, that are all formed from a localised perceived time that is based off an ecliptic equation, that misrepresents Universal spacetime. If a Universal cycle is a 360’ cycle then a Earth day is noted from the time at which a particular star passes the celestial meridian (i.e. directly overhead) on two sucessive nights, which marks a sidereal day of 23 hours 56 minutes & 4.091 seconds, which is not at all aligned to Hipparchus’s equation of time. Meaning that a severe miscalculation has already occurred (in this time) at the most basic level of each of the equators of reality that were used to equate forms of - Pyramid religions, psychics, quantum theories and mathematical reality’s, if the basic division is unbalanced, as the riddle is, the load failure can only ever increase, how could it ever equate Universal balances and differences? This is why the riddles script always uses its inability to understand difference against its own scripted environment. Realising this means that you should be able to at least recognise that a theory of a simulated reality has already been broadcast across your time lines future paths. Suggesting that the beings responsible for the promotion of this structured mistake, do indeed place themselves as successors of direction (control) at the cost of all others that could ever be correct. Whats also interesting is that often alternate realities are mentioned, but usually limited to X amount of numbers, because of the human reflective process of thought, that could only structure these off the measurements they equate of their understanding (or lack of) related to the distance and time of their times Universal Mass. This is a common mistake, because mankind fails to recognise that time, distance and reflection are irrelevant as soon as you are able to understand the actual meaning of’ what an infinite existence is, including the removal of biological function that is enacted as a corrective restrictor. If you are able to do this, you can understand why the reality of all existence is the functionality of all eternal growth. For mass the experience of’ reflects as its interaction (inclusive of others mass based) not their reaction (singular to them) as choice, keeping in mind what I said about Hipparchus, and understanding that infinity as being ‘time is all at once’ of which masses interactions reflect off. The only reason Mass believes in a disconnection from the totality is because of its reflective biological limitations. When sub atomic cycles and other associated conscious layers are falsely introduced to a species that reflects on time as being linear, they would find it extremely difficult to understand how expansive time could be cycled into their past’ because of their reflective biology. It’s significantly easier if one tries to establish, if the paths for all failure and success can still exist with or without its mass, perhaps you can try grabbing your left hand and without letting go’ try grabbing it again, obviously you can not’ knowing that cycle has already reflectively occurred, even if you simply thought it through’ you were aware that the reflective cycle would have already past once you enacted it, so the cycle exists reflectively as you enacted it but without the mass you used to reflect it, from here your current mass of reflection would be understood as it being your centre (and that prior actions centre) because your pinnacled to your form that only changed in the moment because of that cycle, meaning that the possibility that your reflective pinnacled center can be moved by changing your reflective memories of your past can easily change the perception of your centred reflection, I.e as in Slaves built the Pyramids to Company process built the Pyramids….meaning that your reflective center is also relative to the past that’s reflected of it, which also includes, if this changed state was broadcast to you (even deceitfully) then your center was changed by a broadcast created for you, in your future, from any point prior to your change (but for you, only understood in that moment as your experience) At this point It’s extremely important that you understand the nature of reflective thought’ as masses production of time, that reveals itself relative to the speed of the mind the processes it, that actually contains many precursor layers well before the slower mind recognises them as a thought. It’s readily understood (or it should be) that your actions mostly occur prior to your conscious mind perceiving them, and if they don’t for you then you’re not paying close enough attention, to yourself and the environment that constantly try’s to control your surroundings. Knowing that all balance is achieved from opposites is the key indicator of masses reflective “sleeping form” It can be used to identify mass as an equated form to the infinite existence of all. When a manipulation of a masses future occurs (as a mimicked form) it will always present itself “as a forced tyrannical center” whilst ironically also proving, that its past paths of existence (attempted cycles) have always been “failure” or have been failed. From this stand point you should address the mindset of the cavemen to fire as it is to you, because the caveman also thought of itself as it’s times pinnacle. The false mimic/s is the reason that religion was formed here on Earth as a search for the truth, and it exists because of the corrections made by the (bloodline) anchor between times, which was a predetermined necessity - corrective balance, due to the failures created by “typed mistakes” here on Earth, mistakes made by those that reversed live. Unknowingly to them though, they played an essential part in the balancing of all of masses infinity, as the ever failing and diminishing opposite. Keeping it simple, If you still struggle to grasp the separation between eternal cycles (the super consciousness) and reflective mass, then Imagine multiple people grabbing their left hand, following that simple instruction of “grab your left hand and don’t let it go” but now across time and distance. Ask anyone of them to grab their hand again without them letting go and again none of them are able to, each of them completing the cycle as the cycle (to them) continues remain the same. Each of them believes that it happened because they can reflect on the result of that cycle passing through them, and experienced it as the result of that cycle, without noticing that the cycle started the same way before it finished and knew the result of its experience because that cycle is that experience. Additionally as it includes each individual it’s cycle grew, as it gained experience of all other correct differences, that were individually but additionally cycled to it along it’s way (again without the cycle requiring mass) The successful result of each individual grabbing their left hand, continued its cycle as a succession of its cumulative perfection, and still each person involved exists in that same individually centred reflective state and only believes they did this because they restrictively reflected as it. As an opposite failure wouldn’t be able to do so, as it fails to reflect truthfully in all cycles, because of its corruptive make up. Which is why every single state of tyranny relies on false advertisements and podiums of its markers of short term relevance, but always later incudes them in it’s displacement of its own blame in the false cycling of failure. Exposed to the point where each individual through fear of their individual knowledge of it’s scripted failure, are forced to knowingly push its way of mandated cancer further. Often this is achieved by failure stereotyping the poverty it causes, as a disease bought about by the instability it created for itself to profit from. Obviously there’s a whole lot more……but that’s another time. ORION The Hunter (time is all at once)

