Slavoj Žižek & Sean Carroll: Quantum Physics, the Multiverse, and Time Travel | RP #118
Debate · Robinson Erhardt ·
2023-07-23 · 1:48:39 · 15,290 words
with Sean Carroll, Robinson Erhardt
science-physicsphilosophy-generalideologyreligion-theologysubjectivitygeopolitics-warcommunism-socialismcinema-art-culture
Žižek engages in a dialogue with physicist Sean Carroll regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics, specifically contrasting the Many Worlds Interpretation with Copenhagen and hidden variable theories. He argues for 'ontological incompleteness,' positing that uncertainty is a feature of reality itself rather than just epistemological limitation. Žižek extends this quantum concept of superposition and retroactive necessity into philosophy and history, using examples from Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Protestantism to illustrate how the future restructures the symbolic meaning of the past. Žižek engages in a dense metaphysical and political discussion with a physicist, contrasting Einsteinian materialism with quantum mechanics' radical openness. He critiques fundamentalist religion and naive interpretations of the Many-Worlds Interpretation, using film examples like 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' and 'Indiana Jones 5' to illustrate the value of 'shitty' or desperate narratives over comforting ones. The conversation concludes with reflections on political nostalgia in South Africa, the nature of authority, and a dismissal of the 'final words' of great thinkers like Lacan.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 18
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “epistemological obstacle”
A limitation of knowledge; Žižek argues that what appears as an epistemological obstacle (incompleteness) actually defines reality itself.
as “wave function collapse”
The transition from a superposition of states to a single observed state; Žižek questions what triggers this collapse and whether it is objective.
The process by which a quantum system interacts with its environment, losing its quantum behavior; Žižek notes this does not fully solve the measurement problem.
The standard quantum view, associated with Bohr, that physical systems do not have definite properties until measured, summarized by the injunction 'don't think, just calculate.'
The idea that reality itself is incomplete and undefined until observed or actualized, rather than being a complete set of hidden variables waiting to be discovered.
as “ontological status”
The quality of being real; Žižek argues for elevating the element of uncertainty/contingency from epistemology to ontology.
A quantum state where multiple possibilities exist simultaneously; Žižek applies this to historical processes and knowledge, suggesting history exists in a superposition of meanings until actualized.
The network of meanings and interpretations through which we understand reality; Žižek argues this constellation changes retroactively based on future actualizations.
The philosophical claim that a future event retroactively determines the meaning and necessity of past events, restructuring the symbolic constellation of history.
The quantum hypothesis that all possible variations of a system actually exist in separate, non-communicating branches of reality.
A pejorative label for the idea of repeated big bangs/collapses, implying a crude, mechanical cycling of events without genuine dialectical progression.
as “big other”
The symbolic order or cosmic structure that guarantees reality; Žižek argues for a 'disbelief' in this order, favoring a materialist view where the universe exists independently of a mega-observer.
as “God is lazy”
A joke/interpretation of quantum mechanics: God was too lazy to determine every outcome down to the last detail, leaving the universe open and indeterminate, which validates a materialist reading of physics.
as “freedom is not contingency”
A core Žižekian formulation asserting that true freedom is not quantum randomness or open possibilities, but a specific, hard-won determination ('I decided so'). It is a 'different sort of determinism' chosen by the subject.
A narrative preference for endings where characters remain in a flawed, 'shitty' reality with full awareness of lost possibilities, rather than accepting a comforting 'real world' conclusion.
The Einsteinian view that quantum randomness is merely epistemological, caused by our ignorance of underlying deterministic factors.
'No freedom for the enemies of freedom,' used by Žižek as a joke/motto for testing microphones, signaling his willingness to use authoritarian means to protect the revolutionary space.
A modern euphemism for 'leader' or 'director' that preserves power while sounding innocent and non-authoritarian, reflecting a contemporary aversion to explicit authority.
Stories he reaches for 5
Einstein's 'God does not play dice' is reinterpreted: God is not a personal deity but the cosmic order. Bohr's retort 'Don't tell God what to do' opens the path for quantum uncertainty.
“god doesn't play dice... don't tell god what to do”
Lacan's dying mumblings to his mistress Catherine Millot are often interpreted as profound final truths, but Žižek suggests they may just be confused trembling, warning against attributing final wisdom to old age.
“what if it was nothing? it was just a confused tremblingbling”
A European joke that quantum physics proves God is lazy and didn't want to do all the work of determining every particle, leaving the universe open.
“quantum physics is one big proof that god is lazy. he didn't want to do all the work”
A Catholic bishop confesses he prays that the Turin Shroud's blood is NOT Christ's, because DNA analysis might reveal Christ was the result of Mary sleeping with a servant, which would be worse than the mystery.
“she prays to god every evening that. this is not really christ's blood”
Black South Africans express nostalgia for the apartheid era because the standard of living was higher and there was 'basic order,' contrasting with current chaos and inequality, revealing the failure of the transition.
“what is the predominant nostalgia? for a part... standard of living was even a little bit better than now”
Works invoked 10
The Bad Sleep Well film
Kurosawa's 1961 film adaptation of Hamlet, praised by Žižek for revealing that 'real evil people don't care' and are not haunted.
Hamlet play
Shakespeare's play, used to illustrate how great works are reinvented by new epochs and are not limited to their historical context.
Oppenheimer film
The movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, which Žižek dismisses for its pseudo-spiritual appropriation of the Bhagavad Gita.
Max Weber's work, used by Žižek to argue that capitalism requires the predestination of Protestantism.
Critiqued for its 'shitty conclusion' where the protagonist accepts the current world as 'real' and 'good,' losing the uncertainty of the multiverse. Žižek prefers a 'desperate' ending.
The Turin Shroud artwork
Used as an anecdote about a bishop's prayer; illustrates the danger of fundamentalist certainty and the value of religious mystery.
Cited as a genre Žižek loves, specifically stories about Hitler (as a painter, or prevented from birth), which refresh the thought that history is contingent.
A pessimistic novel where preventing Hitler's birth leads to a worse Nazi regime led by von Braun, illustrating that removing Hitler doesn't remove Nazism.
Liked despite being a 'shitty movie' because it highlights the 'desperate' reality of the characters, aligning with Žižek's preference for 'desperate solutions' over comforting resolutions.
Plato's Dialogues book
Humorously preferred for their one-sided nature, where one character talks and the other (Socrates) only says 'By Zeus' every 10 minutes.
People invoked 41
Not explicitly named; omitted.
Sean Carroll positive
The interlocutor in this talk; Žižek respects his physics knowledge and engages him in a dialectical exchange, noting his KGB file sympathizes with Many Worlds.
Cited as an actress in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' who plays the 'tax office' version of reality, which Žižek critiques.
Robert Mugabe negative
Used as a foil to describe the potential outcome of a non-compromising revolution in South Africa ('Mugabe's Zimbabwe').
Jean-Pierre Dupuy positive
A philosopher (Stanford/Santa Cruz) whom Žižek credits with introducing the notion of 'superposition' into historical processes and knowledge.
Édouard Balladur positive
A French presidential candidate whose potential victory was described by Le Monde as 'necessary' if it occurred, illustrating retroactive necessity.
Not explicitly named but implied in the context of 'quantum physicists' and 'hidden variables'; however, no direct citation is made, so omitted for high confidence.
Nikolai Yezhov negative
Cited as Stalin's secret policeman who takes over in an alternate history, leading to a worse regime.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited regarding the 'big other'; Žižek uses the anecdote of Lacan's dying mumblings to warn against the 'last words' fallacy.
Stephen Hawking positive
Cited in the anecdote with the Pope; Žižek respects his scientific work but critiques the popularization of his 'final' views.
Roger Penrose positive
Mentioned in the context of approaches to quantum mechanics and consciousness (though the transcript cuts off, he is linked to the discussion of objective collapse).
Lacan's young mistress at the time of his death; her account of his dying words is used to illustrate the danger of interpreting final mumblings as profound.
Sabine Hossenfelder negative
A German physicist cited as representing the 'superdeterminism' or hidden variables view, which Žižek rejects in favor of ontological incompleteness.
Adolf Hitler negative
Discussed in alternate history scenarios; Žižek uses the 'Hitler as painter' story to show how contingent history is, and the 'infertile mother' story to show that removing him doesn't remove Nazism.
Alain Aspect positive
One of the three physicists (along with Zeilinger and a third) who performed experiments proving quantum entanglement, challenging local hidden variables.
Hugh Everett III positive
The originator of the Many Worlds Interpretation; Žižek notes he was kicked out of the field for political reasons (left-leaning) but defends the theory's philosophical value.
T. S. Eliot positive
Cited for the idealist conservative quote that new inventions in art change the entire past, making it readable in a different way.
Maximilien Robespierre positive
Cited for his motto 'No freedom for the enemies of freedom,' which Žižek adopts as a humorous but serious principle for protecting revolutionary space.
Wernher von Braun negative
Cited in an alternate history anecdote as a more able scientist who led Nazism to a worse outcome than Hitler, illustrating that removing Hitler doesn't remove the underlying structure.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Cited as a 'great guy' loved by Kierkegaard (likely a mis-transcription of 'loved by Kierkegaard' or 'a great guy, the one who was loved by Kierkegaard' referring to a specific figure, possibly Abraham or a biblical figure); Kierkegaard is praised for his 'radical openness' ('I'm not sure that I believe, I only maybe believe that I believe').
William Shakespeare positive
Used as a case study for how great works are reinvented by new epochs (Romanticism vs. Classicism) and are not limited to their historical context.
Niels Bohr positive
Žižek analyzes Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation, noting its 'vicious' formulation 'don't think, just calculate' and its tendency toward naive epistemology and pseudo-spiritual universalization.
Anton Zeilinger positive
An Austrian physicist who, with Aspect, performed experiments demonstrating quantum correlations that defy classical local realism.
Akira Kurosawa positive
The director of 'The Bad Sleep Well' (1961), whose adaptation of Hamlet Žižek praises for its 'deep truth' about evil.
Cited in the context of South African politics; Žižek suggests that if Mandela hadn't compromised, the result might have been like Mugabe's Zimbabwe, highlighting the complexity of political transitions.
Implied as the star of 'Indiana Jones 5'; not explicitly named, so omitted.
Joseph Stalin negative
Cited in an alternate history anecdote where he is killed in 1935 and replaced by Yezhov, leading to an even worse outcome, illustrating the dangers of political change.
Plato positive
Cited for his late dialogues, which Žižek humorously prefers for their one-sided nature.
Implied as the director of 'Indiana Jones 5'; not explicitly named, so omitted.
Mangled in transcript as 't. eliot' or similar, but contextually linked to the quote about art changing the past. (Correction: The transcript says 't.s. eliot', so this is not Tolkien. The transcript says 't.s. eliot'.)
Mentioned as an old British actor who played in a movie; likely a mis-transcription or minor reference to an actor in a time-travel film.
Karl Marx positive
Implied in the context of 'communism' and 'Stalinism'; not explicitly named in this excerpt, so omitted.
Abraham Lincoln positive
Attributed with the ambiguous quote about cheating people, which Žižek uses to illustrate the structural openness of language.
Socrates positive
Cited in a joke about Plato's dialogues, where Socrates only says 'By Zeus' every 10 minutes, illustrating Žižek's preference for one-sided dialogues.
Erwin Schrödinger positive
His equation is central to the discussion; Žižek argues it gives probabilities that reflect an ontological openness, not just epistemological uncertainty.
René Descartes positive
Cited for the 'cogito' and the enigma of locating the subject in a mechanistic universe deterministically.
Sigmund Freud positive
Not explicitly named; omitted.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Cited as a 'Hegelian' who likes crazy theories; 'the more crazy it is, the more we like it' reflects a Hegelian dialectical view.
Albert Einstein negative
Cited as the proponent of 'hidden variables' and determinism; Žižek argues against Einstein's view that quantum randomness is merely epistemological.
Max Weber positive
Cited for 'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'; Žižek uses Weber's analysis to argue that capitalism requires predestination.
John Paul II negative
Described as 'the polish reactionary guy'; used to illustrate the futile attempt to reconcile science and religion by claiming different topics (Big Bang vs. Before).
Transcript 165 turns
Slavoj Žižek
many-world interpretation simply multiplies realities. we lose the aspect to everything is true, in the sense of all possible variations are true. so what i, and in some sense, what fascinates me, the ontological incompleteness, again disappears. everything is fully there. the problem is our limited. standpoint. am i missing something here?
many-world interpretation simply multiplies realities. we lose the aspect to everything is true, in the sense of all possible variations are true. so what i, and in some sense, what fascinates me, the ontological incompleteness, again disappears. everything is fully there. the problem is our limited. standpoint. am i missing something here?
Sean Carroll
yeah, so i'm happy about this one because you are missing something and i can help.
yeah, so i'm happy about this one because you are missing something and i can help.
