Jacob Barandes and Emily Adlam: Why Many Worlds Is Nonsensical
episodePreviously titled “Top Physicists Call Out Many Worlds As Nonsense | Jacob Barandes Λ Emily Adlam” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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What is the opening discussion about the Many‑Worlds interpretation and the speakers’ backgrounds?
I remember feeling quite shocked and upset about that. At
each moment the universe splits
There is no such thing as personal identity over time.
In this staggering and intense conversation, Professor Emily Adlam and Harvard's Jacob Barandes dismantle the many worlds interpretation by arguing that its promised elegance has been broken. Even further, without a process that selects which quantum branch you experience, you could believe almost anything about which future you you'll become. The probabilistic math gives no guidance. As conversation progresses, questions about what it means to be you in general are explored, such as whether the you that wakes up tomorrow is really you at all. This conversation culminates with explorations of consciousness and their passionate defense of philosophy in physics. Should physicists avoid overly philosophical questions?
Well, these questions led to quantum computing, Bell's theorem, and decoherence theory. As they reveal, many major physics breakthroughs involved philosophers and physicists working together. Today we need that collaboration again. Enjoy this theolocution with Emily Adlam and Jacob Barndis. All right. What I'd like to know? Is what do you admire most about one another? That's super easy. Um
So I'll I'll k yeah, keep it short for a change. Um I think Emily is one of the most creative and rigorous thinkers in philosophy of physics today I am profoundly grateful. That were colleagues. Um and To be m more specific. I think that Emily's analysis of Deep questions at the heart of our best physical theories is second to none. And Emily also has a remarkab remarkable ability to synthesize complicated questions and formulate very cogent answers. Remarkably succinctly. Uh a skill that I do not possess and admire enormously.
Emily.
Yes. Jacob is a very precise thinker. Uh he wants to understand every step of every i every argument. He does not accept fluffy thinking or intuition or any of these things. He has a very sort of precise mind in terms of working out where the steps go and where they should end up. Um he's also very creative. He has this very v very fascinating a new approach to quantum mechanics that I think resonates with a lot of things that I have thought about for a long time but not known how to sort of formalize and Jacob is doing it. He's showing how to make it formal and how to develop it into a real framework that you can use to do calculations. So that that is really exciting to me. Um and I think that that sort of
Seeing the way he's worked through that and has has turn that into something that is really workable and viable is really exciting.
What would be an example of sloppy thinking that you didn't realize was sloppy thinking, but after speaking with Jacob you said, Okay, there's a hole in my argument here or I was vague and I didn't mean to be?
Oh good. Um Yes, well I think we we've talked about the uh Everett interpretation quite a lot and is discussed. I think both of us have some worries about sluffy thinking that that goes into some kinds of arguments in in that context. Uh and some of the things that Jacob has has brought up has have been things that I hadn't thought a lot about. Uh I think particularly um some of your ideas about looking at how how the theory can be reformulated in ways that uh in in ways that make the wave function representation look very different and much less compelling. Uh it has been really helpful to start thinking about the way in which so much is being taken from one particular mathematical representation of the theory.
Um the th for example, thinking about what what a sort of zero mod squared amplitude means in the representation. I think I'd always just sort of accepted the thing the Ephraitians say, which is that zero mod squared amplitude, it's not there, don't have to worry about it. Uh Jacob has has this nice argument to sort of sh point out that that doesn't necessarily follow, that you should perhaps be more careful with that. So that has really given me a new way of thinking about that.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the opening discussion about the Many‑Worlds interpretation and the speakers’ backgrounds?
0:00–53:32
2
How do the guests explain self‑locating uncertainty and the role of probability in branching universes?
53:32–1:05:24
3
How do the speakers argue about causation and the arrow of time in physics?
1:05:24–1:12:05
4
Why do we experience consciousness as occurring at a single moment in time?
1:12:05–1:21:05
5
What are the main challenges in defining free will without circularity?
1:21:05–1:32:14
6
How does the discussion connect emergence, micro‑physical theories, and the role of philosophy in physics?
1:32:14–2:16:09
Speakers
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Tanya Luhrmann: The Experience Is Real. But Is God?
Tim Maudlin: Quantum Nonlocality Explained FROM SCRATCH
Adrian Owen: Awake. Aware. Unable to Move.
Peter Godfrey-Smith: This Scientist Found Earth’s “Alien” Minds