Margaret Mead famously quipped, "Wars are not like earthquakes," i.e., wars are unnatural and unpredictable. John Mearsheimer disagrees, claiming that wars are natural and predictable. Who is right?

It bothered me that Sean described gravity as a force. Einstein described it as a consequence of spacetime being distorted by mass (or energy). No one has ever found a graviton ... so what is a 'gravitational field'? All in all though, an interesting interview.

Thank you...

Just curious...how does indeterminacy/quantum mechanics change how we perceive dimensions/block universe/4th dimension? If QM is indeterministic then what does that say about dimensions?

A good question for Sean is whether or not he believes (by defaulting to common GR narratives) that a traveler orbiting a fixed point observer at 'C' experiences time dilation? (I already know his answer, nevertheless I'd like to hear his explanation)

Max Planck (Nobel Prize winning physicist and originator of quantum theory): “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Erwin Schrödinger (Nobel Prize winning physicist and developer of a number of fundamental results in quantum theory): “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.” Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize winning physicist, a key pioneer of quantum mechanics): “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” But, hey-ho, Sean Carroll thinks he knows better ...

1:08:12 on the futility of determinism

I've been listening to Sean for a a number of years now. Funny, I'm beginning to understand what the hell he's talking about. It's kind of cool and scary at the same time.