Robinson Erhardt
yeah. yeah. hello, my geings. it is mother goose robinson erhardt here with the podcast and the introduction to robinson's podcast number 118, which incidentally confirms that we are on a very strange branch of the wave function because my guests are slavoj zizek and sean carroll. and i will keep their bios short since everyone knows them. but slavoj is international director of the birkbeck institute for the humanities at the university of london and a senior researcher at the university of ljubljana's department of philosophy. he was also the guest on episode 109, which was all about psychoanalysis, wokeness, racism, sexism, nazis, curb your enthusiasm, and a hundred other things. it would be impossible to encapsulate all of the topics that we cover without talking talking for 90 minutes, the length of our episode. but sean carroll, on the other hand is actually a quantum physicist. he is a cosmologist, a philosopher. he's homewood professor of natural philosophy at johns hopkins university and fractal faculty at the santa fe institute. he's also host of sean carroll's mindscape, which is an absolutely terrific show. i love it. i've listened to every episode on science, society, philosophy, culture, arts, ideas, and anything else sean has been thinking about. but sean, along with david albert of columbia, was a guest on episode 106, which covered the many worlds theory of quantum mechanics in great detail. and then we also talked about entropy and the enduringly fascinating topic of boltzmann brains and then the fine-tuned universe. but in this episode, i am, as slavoy refers to me, merely the middleman and a wallflower, along with pins. so i don't do much of the talking. so sean and slavoy, while i giggle in the background, do talk about quantum mechanics, the indeterminacy of small scale reality. cosmology and the big bang, some major figures like niels bohr, einstein, stephen hawking, and then the world of sci-fi, including movies like everything everywhere all at once, indiana jones, and the avengers. and now one thing that i really have to mention, so pay attention now, is that sean carroll is an honorary fellow of the john bell institute for the foundations of physics, which is directed by another robinson's podcast alus alumnus, and that is tim modlin of nyu. it's at this point, still very much a nascent organization trying to secure its home. and it is meant to give a home to many of the topics that we discussed today and really has the who's who in the foundations of physics as contributors. and the jbi can really use any donations at this point. in their early history. i've donated once and will certainly donate again as soon as my meager budget allows it. so anything you contribute will be greatly appreciated by the jbi. and finally, there are links to sean's website, sean's twitter, and the biggest ideas in the universe in the description. so without any further ado, i hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation as much as i didn't so much have it, but got to enjoy listening to it as it happened myself. slavo, you're very well known for thinking about a lot of topics and marxism, psychoanalysis, and hegel come to mind, but quantum physics isn't one of them. so just to get us started. when did qm and the various quantum theories catch your philosophical interest to the point that you've been concertedly writing and thinking about it a lot more lately? it might it's.
yeah. yeah. hello, my geings. it is mother goose robinson erhardt here with the podcast and the introduction to robinson's podcast number 118, which incidentally confirms that we are on a very strange branch of the wave function because my guests are slavoj zizek and sean carroll. and i will keep their bios short since everyone knows them. but slavoj is international director of the birkbeck institute for the humanities at the university of london and a senior researcher at the university of ljubljana's department of philosophy. he was also the guest on episode 109, which was all about psychoanalysis, wokeness, racism, sexism, nazis, curb your enthusiasm, and a hundred other things. it would be impossible to encapsulate all of the topics that we cover without talking talking for 90 minutes, the length of our episode. but sean carroll, on the other hand is actually a quantum physicist. he is a cosmologist, a philosopher. he's homewood professor of natural philosophy at johns hopkins university and fractal faculty at the santa fe institute. he's also host of sean carroll's mindscape, which is an absolutely terrific show. i love it. i've listened to every episode on science, society, philosophy, culture, arts, ideas, and anything else sean has been thinking about. but sean, along with david albert of columbia, was a guest on episode 106, which covered the many worlds theory of quantum mechanics in great detail. and then we also talked about entropy and the enduringly fascinating topic of boltzmann brains and then the fine-tuned universe. but in this episode, i am, as slavoy refers to me, merely the middleman and a wallflower, along with pins. so i don't do much of the talking. so sean and slavoy, while i giggle in the background, do talk about quantum mechanics, the indeterminacy of small scale reality. cosmology and the big bang, some major figures like niels bohr, einstein, stephen hawking, and then the world of sci-fi, including movies like everything everywhere all at once, indiana jones, and the avengers. and now one thing that i really have to mention, so pay attention now, is that sean carroll is an honorary fellow of the john bell institute for the foundations of physics, which is directed by another robinson's podcast alus alumnus, and that is tim modlin of nyu. it's at this point, still very much a nascent organization trying to secure its home. and it is meant to give a home to many of the topics that we discussed today and really has the who's who in the foundations of physics as contributors. and the jbi can really use any donations at this point. in their early history. i've donated once and will certainly donate again as soon as my meager budget allows it. so anything you contribute will be greatly appreciated by the jbi. and finally, there are links to sean's website, sean's twitter, and the biggest ideas in the universe in the description. so without any further ado, i hope you enjoy this wide-ranging conversation as much as i didn't so much have it, but got to enjoy listening to it as it happened myself. slavo, you're very well known for thinking about a lot of topics and marxism, psychoanalysis, and hegel come to mind, but quantum physics isn't one of them. so just to get us started. when did qm and the various quantum theories catch your philosophical interest to the point that you've been concertedly writing and thinking about it a lot more lately? it might it's.
Slavoj Žižek
quite. series of topics. the first one is my philosophical obsession, i've written about it repeatedly and so on, and sean this is already to provoke you, interrupt me at any point, is what absolutely fascinates me in quantum physics is, again, maybe it's already wrong i will say, this idea of, to put it in philosophical terms, uh ontological incompleteness. for example, the point is not we cannot measure at the same time position and movement. that's for me not radical enough. it still means the particle has a measure in the position we just movement and position, we just can't measure it. but what if in more radical reading reality is in itself ontologically incomplete. the point is not that if you analyze reality to the end, you will get a complete a complete description with everything at its place and so and so on and as far as i can see. that now you will ask me, how does this link with my philosophy? because it's a very unorthodox reading. in mein read he of schgel. the final result is not you get the whole tr. the final result is that what you thought was just an epistemological obstacle, like we cannot get it all, just one aspect of the other, the final result is when you realize that what appeared to you as a limitation of your knowledge is defines already the reality itself. reality is in itself incomplete. now i follow debates and i know the problems with this. if she known in the united states, he being sabine hossenfelder, the german one. her idea is, i'm sure you know a thousand times better than me, is super determinism. and basically her idea is, if i follow it correctly, on einstein's line, hidden variables and so on, we just don't know it. where i see an interesting point that she makes is, and now comes sean my first question to you. some physicists! look quantum true i spoke not as highly graded as you insisted that all this focus on not the agent, what triggers the so-called collapse of the wave function, that is a secondary unimportant problem. that you can, even, this is the radical tendency if i got it correctly, that you can define. collect even in an object this way. what comes to my mind are so-called decocoherence theories. or another version is a quantity that as soon as the object is no longer a d. this subarticle level but becomes part of our reality. automatically die deherence. ehens now this brings me to another point i hope will have time later to approach it, which is time and space. do you agree because i was informed that this is also one of your topics. is it true or not that this sh variables einstein view is more focused on space as a more primary dimension. didn't einstein even at some point propose the theory that what we perceive as time, time movement, is really just moving along a certain spatial line and so on. on the other hand, there are many others, and for obvious reasons it's closer to me, who claim that. time is more. radical primordial but let's begin with this with what i told you all this problem and i know ah
quite. series of topics. the first one is my philosophical obsession, i've written about it repeatedly and so on, and sean this is already to provoke you, interrupt me at any point, is what absolutely fascinates me in quantum physics is, again, maybe it's already wrong i will say, this idea of, to put it in philosophical terms, uh ontological incompleteness. for example, the point is not we cannot measure at the same time position and movement. that's for me not radical enough. it still means the particle has a measure in the position we just movement and position, we just can't measure it. but what if in more radical reading reality is in itself ontologically incomplete. the point is not that if you analyze reality to the end, you will get a complete a complete description with everything at its place and so and so on and as far as i can see. that now you will ask me, how does this link with my philosophy? because it's a very unorthodox reading. in mein read he of schgel. the final result is not you get the whole tr. the final result is that what you thought was just an epistemological obstacle, like we cannot get it all, just one aspect of the other, the final result is when you realize that what appeared to you as a limitation of your knowledge is defines already the reality itself. reality is in itself incomplete. now i follow debates and i know the problems with this. if she known in the united states, he being sabine hossenfelder, the german one. her idea is, i'm sure you know a thousand times better than me, is super determinism. and basically her idea is, if i follow it correctly, on einstein's line, hidden variables and so on, we just don't know it. where i see an interesting point that she makes is, and now comes sean my first question to you. some physicists! look quantum true i spoke not as highly graded as you insisted that all this focus on not the agent, what triggers the so-called collapse of the wave function, that is a secondary unimportant problem. that you can, even, this is the radical tendency if i got it correctly, that you can define. collect even in an object this way. what comes to my mind are so-called decocoherence theories. or another version is a quantity that as soon as the object is no longer a d. this subarticle level but becomes part of our reality. automatically die deherence. ehens now this brings me to another point i hope will have time later to approach it, which is time and space. do you agree because i was informed that this is also one of your topics. is it true or not that this sh variables einstein view is more focused on space as a more primary dimension. didn't einstein even at some point propose the theory that what we perceive as time, time movement, is really just moving along a certain spatial line and so on. on the other hand, there are many others, and for obvious reasons it's closer to me, who claim that. time is more. radical primordial but let's begin with this with what i told you all this problem and i know ah
Sean Carroll
i think so
i think so
Slavoj Žižek
so collapse of wave function observer registration, when does it happen? because i find other different versions up to the cosmological one that it's god himself who is the ultimate observer, no reality without god. and to this more modest version whatever, okay, teach me where i am totally using my mind and tell me at least the state.
so collapse of wave function observer registration, when does it happen? because i find other different versions up to the cosmological one that it's god himself who is the ultimate observer, no reality without god. and to this more modest version whatever, okay, teach me where i am totally using my mind and tell me at least the state.
Sean Carroll
of the things today. i think this is very good because the time and space questions that you're raising are very, very good, but they come later. so the quantum mechanics collapse of the wave function questions come first. and to me, it's extremely embarrassing, but true, that physicists don't know what to think about exactly the questions that you are raising. so let me just quickly run through some of the options, because there are sensible people who believe all of them. you know, the fundamental fact that we're trying to. accommodate ourselves to is that we have a way of describing the world. that is super duper successful with what we call a wave function, a quantum state, the schrodinger equation, all this mathematical apparatus. but then when we look at it, when we measure it, when we perceive it or experience it, we don't see. that wave function we see a position or a momentum some observable quantity between is
of the things today. i think this is very good because the time and space questions that you're raising are very, very good, but they come later. so the quantum mechanics collapse of the wave function questions come first. and to me, it's extremely embarrassing, but true, that physicists don't know what to think about exactly the questions that you are raising. so let me just quickly run through some of the options, because there are sensible people who believe all of them. you know, the fundamental fact that we're trying to. accommodate ourselves to is that we have a way of describing the world. that is super duper successful with what we call a wave function, a quantum state, the schrodinger equation, all this mathematical apparatus. but then when we look at it, when we measure it, when we perceive it or experience it, we don't see. that wave function we see a position or a momentum some observable quantity between is
Slavoj Žižek
i.
i.
Sean Carroll
reality what we see always. well, we... yes, i don't want to prejudice by deciding what is ordinary reality yet, but we see things. and the things we see, i think what you're getting at is they do. remind us of what we thought the universe was back in the days of classical mechanics. newton would have said that there is a position, there is a velocity. now we say, well, we observe those, but that's not how we discuss what's really going on. so i can quickly run through at least three options that are very much on the table. there is a very conservative way of going where you say there really are positions and velocities. those are real things. and there is also something called the wave function, and it's a whole big complicated mess. and that is the hidden variables approach that, like you say, einstein would have liked. there are still people who follow that, mostly in the context of what is called boian mechanics.. both a wave function so we do graphic.
reality what we see always. well, we... yes, i don't want to prejudice by deciding what is ordinary reality yet, but we see things. and the things we see, i think what you're getting at is they do. remind us of what we thought the universe was back in the days of classical mechanics. newton would have said that there is a position, there is a velocity. now we say, well, we observe those, but that's not how we discuss what's really going on. so i can quickly run through at least three options that are very much on the table. there is a very conservative way of going where you say there really are positions and velocities. those are real things. and there is also something called the wave function, and it's a whole big complicated mess. and that is the hidden variables approach that, like you say, einstein would have liked. there are still people who follow that, mostly in the context of what is called boian mechanics.. both a wave function so we do graphic.
Slavoj Žižek
what i wanted to say, how does these pilot waves isn't this still? they are the substantial entity are particles or whatever, and you just accompany them as a capable aura with wave band, you know.
what i wanted to say, how does these pilot waves isn't this still? they are the substantial entity are particles or whatever, and you just accompany them as a capable aura with wave band, you know.
Sean Carroll
you know, i have to be honest, i'm not sympathetic to this point of view.
you know, i have to be honest, i'm not sympathetic to this point of view.
Slavoj Žižek
but
but
Sean Carroll
i have trouble defending.
i have trouble defending.
Slavoj Žižek
for purely philosophical reasons i am not sympathetic, but let me now directly move to the third degree. but my kgb file on you tells me that you are sympathetic to many worlds. reading.
for purely philosophical reasons i am not sympathetic, but let me now directly move to the third degree. but my kgb file on you tells me that you are sympathetic to many worlds. reading.
