Sean Carroll

I could tell you its approximate size, its color, its shape, and things like that. But there's, who knows, 10 to the 26 atoms in this table. And I'm not telling you nearly that much information. So on a scale of 1 to 10 of how much I'm perceiving of baseline reality, I'm kind of perceiving 1 plus epsilon, where epsilon is 10 to the minus 26, or something like that. I'm not seeing neutrinos.

I'm not seeing most of the photons. Most of the photons emitted from the table aren't headed toward my eyeballs, right? They're going in other directions. So, yeah, most of reality I'm not perceiving. Not to mention the fact that I'm in a room, which is an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the whole space of reality. I don't even have my window open, so I can't even see the outside world right now.

I'm not seeing most of the photons. Most of the photons emitted from the table aren't headed toward my eyeballs, right? They're going in other directions. So, yeah, most of reality I'm not perceiving. Not to mention the fact that I'm in a room, which is an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the whole space of reality. I don't even have my window open, so I can't even see the outside world right now.

So that's okay. We directly perceive a very, very, very tiny slice of reality. And the interesting thing is that it's enough to do pretty well, right? To have a pretty good handle on how reality works, a causal map, as Judea Pearl would have said, about if I poke something in one way, what its response is going to be, despite the fact that I know very, very little.

So that's okay. We directly perceive a very, very, very tiny slice of reality. And the interesting thing is that it's enough to do pretty well, right? To have a pretty good handle on how reality works, a causal map, as Judea Pearl would have said, about if I poke something in one way, what its response is going to be, despite the fact that I know very, very little.

The miracle of emergence, that's what it's all about. TJ McMorrow says, in several podcasts, you've distinguished between the concept of complex and complicated systems. In some of those episodes, you and your guests have discussed ways of defining or at least describing complex systems. I'm wondering whether it's more straightforward to define complicated systems.

The miracle of emergence, that's what it's all about. TJ McMorrow says, in several podcasts, you've distinguished between the concept of complex and complicated systems. In some of those episodes, you and your guests have discussed ways of defining or at least describing complex systems. I'm wondering whether it's more straightforward to define complicated systems.

I recently learned about the notion of Kolmogorov complexity, and it seems like a pretty good measure of how complicated a system is. In plain English, both seem to roughly mean how much information is required to write down the full rules of the system. Is that a reasonable connection to make? You know, I'm in favor in these kinds of questions of not saying that there's a right answer.

I recently learned about the notion of Kolmogorov complexity, and it seems like a pretty good measure of how complicated a system is. In plain English, both seem to roughly mean how much information is required to write down the full rules of the system. Is that a reasonable connection to make? You know, I'm in favor in these kinds of questions of not saying that there's a right answer.

You know, there's many different aspects to what you mean by complexity and complicated. I think it's a wrong strategy to say, here is a word, like complex or complicated. Let's try to decide what it means. That seems to imply that, like, the meaning of the word pre-exists, our use of the word out there in the numinous ether or something like that, and it doesn't quite...

You know, there's many different aspects to what you mean by complexity and complicated. I think it's a wrong strategy to say, here is a word, like complex or complicated. Let's try to decide what it means. That seems to imply that, like, the meaning of the word pre-exists, our use of the word out there in the numinous ether or something like that, and it doesn't quite...

jive with how I think it actually is work, actually does happen. I think that what happens is we can ask that there, we use a word, we use the words long before we rigorously define them. And then when it comes to rigorously defining them, we realize, oh, actually, there are different aspects that we're using the same word to convey.

jive with how I think it actually is work, actually does happen. I think that what happens is we can ask that there, we use a word, we use the words long before we rigorously define them. And then when it comes to rigorously defining them, we realize, oh, actually, there are different aspects that we're using the same word to convey.

So in the case of complexity or complicatedness, I'm not even going to differentiate between them for these particular discussions. There is something called Komogorov complexity, the length of the shortest program that would output the system or the string of digits that you're talking about.

So in the case of complexity or complicatedness, I'm not even going to differentiate between them for these particular discussions. There is something called Komogorov complexity, the length of the shortest program that would output the system or the string of digits that you're talking about.

Scott Aronson and I, when we wrote our coffee cup paper, defined something we called apparent complexity, which is the commonwealth complexity of the coarse-grained version of the image or the system you're talking about. Both of those are just descriptions of either a string of bits or of some configuration of matter in space.

Scott Aronson and I, when we wrote our coffee cup paper, defined something we called apparent complexity, which is the commonwealth complexity of the coarse-grained version of the image or the system you're talking about. Both of those are just descriptions of either a string of bits or of some configuration of matter in space.

But there are many more things you would like to attribute complexity to, including processes, right? Charlie Bennett defined an idea called logical depth, which is not the length of the program that would output the string but the time it would take to run the program that would output the string. There's other measures of complexity having to do with calculations or computations, right?

But there are many more things you would like to attribute complexity to, including processes, right? Charlie Bennett defined an idea called logical depth, which is not the length of the program that would output the string but the time it would take to run the program that would output the string. There's other measures of complexity having to do with calculations or computations, right?

How long does it take to solve the traveling salesman problem? But when it comes to physically moving things in the world, things that have many parts like a human body, okay, the complexity of the human body is not simply encapsulated by the distribution of its parts through space.