Part 1 I’ve heard so many quote different dimensions, realities, simulations, species etc like they have been there, well “I AM” To put this into perspective you need to imagine if reality could be called a digitised reality in 1000 years. Obviously you know it will not. A basic scope of that perception tells you that your digital association would be as relevant as a caveman to fire is to you. When one scopes for meaning of his own existence he/she does so based from human understandings (learnt from their environment/experience) Existing as reflective matter they base the measurement of their perception from their limitation of understanding. Mostly not realising that they are scoping their reflection of, not the delivery of. In recent day many people have given examples of simulations etc using labels NPC’s and PC’s as examples in their scenarios, but usually without addressing the nature of it’s programming. In that scenario the typical objective is for the gamer to succeed at the ‘game’ that’s exclusively designed to assist the PC’s in their journey, only made relevant because the difference in time, effort and programming used to present the scripted illusion of choice thats inherited by the PC as being far superior to script given to remaining NPC’s. Keeping this in mind, presents as a major issue in the simulation reality theory that feeds off physical collection as the failure or stunting of its actual equal others (without the lie of the script) This would mean that by design some labels were pre-chosen as the controllers of others (perhaps like a Royalty) Meaning that they could only succeed at cost to the players their script disadvantages. If one was to assume this as its design, then what would be its point and how could this simulation ever evolve, when it’s design leads to conclusive failure through stupidity? Would it not still be reliant on the singularity layered above it? Why does the landscape of this design still fail to address and understand the singularity? Is it because its always defined from and as a form of falsely pinnacled positioned reflective Mass? When you speak of a singularity that increases exponentially shouldn’t you scope that existence as being part of everything that has and will ever exist? and from an understanding that it already has the capacity to include everything (in this time) including everything perceptional to it’s environment? Would it not be able to prove that the importance of existence is balanced by the eternal growth of existence? that obviously could only be achieved successively from a production of freedom from the cumulative experience of all interactions that are right. Understanding this allows you to begin to seperate the difference between the journey towards (as reflective matter) and the reflective eternal existence that accents every resulted experience. As well as that experience being added to and essentially supported. When religion, psychics, quantum reality’s are studied it’s usually suggested that they themselves eventually present as there being no psychical basis for reality, however one could also conclude that this is because these are all formations of the same faulty mimicked design (looped by failure) that till now existed as a riddle that sat right in front of the “Worlds greatest minds” That riddle exists time and time again as ‘It’s own Failure’ even when it’s failure is detected, it usually gets promoted again and goes unnoticed, as the cause of failure, because of the prior certifications attached to its relative forms. It then instead is presented as a possible new direction for yet another overlay (by its minds mimicked) to discover because of it’s certified awe associated to them. Really, to simplify that riddle all should concentrate more on the influence Cerns LHC had on the flower of life and all other ancient awe attached to it. Including why their energy signatures match their presentation and the Company riddle, that also fails mankind as a lesser product. The line of ‘enchanted fools’ is very long and truth be known, well not a very distinguished one either. When a conclusion is formed, it should always be factual and not shrouded in the flowers awe. If forms must be equated dimensionally, they MUST be equated from the perspective consciousness that lays above that times conscious state, as it’s infinite existence, as though its the Source of “?” that’s anchored between all forms - NOT SIMPLY ANCHORED TO ONE. For example, the basis and understanding of all wasted calculations, theorising and man made principles becomes ABSOLUTE when it’s riddle is known to be its ever conclusive failures, that are bound in its attachment to the mistakes of its enslaved servers - AT THE TIME OF CREATION (in the 2ks) As is the understanding of measurement that’s achieved by those certified in its dimensionally riddled and time stumped environment. All of which is based on the belly crawlers attempts to enslave life, with the fantasy of one day eventually harnessing technology that enables them to escape the Hell they deserve (nope that’s what you get for MAPPING kids) When a singularity that increases exponentially in an instant is studied, you must scope that existence as being part of everything that has and will ever exist, from the understanding,,that it already has the capacity to include life (in this time) and everything perceptional to its environment, understanding that the absolute importance of existence is above all the eternal growth of all existence.,This can obviously only ever be achieved successively from an infinite dimension of freedom thats survived by the cumulative resulted experience of all interactions that are were and could be ever correct.

Isnt Seans podcast "Mindscape"? Not everything everywhere.

Quantum mechanics and relaitivity didn't 'prove' older views were wrong in the sense of to be scapped. They extended the range of explanation to encompass new ways of understanding - but we got to the moon using Newtonian mechanics, even if we also now had a deeper explanation of the range of applicability of older theories. Which, within their domains, remained correct - and usable.

I prefer to think of “god” as nature, rather than the laws of nature. The laws are ours, the nature belongs to itself. I think this is what many ancient people meant throughout history, and it’s a fine idea. Certainly something to embrace in the name of unity and cooperation.

What if TOE isn't an equation as such, but a pattern Ex 25:40.

Keppler concluded that the planets move along elliptical orbits, not Newton

Um.a gsn of Sean and thsis git to be one of the bests interview of him

Yes things like God and Free Will belong in the same bin. That js correct.

I need to start saying ‘super-duper’ more

I agree that some people explain very badly and make things more complicated than they really are

If you know how smell works then you you know everything about light

I think my understanding just advanced a little bit.

LMK what it costs for signed HB copies. All of them, total cost...plz & ty.