Sean Carroll
that's going to be the third of the three options i give you. i've given you one. sorry, go on. yes, sorry. yes. one is hidden variables, just like you said. the second is more or less what you were pointing to yourself at the beginning there, which is the most radical one, which is essentially to deny the existence of reality, or at least to deny the existence of something that is mathematically precise and that preexists our observations. to make this incredibly radical move. that says that we can calculate the probability of what our observations will be, and we can then make them, and when we see them, they're real, but there was no such thing as what they were before we observed them. there was only this instrumentalist kind of calculation. and weirdly, even though that is clearly the most radical and hard to really wrap your brain around, that's the one that came first. that's the more or less. what niels bohr and werner heisenberg would have advocated, you know a completely epistemic instrumental approach to thank you quantum. yeah. whereas the third option i would give you is a happy medium where you say there's the wave function, and that's it. there is nothing else. and the wave function does not collapse, and there are no extra variables. and the schrroddinger equation, which tells you how the wave function evolves, is always true, just like newton's laws were always true in classical mechanics. and the crucially important thing to make that viable is because when we look at things, like i said, we don't see the wave function, so if it's what is real, why don't we see it? and the answer is that we have a wave function ourselves, and we have superpositions of who we are, and they all exist. but the we that does the observing and the experiencing is only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is going on in the whole wave function. so we call this many worlds. and it is, on the one hand, the most simple and straightforward working version of quantum mechanics. on the other hand, it makes you a little bit dizzy to think that all these different worlds are coming into being. and i would put super determinism and sabina's theories, which come from other people also, as a fourth category, which is even wackier than the ones that i've told you about, but we can talk about them if you want. yeah.
that's going to be the third of the three options i give you. i've given you one. sorry, go on. yes, sorry. yes. one is hidden variables, just like you said. the second is more or less what you were pointing to yourself at the beginning there, which is the most radical one, which is essentially to deny the existence of reality, or at least to deny the existence of something that is mathematically precise and that preexists our observations. to make this incredibly radical move. that says that we can calculate the probability of what our observations will be, and we can then make them, and when we see them, they're real, but there was no such thing as what they were before we observed them. there was only this instrumentalist kind of calculation. and weirdly, even though that is clearly the most radical and hard to really wrap your brain around, that's the one that came first. that's the more or less. what niels bohr and werner heisenberg would have advocated, you know a completely epistemic instrumental approach to thank you quantum. yeah. whereas the third option i would give you is a happy medium where you say there's the wave function, and that's it. there is nothing else. and the wave function does not collapse, and there are no extra variables. and the schrroddinger equation, which tells you how the wave function evolves, is always true, just like newton's laws were always true in classical mechanics. and the crucially important thing to make that viable is because when we look at things, like i said, we don't see the wave function, so if it's what is real, why don't we see it? and the answer is that we have a wave function ourselves, and we have superpositions of who we are, and they all exist. but the we that does the observing and the experiencing is only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is going on in the whole wave function. so we call this many worlds. and it is, on the one hand, the most simple and straightforward working version of quantum mechanics. on the other hand, it makes you a little bit dizzy to think that all these different worlds are coming into being. and i would put super determinism and sabina's theories, which come from other people also, as a fourth category, which is even wackier than the ones that i've told you about, but we can talk about them if you want. yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
thanks very much. this is so helpful. okay, my first, sorry to go on in this police style, my problem is the standard reproach that i heard. that i hear and read about many worlds is that. y. one cannot even imagine how to test it with today's knowledge. that it's just an empty hypothesis, it resolves such many paradoxes, blah blah, but with today's knowledge we cannot get a clear test. good.
thanks very much. this is so helpful. okay, my first, sorry to go on in this police style, my problem is the standard reproach that i heard. that i hear and read about many worlds is that. y. one cannot even imagine how to test it with today's knowledge. that it's just an empty hypothesis, it resolves such many paradoxes, blah blah, but with today's knowledge we cannot get a clear test. good.
Sean Carroll
this think made the case.
this think made the case.
Slavoj Žižek
y.
y.
Sean Carroll
but you do hear.
but you do hear.
Slavoj Žižek
it a lot. please.
it a lot. please.
Sean Carroll
so it depends on what you mean by test, and we have to get very carefully into the philosophy of science here, right? for two reasons. if what you mean by test is just the... very naive falsifiability kind of idea that carl popper would have put forward, right? can you rule out the theory by doing some experiment? then the answer is clearly and straightforwardly yes, because the theory just says that there is a wave function and all it ever does is obey this particular equation. so if you ever see the wave function not obeying that equation, you have ruled out the theory, you have falsified it. and there are, i didn't mention, but there are other versions of quantum mechanics that predict exactly that in a very quantitative and testable way. so far, what we call the objective collapse of the wave function has not been observed in experiment, but as soon as we do observe it, if that ever happens, we will rule out many worlds.
so it depends on what you mean by test, and we have to get very carefully into the philosophy of science here, right? for two reasons. if what you mean by test is just the... very naive falsifiability kind of idea that carl popper would have put forward, right? can you rule out the theory by doing some experiment? then the answer is clearly and straightforwardly yes, because the theory just says that there is a wave function and all it ever does is obey this particular equation. so if you ever see the wave function not obeying that equation, you have ruled out the theory, you have falsified it. and there are, i didn't mention, but there are other versions of quantum mechanics that predict exactly that in a very quantitative and testable way. so far, what we call the objective collapse of the wave function has not been observed in experiment, but as soon as we do observe it, if that ever happens, we will rule out many worlds.
Slavoj Žižek
no sorry to interrupt you but when you say has not been observed so you don't buy this simplistic materialist i also don't buy it version which says that no problem collapse happens all the time in reality and so on and you try to define registration or decoherence in a totally objective way. you don't buy this.
no sorry to interrupt you but when you say has not been observed so you don't buy this simplistic materialist i also don't buy it version which says that no problem collapse happens all the time in reality and so on and you try to define registration or decoherence in a totally objective way. you don't buy this.
Sean Carroll
well, i am super duper materialist, but i think that the only thing the wave function ever does is obey the schroddinger equation. it does not collapse all by itself. so the alternatives, there are sort of sub degrees within this materialist, physicalist camp. people like me think it's the schrodinger equation from start to finish, and what we perceive as collapses are only apparent because we're not seeing the whole story. there are other people like roger penrose or others who think that the wave function violates the schrodinger equation by suddenly collapsing on itself. i think that's very, very difficult to actually define a theory that works along those lines, but it does have the nice quality that it's very, very testable and it's very, very different in its predictions from what many worlds is. okay, my there's the other.
well, i am super duper materialist, but i think that the only thing the wave function ever does is obey the schroddinger equation. it does not collapse all by itself. so the alternatives, there are sort of sub degrees within this materialist, physicalist camp. people like me think it's the schrodinger equation from start to finish, and what we perceive as collapses are only apparent because we're not seeing the whole story. there are other people like roger penrose or others who think that the wave function violates the schrodinger equation by suddenly collapsing on itself. i think that's very, very difficult to actually define a theory that works along those lines, but it does have the nice quality that it's very, very testable and it's very, very different in its predictions from what many worlds is. okay, my there's the other.
Slavoj Žižek
sorry and sorry please, i will discipline myself finished.
sorry and sorry please, i will discipline myself finished.
Sean Carroll
there's the other even more subtle philosophy of science question, which is, okay, but what about many worlds versus the copenhagen interpretation or bohine mechanics or something like that? and these are all very tricky, worthwhile asking questions. my answer is the following. the problem with copenhagen. versus many worlds, is that copenhagen is not a theory. it is not precise. it does not tell you when wave functions collapse, what a measurement is, what qualifies as a measuring apparatus. it's not that i can't test it. it doesn't even tell me what the predictions are or what the ontology is. so if you're comparing many worlds to copenhagen, it's not a fair fight because one theory is well-defined and the other one isn't. it is true that as far as i know, they have no difference. in terms of experimental predictions, but they have huge differences in terms of being well defined. whereas with... pile the wave theories bum. mechanics hidden variable theories, those are well-defined. i would like to be able to distinguish many worlds from them. i have a deep suspicion that they are experimentally distinguishable, but nobody has actually pinpointed what that difference is. so that is, to me, an open question. i think that there's a lot of bhmians. who think that their predictions are exactly the same as many worlds, i suspect they've not just been trying hard enough. but okay, now i
there's the other even more subtle philosophy of science question, which is, okay, but what about many worlds versus the copenhagen interpretation or bohine mechanics or something like that? and these are all very tricky, worthwhile asking questions. my answer is the following. the problem with copenhagen. versus many worlds, is that copenhagen is not a theory. it is not precise. it does not tell you when wave functions collapse, what a measurement is, what qualifies as a measuring apparatus. it's not that i can't test it. it doesn't even tell me what the predictions are or what the ontology is. so if you're comparing many worlds to copenhagen, it's not a fair fight because one theory is well-defined and the other one isn't. it is true that as far as i know, they have no difference. in terms of experimental predictions, but they have huge differences in terms of being well defined. whereas with... pile the wave theories bum. mechanics hidden variable theories, those are well-defined. i would like to be able to distinguish many worlds from them. i have a deep suspicion that they are experimentally distinguishable, but nobody has actually pinpointed what that difference is. so that is, to me, an open question. i think that there's a lot of bhmians. who think that their predictions are exactly the same as many worlds, i suspect they've not just been trying hard enough. but okay, now i
Slavoj Žižek
try try to be more precise. i agree with you, isn't even one about niels bhr. there is even one. very vicious, but i like vicious formulations point that it repeats almost what that the basic formula of copenhagen interpretation is don't think, just calculate. don't even ask these questions. what? uh... okay. let me go step by step. my problem with many worlds is that. the way you put it, i would love this. where only wave oscillations collapse is something that appears to lot blah blah, but isn't in some sense although when i say in some sense, i don't mean it in a precise scientific sense, but it seems to me that that many words interpretation simply multiplies realities. we lose a sense to everything is true. in the sense of all possible variations are true. so what i, and in some sense, what fascinates me, the ontological incompleteness, again disappears. everything is fully there. the problem is our limited standpoint. am i missing something here?
try try to be more precise. i agree with you, isn't even one about niels bhr. there is even one. very vicious, but i like vicious formulations point that it repeats almost what that the basic formula of copenhagen interpretation is don't think, just calculate. don't even ask these questions. what? uh... okay. let me go step by step. my problem with many worlds is that. the way you put it, i would love this. where only wave oscillations collapse is something that appears to lot blah blah, but isn't in some sense although when i say in some sense, i don't mean it in a precise scientific sense, but it seems to me that that many words interpretation simply multiplies realities. we lose a sense to everything is true. in the sense of all possible variations are true. so what i, and in some sense, what fascinates me, the ontological incompleteness, again disappears. everything is fully there. the problem is our limited standpoint. am i missing something here?
Sean Carroll
yeah, so i'm happy about this one because you are missing something and i can help. yeah, yeah. pro. two, two points worth making. one is that it is certainly not true that within many worlds every possibility exists. it's very easy to point to possible worlds that don't come into existence. what many worlds says, after all, is that we obey the schroddinger equation, and that implies a lot. for example, electric charge is conserved. i can imagine a world where a proton spontaneously turns into an electron. there is no such world in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. there are many, many imaginable worlds that just don't come to be. the second issue, which is much more subtle and worth, you know, you're allowed to disagree with many worlds on this one is many worlds not only says here's the bunch of worlds, it says that the worlds don't count equally. that there is a weight or a thickness to them. and that helps explain why in quantum mechanics you predict there's a probability for x or a probability for y, but the probability for x is 99% and the probability for y is 1%. and that's a crucially important part of many worlds that you don't necessarily get if you're just thinking about david lewis and possible worlds or something like that, right? many worlds ontifies how big the worlds are, and that's crucially important. but oh.
yeah, so i'm happy about this one because you are missing something and i can help. yeah, yeah. pro. two, two points worth making. one is that it is certainly not true that within many worlds every possibility exists. it's very easy to point to possible worlds that don't come into existence. what many worlds says, after all, is that we obey the schroddinger equation, and that implies a lot. for example, electric charge is conserved. i can imagine a world where a proton spontaneously turns into an electron. there is no such world in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. there are many, many imaginable worlds that just don't come to be. the second issue, which is much more subtle and worth, you know, you're allowed to disagree with many worlds on this one is many worlds not only says here's the bunch of worlds, it says that the worlds don't count equally. that there is a weight or a thickness to them. and that helps explain why in quantum mechanics you predict there's a probability for x or a probability for y, but the probability for x is 99% and the probability for y is 1%. and that's a crucially important part of many worlds that you don't necessarily get if you're just thinking about david lewis and possible worlds or something like that, right? many worlds ontifies how big the worlds are, and that's crucially important. but oh.
Slavoj Žižek
now i would like my police instinct again comes into action. when you say how big worlds are, is this a ontological category in the sense that some worlds are, sorry to use this term, you can exploit, in some sense more substantially real than others? or can you? specify a little bit more this idea of more and less whichever way you name it deak or strong don.
now i would like my police instinct again comes into action. when you say how big worlds are, is this a ontological category in the sense that some worlds are, sorry to use this term, you can exploit, in some sense more substantially real than others? or can you? specify a little bit more this idea of more and less whichever way you name it deak or strong don.
Sean Carroll
gude.
gude.
Slavoj Žižek
it.
it.
