Sean Carroll

So it turns out, long story short, that it's a cosmology question.

The early universe 14 billion years ago near the Big Bang was in a very special organized state and it's becoming more disorganized and higher entropy, as we say, ever since then.

That's where the arrow of time comes from.

But okay, why was the early universe like that?

And that, we don't know.

So I wrote a paper about this 20 years ago, and I'm revisiting that now to try to improve upon it.

We still don't know, but I do think we're making progress in that direction.

That's not very long in the history of the universe.

You know what I was going to say?

But these are, you know, you're picking good examples, but let's admit you're picking the easy examples.

We understand those examples, but I can make a choice about what to do right now.

Like I could make a choice right now.

This is the most boring podcast ever.

I'm going to storm off and not do it.

You won't be the first.

I can't make a choice now not to have come on the podcast in the first place.

I can't make a choice that affects the past.

Oh, look at that.

And so that's right there at the boundary of physics and philosophy.

Both the physicists and the philosophers need to think about this.