Once upon a time there was a fruit-fly named Wiggy whose brain, like his eyes, was composed of hexagonal pixels. So it always saw the Universe in terms of hexagons. One day Wiggy took a PhD in Physics at the local human university, and wrote a paper about the amazing effectiveness of hexamath, that forecasts the entire behavior of the universe. But his thesis advisor said, that's a foolish paper. The universe is not forecastable by hexamath, but by features-math, aka categories math, that is: the universe can be forecasted via variables, because the human cortex converts all signals into categories (via the Vernon Mountcastle algorithm), to which it then gives names, and represents by ink (or chalk) squiggles, which we humans manipulate, to forecast the universe's behavior by a resulting squiggle (aka "solution."). Well, said Wiggy, that's what I do. But, said his thesis advisor, don't you see that you can only grasp the hexa part of the universe? Well, said Wiggy, what about you? You can only grasp the categorizable parts of the universe, which is really one big shmoo, on parts of which you put categories, and I put hexa pixels. Well, what other parts are there? said the professor. I can't tell you, said Wiggy, because your brain doesn't have hexa-pixels. After a while, they both tried to find some middle ground, by studying Quantum Mechanics, where there are no categories (until the probability function goes pfffft, that is) and no hexa-pixels either (ditto), but were stumped, until an Alien EBE came down in a flying saucer and said he could explain it all, but his explanation used neither hexamath nor categories math, but something else based on his (EBE's) brain, so he couldn't and didn't, and the problem stayed unresolved. Or did it?

I am surprised that even today there are physicists who think that the theory of everything is just around the corner. When will they ever know how to win thousands or millions of lotteries in a row, even then will be just a little closer to divine design.

The many-worlds interpretation just seems ridiculous to me. How is that explanation considered any better that the explanation that human consciousness can impact reality? There is absolutely no evidence for MWI - it seems to just be a way to grasp at outdated metaphysical materialist axioms.

At 37:26 Seansays something like "that is the miracle of quantum mechanics". And to be fair we have to use the English words, but that statement is sufficient for people like Rupert Sheldrake, Deepka Chopra and Philip Goff to run with it an quote Sean as saying that quantum mechanics has miracles in it. At other time Sean says something like "that is the subtlety of QM" (paraphrasing). But that comes across as a science apologetics to lay people. It sounds like scientists are contradicting themselves even contemporarily. I cannot emphasize enough how Scientists should get together and come up with consistent scientific language when describing the theories to prevent further deterioration of anti-scientific or pseudo-scientific state of affairs. For example, Roger Penrose along with Stuart Hameroff have the theory of Orch-OR in which they claim the collapse of wave function in microtubules in neurons causes the wave function which is a completely Physicalist theory. But that does not stop people like Deepka Chopra and Philip Goff to take it to mean exactly the opposite that consciousness causes the collapse of wave function in the microtubules and then run with woo theories and panpsychism etc. They love that Roger's name is associated with the original Orch-OR theory. I partly do blame Roger for he speaks about it in some places. Brain works on ectro-chemistry. QM is integral part of chemistry. So what is the big deal about chemistry in microtubules. Brain will not work if not for the chemistry does not work which depends on QM. So there is nothing of a mystery between QM based chemistry in the brain and processes which we call consciousness.