Sean Carroll
well, you know, and i do say the following thing often and always makes me feel bad, but this is something where if we write down the equations, it's crystal clear. in words, it's hard. but the answer is that it's not that one world is more real. then another, they're both real.'s let's take the 99% versus 1% example. they're both real. but the way it works out is if you don't know the outcome of the experiment. so you do the experiment, you make the observation, and you haven't looked yet. so maybe you're in the 99% world, maybe you're in the 1% world, right? the impact of this calculation, which is completely quantitative, is that you should assign a credence of 0.99 to being in the 99% world and a credence of 0.01. to being in the 1% world. so they're both real, but you're not equally likely to find yourself in them. what they you steal don't get
well, you know, and i do say the following thing often and always makes me feel bad, but this is something where if we write down the equations, it's crystal clear. in words, it's hard. but the answer is that it's not that one world is more real. then another, they're both real.'s let's take the 99% versus 1% example. they're both real. but the way it works out is if you don't know the outcome of the experiment. so you do the experiment, you make the observation, and you haven't looked yet. so maybe you're in the 99% world, maybe you're in the 1% world, right? the impact of this calculation, which is completely quantitative, is that you should assign a credence of 0.99 to being in the 99% world and a credence of 0.01. to being in the 1% world. so they're both real, but you're not equally likely to find yourself in them. what they you steal don't get
Slavoj Žižek
and sorry, i... although i'm totally opposed like you to that, hidden variables in the sense of there is one single substantial reality, that what i still don't get here is... okay schrödinger equation said 99% blah blah. then i agree with you because of our limited standpoint. something happens. why insist that parallel or i don't like the word parallel it's too physical that at the same time. another reality. exists. alternate what
and sorry, i... although i'm totally opposed like you to that, hidden variables in the sense of there is one single substantial reality, that what i still don't get here is... okay schrödinger equation said 99% blah blah. then i agree with you because of our limited standpoint. something happens. why insist that parallel or i don't like the word parallel it's too physical that at the same time. another reality. exists. alternate what
Sean Carroll
what do you gain by this? nobody wants this to be the case. nobody is insisting that both worlds are there. that is the prediction of the schrodinger equation. and the question is, you can neither accept it. like i think of what hugh everett did as more therapeutic. he was a jacques lacan of physics. he wasn't writing down new equations. he was just saying, here are the equations. here are their implications. you have to deal with it. or... you can modify the theory. you can do violence to the schrodinger equation to get rid of the other world if that makes you feel better. and you're welcome to try to do that. that's basically what the hidden variables people are trying to do. they're trying to invent a finger that points to one world. and says, here's the one we're actually in. the others are there, but there's only one that we're actually in. that's why david deutsch, for example, says that hidden variable peoples are just... many world's people in denial. because they know the other worlds are there. they just don't want to live in that.
what do you gain by this? nobody wants this to be the case. nobody is insisting that both worlds are there. that is the prediction of the schrodinger equation. and the question is, you can neither accept it. like i think of what hugh everett did as more therapeutic. he was a jacques lacan of physics. he wasn't writing down new equations. he was just saying, here are the equations. here are their implications. you have to deal with it. or... you can modify the theory. you can do violence to the schrodinger equation to get rid of the other world if that makes you feel better. and you're welcome to try to do that. that's basically what the hidden variables people are trying to do. they're trying to invent a finger that points to one world. and says, here's the one we're actually in. the others are there, but there's only one that we're actually in. that's why david deutsch, for example, says that hidden variable peoples are just... many world's people in denial. because they know the other worlds are there. they just don't want to live in that.
Slavoj Žižek
formulations back to okay back to the opposite vision back to niels bohr i was surprised at how at some level, he is ultra common sense realist. doesn't he repeatedly say? all that we can observe, all that exists out there is our common reality. everything that we measure. it shows on the screen with measuring apparatus in our common reality. so he insists that all these wave function formulas and so on, they have no ontological status in the sense that we have to presuppose another type of reality. he insists that it's simply, and here he escapes, i think, too easily into some kind of naive epistemology reason. says these are just our mathematical means formulas or sometimes he says language symbolic fictions to account for how did we come from a to b? but both a and b are firmly here. so does he ever try to make a step further, and know i will be very precise here and not i am laughing but not substantially because what will then in this view prove? i of course follow this with fascination this year she remembered the three guys. the old french one alain aspect and the zeilinger, an austrian man and the third man is american, i think or whatever, no what did they? really? proof isn't less. in what they say a little bit more realistic tendency that in some sense there must be a level of reality which works reality, whatever you call it, out there that works. in a different way from our ordinary anotherality another thing, usually what they did is with these experiments is usually read as bo's victory against einstein. but isn't it more complex because they didn't prove that there is no that there is pure contingency. no, they only proved that if you go to particle a, this then the correlated particle b down up, but this only means that there is no link at the level of speed of light or lower. there still can be a in at the higher level. higher, okay. outside. look.
formulations back to okay back to the opposite vision back to niels bohr i was surprised at how at some level, he is ultra common sense realist. doesn't he repeatedly say? all that we can observe, all that exists out there is our common reality. everything that we measure. it shows on the screen with measuring apparatus in our common reality. so he insists that all these wave function formulas and so on, they have no ontological status in the sense that we have to presuppose another type of reality. he insists that it's simply, and here he escapes, i think, too easily into some kind of naive epistemology reason. says these are just our mathematical means formulas or sometimes he says language symbolic fictions to account for how did we come from a to b? but both a and b are firmly here. so does he ever try to make a step further, and know i will be very precise here and not i am laughing but not substantially because what will then in this view prove? i of course follow this with fascination this year she remembered the three guys. the old french one alain aspect and the zeilinger, an austrian man and the third man is american, i think or whatever, no what did they? really? proof isn't less. in what they say a little bit more realistic tendency that in some sense there must be a level of reality which works reality, whatever you call it, out there that works. in a different way from our ordinary anotherality another thing, usually what they did is with these experiments is usually read as bo's victory against einstein. but isn't it more complex because they didn't prove that there is no that there is pure contingency. no, they only proved that if you go to particle a, this then the correlated particle b down up, but this only means that there is no link at the level of speed of light or lower. there still can be a in at the higher level. higher, okay. outside. look.
Sean Carroll
exactly, that's exactly right. bohr has his, you know, i don't read a lot of niels bohr. he's famously hard to understand, but he has his modern avatars, right? there are people alive right now who very much think that reality does not preexist our measurement outcomes. and as you imply, einstein, as well as schrodinger for that matter, were very much on the other side. they were very much physicalists, materialists. wanted to see the mechanisms behind what was going on before we made our observations. the problem that they had, as you're pointing to, is that they had a, you know, einstein invented relativity. he thought that spaceetime was very fundamental and the speed of light was absolute. so what he pointed out in the famous epr paper, einstein, podolsky, and rosen.
exactly, that's exactly right. bohr has his, you know, i don't read a lot of niels bohr. he's famously hard to understand, but he has his modern avatars, right? there are people alive right now who very much think that reality does not preexist our measurement outcomes. and as you imply, einstein, as well as schrodinger for that matter, were very much on the other side. they were very much physicalists, materialists. wanted to see the mechanisms behind what was going on before we made our observations. the problem that they had, as you're pointing to, is that they had a, you know, einstein invented relativity. he thought that spaceetime was very fundamental and the speed of light was absolute. so what he pointed out in the famous epr paper, einstein, podolsky, and rosen.
Slavoj Žižek
go. is i.
go. is i.
Sean Carroll
why. but maybe the audience doesn't, so i'm trying to be careful. you know, quantum mechanics seems, he said, to be incomplete with any kind of underlying theory that would take locality seriously, the idea that not only is there space and time, but things that exist. have locations in space and time, and things that interact do so at the same point of space and time. and einstein says quantum mechanics seems to be incompatible with that. and john bell proved a theorem saying, yes, it truly is incompatible with that. and then the people who measured their correlated photons, their entangled photons, aspey, kuser, and zeilinger, verified that bell was correct, that you cannot reproduce the predictions that we observe in the real world with any naively locally realist theory.
why. but maybe the audience doesn't, so i'm trying to be careful. you know, quantum mechanics seems, he said, to be incomplete with any kind of underlying theory that would take locality seriously, the idea that not only is there space and time, but things that exist. have locations in space and time, and things that interact do so at the same point of space and time. and einstein says quantum mechanics seems to be incompatible with that. and john bell proved a theorem saying, yes, it truly is incompatible with that. and then the people who measured their correlated photons, their entangled photons, aspey, kuser, and zeilinger, verified that bell was correct, that you cannot reproduce the predictions that we observe in the real world with any naively locally realist theory.
Slavoj Žižek
only no either.
only no either.
Sean Carroll
only locally. it must be locally.
only locally. it must be locally.
Slavoj Žižek
only
only
Sean Carroll
ex, exactly. so even amusingly, even the nobel committee got this wrong in their press release. they said that these experiments ruled out hidden variable theories, but that's just false. they ruled out...
ex, exactly. so even amusingly, even the nobel committee got this wrong in their press release. they said that these experiments ruled out hidden variable theories, but that's just false. they ruled out...
Slavoj Žižek
i'm so glad that you made this because this was my first reaction. sorry, it doesn't rule out all hidden variables, just those it does not all.
i'm so glad that you made this because this was my first reaction. sorry, it doesn't rule out all hidden variables, just those it does not all.
Sean Carroll
in fact, just to make this story more amusing, john bell was motivated by the fact that david bohm had written down a non-local hidden variable theory that was very successful. and bell really liked bohm's theory and he asked himself, is it, you know, bohm's theory is clearly manifestly non-local. is that a necessary quality or can we get rid of it? and what you proved is you cannot get rid of it. it's necessary if you want to match the data.
in fact, just to make this story more amusing, john bell was motivated by the fact that david bohm had written down a non-local hidden variable theory that was very successful. and bell really liked bohm's theory and he asked himself, is it, you know, bohm's theory is clearly manifestly non-local. is that a necessary quality or can we get rid of it? and what you proved is you cannot get rid of it. it's necessary if you want to match the data.
Slavoj Žižek
but again uh here, first, sorry, let me return for a brief moment to niels bohr. i hope we are both here on the material side in the sense that what i worry is not so much this direct new age spiritual reappropriation. if i were to be a ruler of a stalinist empire, if you say as aaret somewhere, some indian idiot, not native american, india, said, oh but all the childinger those guys proved is not we indians snow from upaneshar from bagabad, you know all that bullshit. even the movie, i haven't seen it, but it didn't prevent me to write a review of it. oppenheimer goes into this, you know, all those quoting bhagavad gita and the destroyer of the world, whatever. so even even bo was not clear here. when is he, what's his principle? sorry, i'm so confused now complementarity, yeah? he had this tendency to falsely universalize it in a pseudo-spiritualist way. for example, he said it's not just particles, it's also, he said, the bible then, then wisdom versus knowledge and all that bullshit and so on. so this is where we need, we materialist intellectual police, no? we need some agency to say, the moment you mention this, do you know what i give you here? one-way ticket first class to bulak for 10 years. no but seriously, isn't this that why work also and why quantum physics interests me? because precisely because it breaks the confines of our ordinary notion of reality, it is always exposed to this pseudo-spiritual east. danger. so my my problem here is i read this and i learn also from people like you that that golden era of copenhagen shut up don't calculate is over. we are returning to what traditionally is called ontological metaphysical questions. my temptation is, and please tell me from what you know, am i totally wrong or not? if i, you know work vacc me in this del theorem theorem, no? what if... this element of maybe even contingency is not the right term, just this. openness, not full determinism and so on. are we back with many worlds in determinism or do is this openness of the universe maintained? wonderful idea for me that you love, even if you look at details, details. no, it's not. you discover deep at some point reality is blank, open. i would like, as a philosopher for non-scientific interest to save this. hit me. i mean,
but again uh here, first, sorry, let me return for a brief moment to niels bohr. i hope we are both here on the material side in the sense that what i worry is not so much this direct new age spiritual reappropriation. if i were to be a ruler of a stalinist empire, if you say as aaret somewhere, some indian idiot, not native american, india, said, oh but all the childinger those guys proved is not we indians snow from upaneshar from bagabad, you know all that bullshit. even the movie, i haven't seen it, but it didn't prevent me to write a review of it. oppenheimer goes into this, you know, all those quoting bhagavad gita and the destroyer of the world, whatever. so even even bo was not clear here. when is he, what's his principle? sorry, i'm so confused now complementarity, yeah? he had this tendency to falsely universalize it in a pseudo-spiritualist way. for example, he said it's not just particles, it's also, he said, the bible then, then wisdom versus knowledge and all that bullshit and so on. so this is where we need, we materialist intellectual police, no? we need some agency to say, the moment you mention this, do you know what i give you here? one-way ticket first class to bulak for 10 years. no but seriously, isn't this that why work also and why quantum physics interests me? because precisely because it breaks the confines of our ordinary notion of reality, it is always exposed to this pseudo-spiritual east. danger. so my my problem here is i read this and i learn also from people like you that that golden era of copenhagen shut up don't calculate is over. we are returning to what traditionally is called ontological metaphysical questions. my temptation is, and please tell me from what you know, am i totally wrong or not? if i, you know work vacc me in this del theorem theorem, no? what if... this element of maybe even contingency is not the right term, just this. openness, not full determinism and so on. are we back with many worlds in determinism or do is this openness of the universe maintained? wonderful idea for me that you love, even if you look at details, details. no, it's not. you discover deep at some point reality is blank, open. i would like, as a philosopher for non-scientific interest to save this. hit me. i mean,
Sean Carroll
i think that two things, you know, your characterization of bohr is right on. not only was his philosophy of quantum mechanics a little bit fuzzy with not defining what he meant by measurement and whatever, but he did, you know, unabashedly connect it to ideas from ancient eastern wisdom and.
i think that two things, you know, your characterization of bohr is right on. not only was his philosophy of quantum mechanics a little bit fuzzy with not defining what he meant by measurement and whatever, but he did, you know, unabashedly connect it to ideas from ancient eastern wisdom and.
Slavoj Žižek
and was the in him. even eastern wisdom, he was. oh my god. he was. and to anyone's benefit.
and was the in him. even eastern wisdom, he was. oh my god. he was. and to anyone's benefit.
Sean Carroll
pol.
pol.
Slavoj Žižek
when we take power. yeah. right.
when we take power. yeah. right.
Sean Carroll
ah.
ah.
