Sean Carroll

That's the criterion that I try to have for guests on Mindscape. It doesn't always work, you know. There's – Podcasts has to happen every week, and I choose a lot of different people, but basically what I'm looking for is somebody I can learn from. Even if it's something that I already know a lot about, I can learn little details, and the audience maybe can learn a lot.

And if it's something that I disagree with somebody, but I want to know why they think that, right? So I'm choosing to engage with people I disagree with but can learn from, and so that kind of naturally makes it a more pleasant experience. I do think this might not be true, but I think that...

And if it's something that I disagree with somebody, but I want to know why they think that, right? So I'm choosing to engage with people I disagree with but can learn from, and so that kind of naturally makes it a more pleasant experience. I do think this might not be true, but I think that...

It's weird to me to see people on the outside of academia be less able to disagree with each other politely and constructively than people inside academia. If you just asked me if I hadn't thought about it that much and you just asked, do professors disagree with each other sort of loudly and emotionally, I would say, yeah, they really get into it and they disagree pretty badly.

It's weird to me to see people on the outside of academia be less able to disagree with each other politely and constructively than people inside academia. If you just asked me if I hadn't thought about it that much and you just asked, do professors disagree with each other sort of loudly and emotionally, I would say, yeah, they really get into it and they disagree pretty badly.

still almost all the time, not all the time, but almost all the time, professors, intellectuals, scholars, people who are in academia, they disagree, and they go out and, you know, have a drink with each other and talk about it. They keep talking about it forever, for decades, right? This is very, very standard. It's not 100% by any means, but it happens all the time.

still almost all the time, not all the time, but almost all the time, professors, intellectuals, scholars, people who are in academia, they disagree, and they go out and, you know, have a drink with each other and talk about it. They keep talking about it forever, for decades, right? This is very, very standard. It's not 100% by any means, but it happens all the time.

And I think that a lot of people outside just, if they're disagreeing, then that person is an enemy And they shouldn't be engaged with in any way. And that's a little alien to me. It makes me sad when I see things like that. Folkman says, I just finished reading the big picture, which I found excellent.

And I think that a lot of people outside just, if they're disagreeing, then that person is an enemy And they shouldn't be engaged with in any way. And that's a little alien to me. It makes me sad when I see things like that. Folkman says, I just finished reading the big picture, which I found excellent.

On the question of free will, it almost seems as if your definition results in a situation where entropy is reversed or inverted.

On the question of free will, it almost seems as if your definition results in a situation where entropy is reversed or inverted.

Multiple potential macro states resulting from the decision you actually make, you have free will so you can make many different decisions with distinctly different outcomes, correspond to only one microstate, which results from the deterministic chugging forward of the microscopic configurations based on the laws of physics. What are your thoughts on this interpretation?

Multiple potential macro states resulting from the decision you actually make, you have free will so you can make many different decisions with distinctly different outcomes, correspond to only one microstate, which results from the deterministic chugging forward of the microscopic configurations based on the laws of physics. What are your thoughts on this interpretation?

Does this have any interesting implications for the arrow of time and related concepts? So I'm not exactly sure what you have in mind here. I'm not sure that it came through to me perfectly clearly, but I don't think that your interpretation is on the right track. Let's forget for the moment about quantum mechanics, okay? Quantum mechanics introduces true indeterminism into our observed world.

Does this have any interesting implications for the arrow of time and related concepts? So I'm not exactly sure what you have in mind here. I'm not sure that it came through to me perfectly clearly, but I don't think that your interpretation is on the right track. Let's forget for the moment about quantum mechanics, okay? Quantum mechanics introduces true indeterminism into our observed world.

So that's something that in detail – at the detail level, we have to keep in mind. But even in classical mechanics, if classical physics were true at the base level, you would still have a world – I think you could imagine a world that looks pretty similar to the one we live in where we're made of atoms and the atoms are jiggling around and doing different things.

So that's something that in detail – at the detail level, we have to keep in mind. But even in classical mechanics, if classical physics were true at the base level, you would still have a world – I think you could imagine a world that looks pretty similar to the one we live in where we're made of atoms and the atoms are jiggling around and doing different things.

And the point is, in that world, when you have emergence at a level of, you know, there's a higher level where you've coarse-grained over a lot of individual details, and at the lower level there's deterministic microscopic dynamics, it will often be the case that the higher-level dynamics are stochastic, and the best possible thing you can do is make a prediction about probabilities, even though the lower-level dynamics are completely deterministic.

And the point is, in that world, when you have emergence at a level of, you know, there's a higher level where you've coarse-grained over a lot of individual details, and at the lower level there's deterministic microscopic dynamics, it will often be the case that the higher-level dynamics are stochastic, and the best possible thing you can do is make a prediction about probabilities, even though the lower-level dynamics are completely deterministic.

if I have a theory of, you know, when a volcano is going to erupt, the details will depend on a lot of microscopic facts that I don't know the answer to, right? But the point is that what that means is there are two, actually many more, but let's say particularly two microstates that are in the same macrostate that lead to very different behavior at the macro level.