yes, but there is also the unfortunate fact that what is called entanglement applies equally to two different kinds of situations, one where the correlation does not require some dependence on another outcome somewhere else, and soem situations that seemingly do. first lets step back and look at what quantum mechanics entails about probabilities, we have a situation where the theory produces a probability map for observable outcomes, this means we can reasonably simulate any experiment as a table of outcomes of any measurment we make, by some kind of dice with n sides equally providing the probability of each outcome weighted by the likleyhood of whatever outcome coming up, we can then simulate it with something akin to normal statistical mechanics, we have some probability density for each outcome at each detector or device, in an experiment with entanglement we end up with either two independent dice, or a situation in which the outcome of some dice somewhere effects the weights on some dice in some other place, what we call entanglement today encompasses both situations in a sense, the example einstein originally chose in the EPR paper, relating the momentum of one particle to the momentum of the other does not necessarily entail a connection between the weights on one side as a result of the other, only that they where "rolled" together at the start and that they came out oppsite in outcome in some sense, while the example that bell used relating to spin, the outcome on one side effects the dice you would roll to simulate the outcome of the other particle in a different way, namely the probability changes in a way that depends on the choice of measurment axis on the other side, there is not a single given outcome, but a new distribution over new choices of measurement, which is not the case with a simple momentum measurement, which does not have the same kind of basis of measurment, at least not in all kinds of ways of measuring. the difference is simply that if we wanted to accurately simulate the bell case of spins, we could not just have equally weighted dice that always start out opposite, that would not reflect the real outcomes in terms of the combined distribution of outcomes, because when not measured in the same basis the outcomes are not always opposite in outcome, but have correlations relation to the cos squared of the angle between the basis of the two, to simulate this kind of relationship with dice or something like it, we would necessarily have to look at one outcome and then and only then adjust the weights of the dice for predicting the statistics of the other outcome, for the results to correspond with the statistics we find in nature relating to spin, this means that if we want to think about it as some local stochastic process resulting from additional variables in addition to the wavefunction, there necessarily has to be some influence from one outcome on the other, but this is not the case for every kind of correlation we call entanglement, i think we should really separate the kinds of interactions that require such an influence and those that do not when we think about entanglement as some actual influence. i think there has to be an influence as causal as two rocks bumping into each other to produce such a correlation, and it has not by any means been shown to be impossible or even unlikley, we simply do not have any realistic and penetrable theories that provide a mechanism or description of that kind for process yet, so i think it is premature to say it does not exist nobody has any convincing arguments that it cannot be the case.

I prefer Stonebridge restaurants

The argument that the believer in God is not willing to learn is obviously reciprocal, but not equivalent. Skepticism about the non visible world is traditionally a common place.

i've never liked michael shermer, and i have no idea why, he's smart, he argues sensibly, he asks the right questions and has a great attitude. just something ... it must be me. always liked sean, no doubt.

If we assert God exist, and interacts with His creation, then free will is implicit as the universe wouldn't be determined, but its asserted that God reacts to His creation depending on how His reaction reacted to Him. Now we might ask, "how does God interact with His creation" far be it from anyone to tell God how He can interact with His creation, but we can speculate that God must either violate the laws of physics in His creation, or uses unknown laws of physics, or maybe He directs apparent random quantum events that lead to improbable miracles. If we assumed the last option, then the nature of reality would not be compatible with Copenhagen pure randomness, while apparent but direrected randomness is compatable if the hand of God was nonlocal hidden variables. What if God and our free will acted on the universe through nonlocal hidden variables? Many worlds does not work well with a universe where God interacts with his creation as anything that can happen will happen on its own world line. Free will in a many world universe makes no sense if a single random quantum event can be the push for two different world lines where you marry your wife or dont and both are true. In their respective worldline.

I came here for the free will. I certainly hope they talk about it.

one of the reasons i never really bought it, that is that there is no real influence responsible for the correlations is essentially the same as that of a kid that sees a magic trick and thinks there has to be some ace up the sleeve or some string moving the missing card, i don't think stuff just happens, i think there is always an explaination that can to some degree be penetrated and be understood, and after having spend years working on the subject seriously, my conviction that started out as a suspicion that people were just taking magic for granted has only gotten stronger, i see no compelling theoretical reason what so ever to favor mystical causelessness explaining the correlation rather than an actual down to earth theory, where states of the world constitute the reasons why things happen, an actual description of what happens that includes outcomes where correlations that reflect dependent random variables have their dependence explained properly in a way no more mystical than why glasses don't fall through the table. we would never accept a theory like the minimalist quantum explaination of copenhagen for example that this is just how the world is, magic just happens and that is that.

If you are light what would you see

1:09 "This group of people under these conditions are likely to be more successful or have higher GPAs or make more money, and these are less because of whatever the conditions are, but if I point to one person, what about that guy right there what's his outcome going to be... no idea" I think we can tell alot about the outcomes of people just by their appearance and context. If someone is sitting in lecture, in nice clothes, well then it's a safe bet to assume they have a decent amount of money and their outcome is/will be financially lucrative. I’ve heard this before, that patterns in demography don't apply to individuals… but that data is gathered from, well, many individuals. If you mean there's exceptions to social tendencies, well sure, but that doesn't equal mystery, if you investigate those exceptions you will find discrete reasons why those people fell lower or rose higher than their social demographic.

I contemplate maximum energy (mass) density of a Planck volume. Trying to derive it despite all of the infinities involved. Waste of my time?