Slavoj Žižek
but
but
Sean Carroll
determinism question is a much trickier one because then, i mean, just so everyone knows in the background here, so, you know, quantum mechanics came on the scene in the 1920s and 30s with the copenhagen interpretation and whatever. it was in the 1950s that people like bohm and everett finally wrote down 100% physical material versions of quantum mechanics that fit the data completely well. the physics community could not care less. they just ignored.
determinism question is a much trickier one because then, i mean, just so everyone knows in the background here, so, you know, quantum mechanics came on the scene in the 1920s and 30s with the copenhagen interpretation and whatever. it was in the 1950s that people like bohm and everett finally wrote down 100% physical material versions of quantum mechanics that fit the data completely well. the physics community could not care less. they just ignored.
Slavoj Žižek
i they go on.
i they go on.
Sean Carroll
yeah if you care about this, you're not going to get a job. you'll be kicked out of the field.
yeah if you care about this, you're not going to get a job. you'll be kicked out of the field.
Slavoj Žižek
but was the problem and also a political one, he was very left-leaning with him. he was kicked out of the country, not only of the field. everett left the field but he different reason.
but was the problem and also a political one, he was very left-leaning with him. he was kicked out of the country, not only of the field. everett left the field but he different reason.
Sean Carroll
and. yeah, not because of quantum mechanics. no, no, because of his...
and. yeah, not because of quantum mechanics. no, no, because of his...
Slavoj Žižek
so
so
Sean Carroll
but you know, yeah, so there's and there are still people today who will. who will argue in favor of idealism on the basis of quantum mechanics.
but you know, yeah, so there's and there are still people today who will. who will argue in favor of idealism on the basis of quantum mechanics.
Slavoj Žižek
isn't that we have to put conscious coaching? sorry? is bit isn't sorry for roger penrose approaching a little bit.
isn't that we have to put conscious coaching? sorry? is bit isn't sorry for roger penrose approaching a little bit.
Sean Carroll
maybe a little bit, a little bit, but at least, yeah, but i think, you know, there are some people who will simply deny the existence of objective reality and put mind and agents at the center of everything.
maybe a little bit, a little bit, but at least, yeah, but i think, you know, there are some people who will simply deny the existence of objective reality and put mind and agents at the center of everything.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah yeah.
yeah yeah.
Sean Carroll
maybe that's right, maybe it's wrong, but my point is quantum mechanics doesn't force you in that direction. there's perfectly mechanistic versions that fit the data perfectly well.
maybe that's right, maybe it's wrong, but my point is quantum mechanics doesn't force you in that direction. there's perfectly mechanistic versions that fit the data perfectly well.
Slavoj Žižek
but so, so again, your answer to this mega reproach from einstein, jls, sabine kfelder and so on, that. quantum mechanics describes, it's very simple repro, i just repeat it for the viewers, describes a certain universe which is in itself consistent wave function blah blah, but it cannot account in its own terms of the our ordinary reality measuring and so on and so on. if i read you correctly, many words da this.
but so, so again, your answer to this mega reproach from einstein, jls, sabine kfelder and so on, that. quantum mechanics describes, it's very simple repro, i just repeat it for the viewers, describes a certain universe which is in itself consistent wave function blah blah, but it cannot account in its own terms of the our ordinary reality measuring and so on and so on. if i read you correctly, many words da this.
Sean Carroll
ins yes, yeah, exactly. so i think, you know, i forgot you also mentioned determinism, which is a crucial point here, which again, physicists don't agree on. so for both hidden variable theories, bohm, pilot the waves, etc., and for many worlds, you're in a situation where the underlying equations and dynamics are 100% deterministic. laplace would have been happy. laplace's demon could predict everything that happens. but in both theories, there is some epistemic uncertainty. there is some subjective probability that comes in. in the case of hidden variables, it's because you don't know where the hidden variables are. in the case of many worlds, it's because all these different branches exist and you don't know which branch you are on. so there's the appearance of indeterminism because you cannot, even if you know the wave function of the universe perfectly, you still can't predict the outcomes of your next experiment. so it's a weird in-between ground. you know what i would like...
ins yes, yeah, exactly. so i think, you know, i forgot you also mentioned determinism, which is a crucial point here, which again, physicists don't agree on. so for both hidden variable theories, bohm, pilot the waves, etc., and for many worlds, you're in a situation where the underlying equations and dynamics are 100% deterministic. laplace would have been happy. laplace's demon could predict everything that happens. but in both theories, there is some epistemic uncertainty. there is some subjective probability that comes in. in the case of hidden variables, it's because you don't know where the hidden variables are. in the case of many worlds, it's because all these different branches exist and you don't know which branch you are on. so there's the appearance of indeterminism because you cannot, even if you know the wave function of the universe perfectly, you still can't predict the outcomes of your next experiment. so it's a weird in-between ground. you know what i would like...
Slavoj Žižek
the this is a pure abstract in the bad sense, philosopher. speaking through me now i would just like to elevate into, as you may have guessed into, khe put it naively, ontological status to put into reality itself this element of uncertainty. can't we say, while keeping sure the equation and so on, that, and that's for me the mega greatness of quantum physics, that there is an element of uncertainty which is not just epistemological, but which is in itself. isn't this also implied in what you said, 99%, 1% it's not just that we don't know. it's in reality itself in some sense because it's 99%, 1% and so on. you don't like this idea.
the this is a pure abstract in the bad sense, philosopher. speaking through me now i would just like to elevate into, as you may have guessed into, khe put it naively, ontological status to put into reality itself this element of uncertainty. can't we say, while keeping sure the equation and so on, that, and that's for me the mega greatness of quantum physics, that there is an element of uncertainty which is not just epistemological, but which is in itself. isn't this also implied in what you said, 99%, 1% it's not just that we don't know. it's in reality itself in some sense because it's 99%, 1% and so on. you don't like this idea.
Sean Carroll
i yeah, i am honestly, i know that you told me to just say the truth and not say that i'm not sure about my opinions being true or false. this is a good area where it's okay to be a little uncertain. i would say that in the many worlds point of view, we're faced with a weird metaphysical, a novel, unique metaphysical challenge because like i said, we can know everything about the universe. and still not make a prediction. and the reason why is because that 99% world and the 1% world are both going to become true. and there will be a future version of me in each of those worlds. and there's no unique, it's not even sensible to ask which one of them am i going to be. they're both going to be they're in existence. they're both going to have all of my memories, right? this is utterly unprecedented. in physics or philosophy. so i claim that the way to distinguish it is to say that both of those future selves are real people, but they're in positions of self-locating uncertainty, indexical uncertainty. there's something they don't know, which is where they are. in the universe, which branch of the wave function they're on, and it perfectly deterministic underlying dynamics, but a new situation in which there's no univalent you that can ask questions about the universe. there's many different future versions of you. this. nonetheless, uh...
i yeah, i am honestly, i know that you told me to just say the truth and not say that i'm not sure about my opinions being true or false. this is a good area where it's okay to be a little uncertain. i would say that in the many worlds point of view, we're faced with a weird metaphysical, a novel, unique metaphysical challenge because like i said, we can know everything about the universe. and still not make a prediction. and the reason why is because that 99% world and the 1% world are both going to become true. and there will be a future version of me in each of those worlds. and there's no unique, it's not even sensible to ask which one of them am i going to be. they're both going to be they're in existence. they're both going to have all of my memories, right? this is utterly unprecedented. in physics or philosophy. so i claim that the way to distinguish it is to say that both of those future selves are real people, but they're in positions of self-locating uncertainty, indexical uncertainty. there's something they don't know, which is where they are. in the universe, which branch of the wave function they're on, and it perfectly deterministic underlying dynamics, but a new situation in which there's no univalent you that can ask questions about the universe. there's many different future versions of you. this. nonetheless, uh...
Slavoj Žižek
reminds me of problems that emerged even with descartes cogito in modern philosophy were here i see the actuality of descartes. yes, universe is mechanistic and so on, but i cannot locate myself into it deterministically. this is the big enigma, i think, in some sense of the entire modern philosophy and ice
reminds me of problems that emerged even with descartes cogito in modern philosophy were here i see the actuality of descartes. yes, universe is mechanistic and so on, but i cannot locate myself into it deterministically. this is the big enigma, i think, in some sense of the entire modern philosophy and ice
Sean Carroll
well, there's... i recently did a podcast with robinson with david albert, who is another very well-accomplished philosopher of science. and we talked about the fact that there is an analogous situation that also comes up with the multiverse. not the many worlds of quantum mechanics, but the cosmological multiverse, where we imagine that just very, very far away, there's many different observers and so forth. and philosophy is just not currently up to the task of dealing with this, i think. i mean, it can be. yeah, it needs to get better, but how do you evaluate questions like, what would a typical observer see in this ensemble? and should i care about that question? because i am not a typical observer. should i reason as if i were typical? cosmologists, bless their hearts, they think the right thing to do is to reason as if they were a typical observer in the universe, even though they know perfectly well that they're not. so they go through this weird thing where they say, okay, i'm going to forget everything i know about my actual situation. i'm going to pretend i was a typical observer. i'm going to make predictions. i'm going to open my eyes and go, oh, this is very surprising. but we can do better than that, and we don't do yet. but
well, there's... i recently did a podcast with robinson with david albert, who is another very well-accomplished philosopher of science. and we talked about the fact that there is an analogous situation that also comes up with the multiverse. not the many worlds of quantum mechanics, but the cosmological multiverse, where we imagine that just very, very far away, there's many different observers and so forth. and philosophy is just not currently up to the task of dealing with this, i think. i mean, it can be. yeah, it needs to get better, but how do you evaluate questions like, what would a typical observer see in this ensemble? and should i care about that question? because i am not a typical observer. should i reason as if i were typical? cosmologists, bless their hearts, they think the right thing to do is to reason as if they were a typical observer in the universe, even though they know perfectly well that they're not. so they go through this weird thing where they say, okay, i'm going to forget everything i know about my actual situation. i'm going to pretend i was a typical observer. i'm going to make predictions. i'm going to open my eyes and go, oh, this is very surprising. but we can do better than that, and we don't do yet. but
Slavoj Žižek
you see, now. we don't have time to go into it, but this is another metaphysical topic that fascinates me. why? and often. for me, determin philosophers get caught into this. you want to be as realist as possible, but to formulate your position, you have to quote it an impossible point of subjectivity where you see no universal observer and so on and so on. what tempts me, but i don't have a of course not a scientific formula here, is... but okay, let's return to many worlds. but uh uh you see, but does't schröinger equation equation just... give probabilities from what will happen now. like, 99% this happens, okay, everything happens. i got your point.
you see, now. we don't have time to go into it, but this is another metaphysical topic that fascinates me. why? and often. for me, determin philosophers get caught into this. you want to be as realist as possible, but to formulate your position, you have to quote it an impossible point of subjectivity where you see no universal observer and so on and so on. what tempts me, but i don't have a of course not a scientific formula here, is... but okay, let's return to many worlds. but uh uh you see, but does't schröinger equation equation just... give probabilities from what will happen now. like, 99% this happens, okay, everything happens. i got your point.
Sean Carroll
yeah. well, not everything happens, but some things happen and some things happen more than others. so, you know, i think that... this is the challenge, because if you're a many worlds person, you do think that the schrrodinger equation is all there is. and let me back up just a second to make it even a little bit more reasonable. if you believe in quantum mechanics at all, and you want to be realist at all, right? so then you will have to say that the electron that can be spinning clockwise or spinning counterclockwise, quantum a mechanic says it could be in a superposition, right? it truly is some combination of spinning clockwise and spinning counterclockwise. and so if you believe that that can be physically true, not just a state of our knowledge or prediction, then you should be able to believe that the whole universe can be in a superposition of many different possibilities. so you're not asking for anything more by becoming a many-world person. all the possibilities were always there in the formalism of quantum mechanics. all of the new challenges are philosophical. i deal with the fact that there are many people like me with exactly the same epistemic states? how do i make predictions of what they're going to see when they open their eyes and things like that? it is a radically different view of the world. maybe not as radical as the view that says that there is no reality, but still pretty darn radical and i think that quantum mechanics forces us to be radical one way or another. i see i see okay
yeah. well, not everything happens, but some things happen and some things happen more than others. so, you know, i think that... this is the challenge, because if you're a many worlds person, you do think that the schrrodinger equation is all there is. and let me back up just a second to make it even a little bit more reasonable. if you believe in quantum mechanics at all, and you want to be realist at all, right? so then you will have to say that the electron that can be spinning clockwise or spinning counterclockwise, quantum a mechanic says it could be in a superposition, right? it truly is some combination of spinning clockwise and spinning counterclockwise. and so if you believe that that can be physically true, not just a state of our knowledge or prediction, then you should be able to believe that the whole universe can be in a superposition of many different possibilities. so you're not asking for anything more by becoming a many-world person. all the possibilities were always there in the formalism of quantum mechanics. all of the new challenges are philosophical. i deal with the fact that there are many people like me with exactly the same epistemic states? how do i make predictions of what they're going to see when they open their eyes and things like that? it is a radically different view of the world. maybe not as radical as the view that says that there is no reality, but still pretty darn radical and i think that quantum mechanics forces us to be radical one way or another. i see i see okay
Slavoj Žižek
let me move it connect. you know what fascinates me? now i move it into my own speculations about philosophy, language and so on. i like so much the notion of superposition because i think, i will try to put it in very simple terms, but it's a more complex theory. a guy who teaches a strange guy who i think is is he stanford or santa cruz? did you hear the name jean-pierre dupuy? d-u-p-u-y.
let me move it connect. you know what fascinates me? now i move it into my own speculations about philosophy, language and so on. i like so much the notion of superposition because i think, i will try to put it in very simple terms, but it's a more complex theory. a guy who teaches a strange guy who i think is is he stanford or santa cruz? did you hear the name jean-pierre dupuy? d-u-p-u-y.
Sean Carroll
v theory vaguely familiar, but not an expert yet.
v theory vaguely familiar, but not an expert yet.
Slavoj Žižek
who. yeah uh tried to introduce but without any bluffing about. quantum physics, the notion of superposition into historical processes and knowledges. i will give you an extremely simplified example. let's say today we are in an... i go even specifically russia putin uraine war. again, maybe it's already decided. in the terms of the sching equation 99%, but we don't know what that there will be global war or not. but his idea is this one. and again, this is pure. speculation more pertaining to human language is that in our human universe, i'm sure often refer maybe refer to that famous quote from t.s. eliot, who was an idealist conservative by, he put it nicely that every new invention really new in art, in some sense also changes the entire past. it makes it readable in a different way. so dupuy's interpretation against these lines would be, let's say that in two three years there will be worth about 3. then automatically we will retroactively reboot us. it was clear all the time that this should happen. we just had illusions that we can avoid it. let's say that world war3 will not happen. then we will act the way we read today the cold war. no? yes, it was danger, but somehow we avoided it and so on and so on. but the push point that i like is that it's not enough to say that these were just different possibilities, options. no, it's a stronger term. it's in the sense that if something sheppens? eat. of course it doesn't restructure the past in its brutal reality. but the whole symbolic constellation of how we read the past changed. and if now i could go on here for hours, i love these examples. that's why i am not, and i think in my crazy way i got this lesson from quantum physics mechanics, i am not. uh i totally reject this stupid historicist view to understand shakespeare. you must study in detail elizabethan era and so on. i would say first the opposite. to understand elizabeth era richex you will learn more but more seriously, you know, for me really great works of art are precisely... the ones which cannot be limited to a specific historical constellation, every new epoch reinvents them. for example with shakespeare, many people don't know but immediately after his death, it was the horrible era of racine and all those strange guys, classicists and shakespeare was considered vulgar. only through romanticism shakespeare was re-invented. and i love this paradox. how how sometimes, precisely not knowing all the context of shakespeare, historical, you can propose a reading. which is much more convincing, and it's not simply an external reading. again, i'm back to my point about openness. it is as if which is obvious. shakespeare didn't really know what he is doing. you know, which is here my wonderful example. you know that it's attributed to lincoln, but i read somewhere that he didn it was not really the first to say that, you know, you can cheat some of the people all the time, all the people. sometimes but you cannot treat all the people all of the time. this is a deeply ambiguous statement. it can mean there are some idiots who can be treated all the time, some the same, or it can mean in one situation i will be the idiot in another situation you or you yes. this is for me how language is structured. it is open. the author himself is not a possessor of some hidden meaning. that's why my favorite example is you know where shakespeare. for me, the best cinema version of shakespeare hamlet is kurosawa in 62 in japan did a version of hamlet with a wonderful title, only evil people sleep good, which is a deep truth, you know. real evil people don't care. they're not haunted. and again, it's said in modern japan, hanlet is student returns to tokyo from. but what i'm saying is you see what i'm aiming at. or i'll give you another classical example. i remember from dupuy this quote. you are too young to be, some 20,-30 years ago, there was a presidential candidate in france, edouard balladur, who said. but when there were some three elections in le monde, there was a wonderful comment saying, if balladur will win next election, his victory will be necessary. you know the paradox. after something happens, it becomes retroactively. necessary. and now you see where i am aiming. i'm desperately looking but you almost converted me, i will have to work moreorg in quantum 6 for some kind of... ontological foundation of this openness that i like this idea of retro aris. determinism and i will give you the ultimate social proof. this is not physics at all but i love it protestantism. people don't notice this obvious paradox. weber protestant ethics origin of capitalism blah blah but since, if anything, capitalism is a system which pushes you to constant effort and so on, isn't it strange that you would have then expected that capitalism, sorry, protestantism would have been against, and this brings me back to your point in a very nice way, that capitalism would have been against predetermination. because if everything is predetermined, why not my shit at home masturbate and watch pornhub or whatever, it's already decided. but precisely capitalism. which is the most active system, needs predestination. along what lines? along what you said. here i come back to you. here i believe you. when you said wonderfully, yes, schinger equation objectively valid, but with one small point, i don't know where i am in it. and that's protestantism in religion. you see now what i am aiming at. you know. but, nonetheless, you know, let's go to the end in... metaphysics. i see your point. but then what would be your answer? to where das denn our limitation fun. now i'm going back to you. there is an objective description we can give it, we just don't know where we are. you don't think that carl 10. how can many worlds interpretation account for this uniqueness of us. not uniqueness in any metaphysical sense but how we are. one unique but still can arrive at this objectives. as it were view of this is something.
who. yeah uh tried to introduce but without any bluffing about. quantum physics, the notion of superposition into historical processes and knowledges. i will give you an extremely simplified example. let's say today we are in an... i go even specifically russia putin uraine war. again, maybe it's already decided. in the terms of the sching equation 99%, but we don't know what that there will be global war or not. but his idea is this one. and again, this is pure. speculation more pertaining to human language is that in our human universe, i'm sure often refer maybe refer to that famous quote from t.s. eliot, who was an idealist conservative by, he put it nicely that every new invention really new in art, in some sense also changes the entire past. it makes it readable in a different way. so dupuy's interpretation against these lines would be, let's say that in two three years there will be worth about 3. then automatically we will retroactively reboot us. it was clear all the time that this should happen. we just had illusions that we can avoid it. let's say that world war3 will not happen. then we will act the way we read today the cold war. no? yes, it was danger, but somehow we avoided it and so on and so on. but the push point that i like is that it's not enough to say that these were just different possibilities, options. no, it's a stronger term. it's in the sense that if something sheppens? eat. of course it doesn't restructure the past in its brutal reality. but the whole symbolic constellation of how we read the past changed. and if now i could go on here for hours, i love these examples. that's why i am not, and i think in my crazy way i got this lesson from quantum physics mechanics, i am not. uh i totally reject this stupid historicist view to understand shakespeare. you must study in detail elizabethan era and so on. i would say first the opposite. to understand elizabeth era richex you will learn more but more seriously, you know, for me really great works of art are precisely... the ones which cannot be limited to a specific historical constellation, every new epoch reinvents them. for example with shakespeare, many people don't know but immediately after his death, it was the horrible era of racine and all those strange guys, classicists and shakespeare was considered vulgar. only through romanticism shakespeare was re-invented. and i love this paradox. how how sometimes, precisely not knowing all the context of shakespeare, historical, you can propose a reading. which is much more convincing, and it's not simply an external reading. again, i'm back to my point about openness. it is as if which is obvious. shakespeare didn't really know what he is doing. you know, which is here my wonderful example. you know that it's attributed to lincoln, but i read somewhere that he didn it was not really the first to say that, you know, you can cheat some of the people all the time, all the people. sometimes but you cannot treat all the people all of the time. this is a deeply ambiguous statement. it can mean there are some idiots who can be treated all the time, some the same, or it can mean in one situation i will be the idiot in another situation you or you yes. this is for me how language is structured. it is open. the author himself is not a possessor of some hidden meaning. that's why my favorite example is you know where shakespeare. for me, the best cinema version of shakespeare hamlet is kurosawa in 62 in japan did a version of hamlet with a wonderful title, only evil people sleep good, which is a deep truth, you know. real evil people don't care. they're not haunted. and again, it's said in modern japan, hanlet is student returns to tokyo from. but what i'm saying is you see what i'm aiming at. or i'll give you another classical example. i remember from dupuy this quote. you are too young to be, some 20,-30 years ago, there was a presidential candidate in france, edouard balladur, who said. but when there were some three elections in le monde, there was a wonderful comment saying, if balladur will win next election, his victory will be necessary. you know the paradox. after something happens, it becomes retroactively. necessary. and now you see where i am aiming. i'm desperately looking but you almost converted me, i will have to work moreorg in quantum 6 for some kind of... ontological foundation of this openness that i like this idea of retro aris. determinism and i will give you the ultimate social proof. this is not physics at all but i love it protestantism. people don't notice this obvious paradox. weber protestant ethics origin of capitalism blah blah but since, if anything, capitalism is a system which pushes you to constant effort and so on, isn't it strange that you would have then expected that capitalism, sorry, protestantism would have been against, and this brings me back to your point in a very nice way, that capitalism would have been against predetermination. because if everything is predetermined, why not my shit at home masturbate and watch pornhub or whatever, it's already decided. but precisely capitalism. which is the most active system, needs predestination. along what lines? along what you said. here i come back to you. here i believe you. when you said wonderfully, yes, schinger equation objectively valid, but with one small point, i don't know where i am in it. and that's protestantism in religion. you see now what i am aiming at. you know. but, nonetheless, you know, let's go to the end in... metaphysics. i see your point. but then what would be your answer? to where das denn our limitation fun. now i'm going back to you. there is an objective description we can give it, we just don't know where we are. you don't think that carl 10. how can many worlds interpretation account for this uniqueness of us. not uniqueness in any metaphysical sense but how we are. one unique but still can arrive at this objectives. as it were view of this is something.
Sean Carroll
let me say two.
let me say two.
Slavoj Žižek
things a little bit. for the subject itself. himense herself, i will not go into this bullshit now.
things a little bit. for the subject itself. himense herself, i will not go into this bullshit now.
Sean Carroll
so i'm happy we can solve these questions so easily in this podcast. it'll be very, very valuable to future generations.
so i'm happy we can solve these questions so easily in this podcast. it'll be very, very valuable to future generations.
Slavoj Žižek
yes. oh.
yes. oh.
Sean Carroll
i'll say two things, one a little bit negative and one more constructive. the negative thing is i am... reluctant to think about quantum mechanics when i think about the uncertainty of human history because there is a difference between quantum mechanics and probability or stochasticness, right? there's plenty of room for unpredictability in the world in addition to what quantum mechanics gives us. what's special about quantum mechanics is that there's not just the probability probability is derived from this thing called the wave function. which distinguishes the idea that there's two possibilities, but we don't know which one is true, from the idea that there's really both possibilities at once. and i think that, at least when it comes to human subjectivity and history, you don't need to imagine that all the possibilities are simultaneously physically true. you can just work with the fact that there's so much uncertainty and... excuse me, unpredictability in the real world, that we need a language of probability and computation and information to really make progress on these things, and it might. involve the past in an intricate way. in fact, i will i'll reveal, i'll mention two funny things. one is i recently did a podcast with katie elliott, who's a philosopher, and she made very much a similar point that you're making about protestantism. we were talking about predestination and eternalism, and she said that she can make eternalist, what she convinced herself that calvinism was okay.
i'll say two things, one a little bit negative and one more constructive. the negative thing is i am... reluctant to think about quantum mechanics when i think about the uncertainty of human history because there is a difference between quantum mechanics and probability or stochasticness, right? there's plenty of room for unpredictability in the world in addition to what quantum mechanics gives us. what's special about quantum mechanics is that there's not just the probability probability is derived from this thing called the wave function. which distinguishes the idea that there's two possibilities, but we don't know which one is true, from the idea that there's really both possibilities at once. and i think that, at least when it comes to human subjectivity and history, you don't need to imagine that all the possibilities are simultaneously physically true. you can just work with the fact that there's so much uncertainty and... excuse me, unpredictability in the real world, that we need a language of probability and computation and information to really make progress on these things, and it might. involve the past in an intricate way. in fact, i will i'll reveal, i'll mention two funny things. one is i recently did a podcast with katie elliott, who's a philosopher, and she made very much a similar point that you're making about protestantism. we were talking about predestination and eternalism, and she said that she can make eternalist, what she convinced herself that calvinism was okay.
Slavoj Žižek
i'm native.
i'm native.
Sean Carroll
theory it's no longer luther, it's calvinism which is elevated
theory it's no longer luther, it's calvinism which is elevated
Slavoj Žižek
galvanism, right..
galvanism, right..
Sean Carroll
so the problem with calvinism is, you know you're either blessed and good to go to heaven or you're not.
so the problem with calvinism is, you know you're either blessed and good to go to heaven or you're not.
Slavoj Žižek
you don't.
you don't.
Sean Carroll
you never know. but you never know. so the worry, she points out, is very well known, is that, well, i can just act bad because i'm predestined to go to heaven or not. but what you don't understand is that god knows that you're going to act bad. and so if you act bad, you're bringing to reality the possibility that you're not going to go to heaven. so even though it is predestined, because you don't know, it is still in your best interest to act good. yeah.
you never know. but you never know. so the worry, she points out, is very well known, is that, well, i can just act bad because i'm predestined to go to heaven or not. but what you don't understand is that god knows that you're going to act bad. and so if you act bad, you're bringing to reality the possibility that you're not going to go to heaven. so even though it is predestined, because you don't know, it is still in your best interest to act good. yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
i know a line i forgot his name. my god, i forgot his name and protestant protestists, whatever a theorist, theologist who is also known as the one who uses analytic philosophy and he precisely in the terms of beyond the speed of light he defended protestantism because he said exactly what you said now that like if i'm predestined how why should i act would and so on. but again, god is beyond time. god knows how you will decide.
i know a line i forgot his name. my god, i forgot his name and protestant protestists, whatever a theorist, theologist who is also known as the one who uses analytic philosophy and he precisely in the terms of beyond the speed of light he defended protestantism because he said exactly what you said now that like if i'm predestined how why should i act would and so on. but again, god is beyond time. god knows how you will decide.