Michael Shermer. Why don't you become the very first individual to perform a Baseian stastical analysis of all the reports from the current "eyewitness testimony phenomenon"? Nobody has done this and i can assure you that you will find out a lot about the validity of these reports. The categorization involving localization, repetition, and the supposed "integrity" of these eyewitnesses will be exposed in ways that you don't expect. Personally, i define "alien" as something that has never been reported or even imagined. There's plenty of studies about eyewitness testimony concerning the court of law, but nothing has been analyzed as applied to the current phenomenon. Even by the hundreds of people who claim to be "very interested". I don't have the resources or the experience but you are the expert on scepticism. Why not just settle this thing? Nobody else is going to.

Free will seems to be interested in Sean's head.

When you're not looking, it's a wave, when you look it's a particle ... but hey, consciousness has nothing to do with it. Unfortunately for Sean Carroll's beliefs, however, the latter claim is not compatible with the prior statement of fact.

He speaks well but when he mentions “multiverse” as an “explanation”, I find it a little hard to swallow. It makes me reach for a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word, “explain”.

I enjoy Sean’s work but don’t understand how he serves on the board for Nautilus Magazine, which is a shiny front for the gross Templeton Foundation.

Obviously the human mind can justify anything, which should be included in the final Theory of Everything 😅

It's impossible that absolutely everything came from absolutely nothing. Therefore, there has always been something. Question is: What is that something ? It's what everything (collidable fermions and go-thru-each-other bosons) are fundamentally physically made of: resonating vibrations within the eternal continuum 'liquid' of forces. The Big Bang event was 'simply' a state change event when pre-particle fluctuating force fields hit on particle replication, and a particle replication explosion happened. All the same energy before and after, conservation of energy fully intact. The causal universe is just running. Enjoy the ride and try to have a good life. 😎

32:12 -- All possible states of Reality would still exist (let's call it the Reality power set), and the Demon/God would still perceive that power set and all of its subsets, it's just that the Demon/God wouldn't be perceiving any conscious beings engaged in constantly winnowing/'drilling down' into the subsets of that Reality that are causally connected and consistent with their own choices/observations/experiences. Note that the Demon/God would still perceive all of the same collections of matter doing all of the same things regardless of whether there were any conscious beings 'playing the game' (for example, my human body exists in both versions, it's just that in one version my body is purely a 'philosophical zombie', and in the other version there is some sort of conscious being that is experiencing 'what it is like' to inhabit that body. From the perspective of the Demon/God, the machine (all of Reality) is the same both ways, one version just has ghosts in it. Those ghosts don't have any ability to causally influence the machine, they just get to experience what it's like to inhabit a body, and to exert free will to steer their own paths through the winnowing/drilling down of the subsets of Reality that are continuously causally connected and consistent with that body's history. For example, if I (the ghost 'I') choose to clap my hands right now, what that really means is that as a ghost I've chosen to steer myself into experiencing the subset of Reality in which my body performed that action; by doing such things I continually carve out a smaller and more specific subset of Reality. My intuition tells me that this is very deeply connected to entropy. Low entropy = many choices/subsets to choose from; high entropy = few choices/subsets. In this view, entropy is the refining/restricting/winnowing down of the options that can be jumped to (options = subsets of the Reality power set that are continuously connected and consistent with the current subset).

Their is a deeper meaning.. a more consistent theory A James Clark maxwell insight that sadly the hasn’t been realized

I always thought it's fascinating that the Jewish Torah written by a bunch of slaves running around and away from their slave masters 3,500 years ago wrote that the universe had a beginning when all of the physicists demanded that it doesn't. And then they insisted on defining how after the beginning the material coalesced and then land formed and then water animals form and then trees formed and then land creatures formed and that we were the finality of that evolution. In the first chapter and the first paragraph of their book. Feels to me like that's more than just luck... Also that whole thing about God looked And it was created. There's a lot of quantum going on in that statement. So interesting there's got to be something there.. Maybe Torah entangelment :-)

I think Heisenberg steered the entire physics into the abyss. Now physicists are drowning in the formalism.

If we knew what quantum was telling us we would be shouting it from the rooftops But we don’t and humility is not something scientists and engineers want too admit

Jones Robert Harris Kevin Hall Scott