Sean Carroll
exactly. nope. that's right. it's like newcomb's paradox. that's how we got into it. yes. if you believe that there are oracles that know about the future, you will behave differently than if you don't. yeah, anyway, the other thing i wanted to say, i wrote a short piece, a short essay that i published on my blog years ago called, i hope you'll be amused by this, the universe is structured like a language. some somehow for me, i am a universe not unconscious, but universe. not the unconscious. the universe is structured like a language. so i quote you and i quote some quantum physicists and the basic idea is that... the universe evolves from... very orderly, low- entropy early state to very disorderly, messy future state. along the way, complex structures appear, right? this is the kind of thing that at the santa fe institute we're very interested in understanding. and the implication is that they're somewhere there in the laws of physics, in the laws of dynamics, in the way that we think about how the universe marches forward, there exists the potential, the potentiality for... interesting, complex things to happen. and even though they were not sort of embedded intrinsically in the initial conditions, they came to be because of the structure of the dynamics along the way. and maybe quantum mechanics does play a role in that. this is all stuff that nobody claims to understand very, very well. but if if there's something computational or useful about complex structures coming into existence, then that would be very nice to understand. and by the way, by complex structures i include you and me, right? why did living beings come into existence even though the second law of thermodynamics says that the universe just rolls down to more and more disorder? and the suggested answer is that the way that you get to more and more disorder is to pass through intricate, complicated things. and you can't predict very well which one they're going to be. can i
exactly. nope. that's right. it's like newcomb's paradox. that's how we got into it. yes. if you believe that there are oracles that know about the future, you will behave differently than if you don't. yeah, anyway, the other thing i wanted to say, i wrote a short piece, a short essay that i published on my blog years ago called, i hope you'll be amused by this, the universe is structured like a language. some somehow for me, i am a universe not unconscious, but universe. not the unconscious. the universe is structured like a language. so i quote you and i quote some quantum physicists and the basic idea is that... the universe evolves from... very orderly, low- entropy early state to very disorderly, messy future state. along the way, complex structures appear, right? this is the kind of thing that at the santa fe institute we're very interested in understanding. and the implication is that they're somewhere there in the laws of physics, in the laws of dynamics, in the way that we think about how the universe marches forward, there exists the potential, the potentiality for... interesting, complex things to happen. and even though they were not sort of embedded intrinsically in the initial conditions, they came to be because of the structure of the dynamics along the way. and maybe quantum mechanics does play a role in that. this is all stuff that nobody claims to understand very, very well. but if if there's something computational or useful about complex structures coming into existence, then that would be very nice to understand. and by the way, by complex structures i include you and me, right? why did living beings come into existence even though the second law of thermodynamics says that the universe just rolls down to more and more disorder? and the suggested answer is that the way that you get to more and more disorder is to pass through intricate, complicated things. and you can't predict very well which one they're going to be. can i
Slavoj Žižek
bombard you with my last big metaphysical point since you i was told and you indicated you also do. uh. cosmology and so on. okay. look. it so directly to the thing is big bang theory out or not because i hear again and again that you can get that
bombard you with my last big metaphysical point since you i was told and you indicated you also do. uh. cosmology and so on. okay. look. it so directly to the thing is big bang theory out or not because i hear again and again that you can get that
Sean Carroll
i.
i.
Slavoj Žižek
traces of something that must have gone off before big bang and so on, all that stuff. so the idea is almost a kind of a stalinist dialectical materialist vision of, you know, repeated big bang here, collapses here, explodes there. where do you stand here?
traces of something that must have gone off before big bang and so on, all that stuff. so the idea is almost a kind of a stalinist dialectical materialist vision of, you know, repeated big bang here, collapses here, explodes there. where do you stand here?
Sean Carroll
so the sad thing is that the phrase the big bang theory refers to two very different ideas at the same time. one is the whole history of the universe from t equals zero to today, where it started hot and dense and it rapidly expanded and galaxies and stars coalesced out of it and the whole bit, the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, all of that. that story is just 100% solid. it's not going away. there was just this week excitement on twitter because someone claimed it was completely wrong, but they were completely they were themselves completely wrong. what can i tell you? there's so much evidence in favor of this general picture, 14 billion years, etc., that we don't need to worry about that being overturned by future experiments.
so the sad thing is that the phrase the big bang theory refers to two very different ideas at the same time. one is the whole history of the universe from t equals zero to today, where it started hot and dense and it rapidly expanded and galaxies and stars coalesced out of it and the whole bit, the universe is approximately 14 billion years old, all of that. that story is just 100% solid. it's not going away. there was just this week excitement on twitter because someone claimed it was completely wrong, but they were completely they were themselves completely wrong. what can i tell you? there's so much evidence in favor of this general picture, 14 billion years, etc., that we don't need to worry about that being overturned by future experiments.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah.
yeah.
Sean Carroll
the other
the other
Slavoj Žižek
to this they just claim that there must have been something other big bang before. they don't say there is no
to this they just claim that there must have been something other big bang before. they don't say there is no
Sean Carroll
big bank. well, sadly, no, there are people who still think that even the story i just told you is wrong. they're sadly misguided people. i'm just letting you know that you can find some crazy claims that the universe is 30 billion years old or infinitely older. but there's still people out there who say those things. um600000 also, last thursday. yeah, these are all on the table. but now the harder question is that sometimes we use the phrase the big bang to refer to just the moment t equals zero, right? just the first moment. forget about how the actual.
big bank. well, sadly, no, there are people who still think that even the story i just told you is wrong. they're sadly misguided people. i'm just letting you know that you can find some crazy claims that the universe is 30 billion years old or infinitely older. but there's still people out there who say those things. um600000 also, last thursday. yeah, these are all on the table. but now the harder question is that sometimes we use the phrase the big bang to refer to just the moment t equals zero, right? just the first moment. forget about how the actual.
Slavoj Žižek
nature when yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
nature when yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sean Carroll
that's right. now there, the only honest thing we can say is we have no idea what happened. physics is not up to the task of saying whether there was truly a singularity, whether that was truly the beginning of the universe, whether it was a bounce or a quantum nucleation event. all the options are on the table. i'm responsible for some of the options. there's a picture. this picture right here is of one of my favorite theories the universe is infinitely old. so i think that the idea that the big bang that we talk about is not the beginning. is absolutely viable, but we have no way of knowing whether it's true or not right now.
that's right. now there, the only honest thing we can say is we have no idea what happened. physics is not up to the task of saying whether there was truly a singularity, whether that was truly the beginning of the universe, whether it was a bounce or a quantum nucleation event. all the options are on the table. i'm responsible for some of the options. there's a picture. this picture right here is of one of my favorite theories the universe is infinitely old. so i think that the idea that the big bang that we talk about is not the beginning. is absolutely viable, but we have no way of knowing whether it's true or not right now.
Slavoj Žižek
ah now, can i... so you don't agree with those? i some. reports on need debt. that if we analyze this early stages big bang blah blah. we can find any immanently traces of something that must have happened before. you don't think
ah now, can i... so you don't agree with those? i some. reports on need debt. that if we analyze this early stages big bang blah blah. we can find any immanently traces of something that must have happened before. you don't think
Sean Carroll
this is necessary. i don't think so. i know that people have pursuit that possibility and penrose is one of them, and i'm very, very glad they are pursuing the possibility. but i think that the data so far, as well as the theoretical predictions, are that anything interesting gets wiped out in the interim. in that period, since the big bang, everything was just smooth and featureless. i would love to be wrong about that, and i hope i am, but i wouldn't buy any existing claims along those lines. uh
this is necessary. i don't think so. i know that people have pursuit that possibility and penrose is one of them, and i'm very, very glad they are pursuing the possibility. but i think that the data so far, as well as the theoretical predictions, are that anything interesting gets wiped out in the interim. in that period, since the big bang, everything was just smooth and featureless. i would love to be wrong about that, and i hope i am, but i wouldn't buy any existing claims along those lines. uh
Slavoj Žižek
but another thing that bothers me, not bothers me. it is that i hope we are here on the same materialist side. you must have known everybody quotes it. a dialogue i even don't know did it really happen or not. stephen hawking was at some conference with the pope and pope, the polish reactionary guy, told him, here we have no misunderstanding, mr. scientist, you. your topic is big bang and after our topic is before, you know. i don't i know the story yet. i think this don. sir, within the space of science, for an opening where somehow religion or another dimension enters, i hope we agree this is absolutely a wrong prospect. these desperate attempts, you know to uh.
but another thing that bothers me, not bothers me. it is that i hope we are here on the same materialist side. you must have known everybody quotes it. a dialogue i even don't know did it really happen or not. stephen hawking was at some conference with the pope and pope, the polish reactionary guy, told him, here we have no misunderstanding, mr. scientist, you. your topic is big bang and after our topic is before, you know. i don't i know the story yet. i think this don. sir, within the space of science, for an opening where somehow religion or another dimension enters, i hope we agree this is absolutely a wrong prospect. these desperate attempts, you know to uh.
Sean Carroll
i'm not completely wrong. i mean, i don't think that religion is very informative or anything interesting. i think that it plays a hugely important historic and cultural role that i respect very much. but when i want to think about why the universe exists or where it came from, i'm going to think about science and philosophy. i'm not going to think about religion. in fact, i think that your hawking story is true, and it's a reflection. there was a previous story. i know you know. a lot of the development in early days in the 30s and 40s of the big bang model was by georges lemaitre, who was a belgian priest. and the pope put him on some commission to, you know, science and religion. and the pope at the time, who i think was pius, said, well, this big bang theory is great. it proves that genesis was right. it proves that the universe had a beginning. and lemaitre said, no, no, no. do not say that. because if you start saying, well, we've proven religion right by science, tomorrow science is going to change its mind. and you don't want to say, oh, we were wrong about religion. you know, this may interest you.
i'm not completely wrong. i mean, i don't think that religion is very informative or anything interesting. i think that it plays a hugely important historic and cultural role that i respect very much. but when i want to think about why the universe exists or where it came from, i'm going to think about science and philosophy. i'm not going to think about religion. in fact, i think that your hawking story is true, and it's a reflection. there was a previous story. i know you know. a lot of the development in early days in the 30s and 40s of the big bang model was by georges lemaitre, who was a belgian priest. and the pope put him on some commission to, you know, science and religion. and the pope at the time, who i think was pius, said, well, this big bang theory is great. it proves that genesis was right. it proves that the universe had a beginning. and lemaitre said, no, no, no. do not say that. because if you start saying, well, we've proven religion right by science, tomorrow science is going to change its mind. and you don't want to say, oh, we were wrong about religion. you know, this may interest you.
Slavoj Žižek
i almost admire but i despise them, don't be afraid. some fundamentalists i had along these lines a very interesting debate some time ago with the catholic friend who was at least honest. you remember that mystery of the turin shroud, you know, are those are those stains there christ's blood? and you know what confidentially this highly placed bishop told me. she prays to god every evening that. this is not really christ's blood. you know what how he reasoned? if this is somehow we prove it whatever don't ask me how christ's blood. then the first question is, let's analyze dna. and what we will get there, probably now i extremely brutal, that christ was the result of virgin mary screwing with some servant there, but it's better not to know. but some american fundamentalists have a crazy answer. god doesn't have a dna, so we will get the double dna of virgin mary herself, you know. so this is for me meet the most dangerous temptation, this naive fundamentalists which even lack this what i find in authentic religion is this radical openness. for example, great guy, the one who was loved by niels bo kierkegaard. he said, i'm not sure that i believe, i only maybe believe that i believe. and i think the moment you go into fundamentalism, you are lost. you are lost in the sense that you but so the final point. you know why i lied? so much this quantum physics against this einsteinian view because it's usually and i think they are idiots i hope we agree here generally usually people claim einstein was more a materialist, objective reality and so on while bohr opened up the path for all this stuff. but i believe that it's almost the opposite that at einstein it's interesting. you know, he's famous. uh retort to nils bohr. god doesn't play dice and then he even says that i don't believe in personal god, but there is a divine dimension in this eternal cosmic order, the beauty of laws of nature and so on and so on. and we all know bohr. here i bhma said to him gave a perfect answer. don't tell god what to do. what.
i almost admire but i despise them, don't be afraid. some fundamentalists i had along these lines a very interesting debate some time ago with the catholic friend who was at least honest. you remember that mystery of the turin shroud, you know, are those are those stains there christ's blood? and you know what confidentially this highly placed bishop told me. she prays to god every evening that. this is not really christ's blood. you know what how he reasoned? if this is somehow we prove it whatever don't ask me how christ's blood. then the first question is, let's analyze dna. and what we will get there, probably now i extremely brutal, that christ was the result of virgin mary screwing with some servant there, but it's better not to know. but some american fundamentalists have a crazy answer. god doesn't have a dna, so we will get the double dna of virgin mary herself, you know. so this is for me meet the most dangerous temptation, this naive fundamentalists which even lack this what i find in authentic religion is this radical openness. for example, great guy, the one who was loved by niels bo kierkegaard. he said, i'm not sure that i believe, i only maybe believe that i believe. and i think the moment you go into fundamentalism, you are lost. you are lost in the sense that you but so the final point. you know why i lied? so much this quantum physics against this einsteinian view because it's usually and i think they are idiots i hope we agree here generally usually people claim einstein was more a materialist, objective reality and so on while bohr opened up the path for all this stuff. but i believe that it's almost the opposite that at einstein it's interesting. you know, he's famous. uh retort to nils bohr. god doesn't play dice and then he even says that i don't believe in personal god, but there is a divine dimension in this eternal cosmic order, the beauty of laws of nature and so on and so on. and we all know bohr. here i bhma said to him gave a perfect answer. don't tell god what to do. what.
Sean Carroll
thank.
thank.
Slavoj Žižek
like.
like.
Sean Carroll
do you hear it?
do you hear it?
Slavoj Žižek
is that i think that if not in the sense of any fully religious sense, but in a sense of a belief in a firm. order of our reality. this is for me. the most basic. uh even today i would call it not theological dimension, but disbelief in what in my lkenian verone i call the big other. even if we don't know it, there is a cosmic order and so on. but you know that here i think that quantum mechanics. opens up a path to a much more radical materialism and i thought it, maybe you know the story in this way and i was so glad narcissistically two three months ago i watched on austrian tv an interview with the austrian guy zeilinger, one of the three, okay. and the uh... interviewer a lady asks him literally mentioning my name. that what about my idea that quantum, this old joke that i like to repeat, you probably know it, that quantum physics demonstrates that god is an imperfect, lazy idiot. you know, that god was too lazy to determine things to the end, and we as it were, went too far and he said that that there is a long, at least in europe, a outstanding joke about this that quantum physics is one big proof that god is lazy. he didn't want to do all the work, you know, and that now, so i think this is my big effort. we have we are on the same line here, i think. how to read quantum mechanics in a strict materialist way. how to get rid of all this, you know, quantum mechanics means, you know, the whole syllogism is. quant quantum mechanic means only observer brings possibilities to reality a the universe really exists b so there must be a mega observer who is who is... god but still, let's maybe slowly and getting started conclude with so i will have to think a lot more because i'm still bothered and i will quote you openly by your final formula, which is this wonderful one of a manyiverse interpretation. we can't describe the world perfectly, we just don't know where we are in it. my goal, i obviously don't know enough of science, is to somehow in a totally, not in an idealist way, this means a reality just to have an observer, but in a truly materialist way, to somehow find a correct inconsistency in reality which is not subject, but which opens up the space for subjectivity in what sense? let me conclude before i confuse you. because we here come at the point of freedom. i read penrose. who likes to he's one of those who think that you can ground. human freedom. in quantum. phenomena. but i think that even if you upset, radical uncertainty, openness, this is not freedom. freedom is not as intelligent people want of call it. freedom is not contingency. freedom is a different sort of determinism. i do that because i decided so and so on. so this quick link, and it's very popular among cheap philosophers today. oh, but doesn't already quantum physics open up the space for freedom. it do you agree?
is that i think that if not in the sense of any fully religious sense, but in a sense of a belief in a firm. order of our reality. this is for me. the most basic. uh even today i would call it not theological dimension, but disbelief in what in my lkenian verone i call the big other. even if we don't know it, there is a cosmic order and so on. but you know that here i think that quantum mechanics. opens up a path to a much more radical materialism and i thought it, maybe you know the story in this way and i was so glad narcissistically two three months ago i watched on austrian tv an interview with the austrian guy zeilinger, one of the three, okay. and the uh... interviewer a lady asks him literally mentioning my name. that what about my idea that quantum, this old joke that i like to repeat, you probably know it, that quantum physics demonstrates that god is an imperfect, lazy idiot. you know, that god was too lazy to determine things to the end, and we as it were, went too far and he said that that there is a long, at least in europe, a outstanding joke about this that quantum physics is one big proof that god is lazy. he didn't want to do all the work, you know, and that now, so i think this is my big effort. we have we are on the same line here, i think. how to read quantum mechanics in a strict materialist way. how to get rid of all this, you know, quantum mechanics means, you know, the whole syllogism is. quant quantum mechanic means only observer brings possibilities to reality a the universe really exists b so there must be a mega observer who is who is... god but still, let's maybe slowly and getting started conclude with so i will have to think a lot more because i'm still bothered and i will quote you openly by your final formula, which is this wonderful one of a manyiverse interpretation. we can't describe the world perfectly, we just don't know where we are in it. my goal, i obviously don't know enough of science, is to somehow in a totally, not in an idealist way, this means a reality just to have an observer, but in a truly materialist way, to somehow find a correct inconsistency in reality which is not subject, but which opens up the space for subjectivity in what sense? let me conclude before i confuse you. because we here come at the point of freedom. i read penrose. who likes to he's one of those who think that you can ground. human freedom. in quantum. phenomena. but i think that even if you upset, radical uncertainty, openness, this is not freedom. freedom is not as intelligent people want of call it. freedom is not contingency. freedom is a different sort of determinism. i do that because i decided so and so on. so this quick link, and it's very popular among cheap philosophers today. oh, but doesn't already quantum physics open up the space for freedom. it do you agree?
Sean Carroll
i, it's wrong. it's total. i completely agree that that is wrong. but i will mention something that i've been thinking about only recently. in fact, maybe in the last hour you've helped me clarify it. but there is a role. for quantum mechanics, literally quantum mechanics, not just metaphorically, in accounting for the richness of the world that we see around us in the following sense. what if classical mechanics were true, right? what if there was no wave function, everything was perfectly deterministic? you could be laplace's demon, so you could know the complete state of the world today, and that would predict the state of the world in the future and the past. if that's true, then all the richness around us, including you and me, robinson, having this discussion, was inherent in the initial condition of the universe. right? you just take us to.
i, it's wrong. it's total. i completely agree that that is wrong. but i will mention something that i've been thinking about only recently. in fact, maybe in the last hour you've helped me clarify it. but there is a role. for quantum mechanics, literally quantum mechanics, not just metaphorically, in accounting for the richness of the world that we see around us in the following sense. what if classical mechanics were true, right? what if there was no wave function, everything was perfectly deterministic? you could be laplace's demon, so you could know the complete state of the world today, and that would predict the state of the world in the future and the past. if that's true, then all the richness around us, including you and me, robinson, having this discussion, was inherent in the initial condition of the universe. right? you just take us to.
Slavoj Žižek
grow before. it depends how you define the word inherent. you can also...
grow before. it depends how you define the word inherent. you can also...
Sean Carroll
yes. i have a definition.
yes. i have a definition.
Slavoj Žižek
flexibility blah blah, not fully deterministic, you know.
flexibility blah blah, not fully deterministic, you know.
Sean Carroll
so what i'm imagining is if classical mechanics had been true. then you could take our universe now, you could use the laws of physics to evolve it to the early time, and it would look smooth and know, featureless, but only because there were very, very, very subtle correlations there that you could then evolved backward, you know back forward to the present day. like we were implicit, let's put it that way, in the initial conditions of the universe. but when you have quantum mechanics, now that's not true anymore. the early universe can be truly simple and featureless. and what happens is as these branches happen and decoherence happens, then individual parts of the universe can begin to look complex and you can't predict. exactly where you're going to be because like we said, there's many different futures and you're going to be all in all of them and there's different versions of you that will be in all of them. but this sort of the action of quantum mechanics is to start from a simple, beautiful pristine state and create many, many, many very complicated, very interesting worlds. now i will try to strike back.
so what i'm imagining is if classical mechanics had been true. then you could take our universe now, you could use the laws of physics to evolve it to the early time, and it would look smooth and know, featureless, but only because there were very, very, very subtle correlations there that you could then evolved backward, you know back forward to the present day. like we were implicit, let's put it that way, in the initial conditions of the universe. but when you have quantum mechanics, now that's not true anymore. the early universe can be truly simple and featureless. and what happens is as these branches happen and decoherence happens, then individual parts of the universe can begin to look complex and you can't predict. exactly where you're going to be because like we said, there's many different futures and you're going to be all in all of them and there's different versions of you that will be in all of them. but this sort of the action of quantum mechanics is to start from a simple, beautiful pristine state and create many, many, many very complicated, very interesting worlds. now i will try to strike back.
Slavoj Žižek
with a precise metaphysical question you said at the beginning. in a much more complex way, but some basic, simply, whatever you call it simplicity. but wouldn't it, if we were to be able, i'm returning to your idea of this ideal observer which would have seen the entire picture, all the possibilities, wouldn't that also involve some kind of return to simplicity? i'm not saying that it is a simplistic image. it's very complex. i know all the options and so on. but in a way it would have been a well, like.
with a precise metaphysical question you said at the beginning. in a much more complex way, but some basic, simply, whatever you call it simplicity. but wouldn't it, if we were to be able, i'm returning to your idea of this ideal observer which would have seen the entire picture, all the possibilities, wouldn't that also involve some kind of return to simplicity? i'm not saying that it is a simplistic image. it's very complex. i know all the options and so on. but in a way it would have been a well, like.
Sean Carroll
everything is... well, i think this is good. there's a very good point, but i think it's the difference between hardware and software, right? an observer like laplace's demon who could know everything and do all the calculations is a very simple concept, not that complicated, but... the data. the software that that person would need to actually do the calculation corresponding to our universe would be incredibly complicated. whereas in quantum mechanics, stephen hawking and jim hartle wrote it down, the wave function of the universe, and all of the complexity can just come about universe by universe, world by world afterward. no no uh
everything is... well, i think this is good. there's a very good point, but i think it's the difference between hardware and software, right? an observer like laplace's demon who could know everything and do all the calculations is a very simple concept, not that complicated, but... the data. the software that that person would need to actually do the calculation corresponding to our universe would be incredibly complicated. whereas in quantum mechanics, stephen hawking and jim hartle wrote it down, the wave function of the universe, and all of the complexity can just come about universe by universe, world by world afterward. no no uh
Slavoj Žižek
i see, i see, yes, oh my god, there are so many... okay, sorry, i'm slowly getting tired, but there are so many points here. now i see where i will have to rethink my position. i will can you? this precise idea that you mentioned now, you can even you the middleman exclude this servooda i would love to have do you have a text where you develop that precise point? many worlds. ideal observer, everything objective, we just don't know where we are.
i see, i see, yes, oh my god, there are so many... okay, sorry, i'm slowly getting tired, but there are so many points here. now i see where i will have to rethink my position. i will can you? this precise idea that you mentioned now, you can even you the middleman exclude this servooda i would love to have do you have a text where you develop that precise point? many worlds. ideal observer, everything objective, we just don't know where we are.
Sean Carroll
got. is that a text by you? not yet, but i'm happy to write something down. like i said, i've just been thinking about it, you know, in the last few weeks. love.
got. is that a text by you? not yet, but i'm happy to write something down. like i said, i've just been thinking about it, you know, in the last few weeks. love.
Slavoj Žižek
i like this idea that... this is my dream, that i write text so that somebody will quote them. it very possible.
i like this idea that... this is my dream, that i write text so that somebody will quote them. it very possible.
Sean Carroll
no else has written it down already. problem for me. yeah, you're no. yeah, i mean, it might be completely unoriginal, that's very possible. so i will look to see if anyone else has already written it, and if not, i will...
no else has written it down already. problem for me. yeah, you're no. yeah, i mean, it might be completely unoriginal, that's very possible. so i will look to see if anyone else has already written it, and if not, i will...
Slavoj Žižek
it the trick that people use different terms. these nightmares happen to me. they do. you don't find it, but another guy with just different terms.
it the trick that people use different terms. these nightmares happen to me. they do. you don't find it, but another guy with just different terms.
Sean Carroll
yeah, i know. the same thing. you know.
yeah, i know. the same thing. you know.
Robinson Erhardt
we're all just remixing. slavo, i know it's late for you where you are. is it okay if i butt in with a couple questions before we finish? yeah, but don't expect, i mean, i'm here. i will direct them towards sean and you can cut.
we're all just remixing. slavo, i know it's late for you where you are. is it okay if i butt in with a couple questions before we finish? yeah, but don't expect, i mean, i'm here. i will direct them towards sean and you can cut.
Slavoj Žižek
in as you.
in as you.
Robinson Erhardt
as you like.
as you like.
Slavoj Žižek
now, i love this idea. now i always make this joke when people ask me would they like to have a dialogue. i say, yes, i love dialogues, but the way they are written the late plato's dialogues, where one guy talks all the time and the other guy just every 10 minutes says by zeus, so it is socrates. so i will. to that please ask him.
now, i love this idea. now i always make this joke when people ask me would they like to have a dialogue. i say, yes, i love dialogues, but the way they are written the late plato's dialogues, where one guy talks all the time and the other guy just every 10 minutes says by zeus, so it is socrates. so i will. to that please ask him.
Robinson Erhardt
ask john. okay, thank you. yeah, so i haven't read any of lee smolin yet, though einstein's unfinished revolution is on my list. but so i've read an article that slavoy wrote, i think it's upcoming in a book next year on quantum theory, but in
ask john. okay, thank you. yeah, so i haven't read any of lee smolin yet, though einstein's unfinished revolution is on my list. but so i've read an article that slavoy wrote, i think it's upcoming in a book next year on quantum theory, but in
Slavoj Žižek
just in theory, just one short chip. sorry, yeah.
just in theory, just one short chip. sorry, yeah.
Robinson Erhardt
yeah, just one chapter, just one chapter. but slavoy paraphrases smolin's belief that quantum mechanics is the most successful theory ever formulated, but the only problem with it is that it is wrong. and i have the sense that it is at least incomplete in that it doesn't cohere with relativity, so there's no quantum gravity, no theory of everything.
yeah, just one chapter, just one chapter. but slavoy paraphrases smolin's belief that quantum mechanics is the most successful theory ever formulated, but the only problem with it is that it is wrong. and i have the sense that it is at least incomplete in that it doesn't cohere with relativity, so there's no quantum gravity, no theory of everything.
Slavoj Žižek
let that point here small.
let that point here small.
Robinson Erhardt
right, right, but what i'm wondering is how you gloss this idea, more relevant to our discussion, is whether the many worlds interpretation is something that's in jeopardy on the road to this theory of everything.
right, right, but what i'm wondering is how you gloss this idea, more relevant to our discussion, is whether the many worlds interpretation is something that's in jeopardy on the road to this theory of everything.
Sean Carroll
yeah, so there is a temptation in certain circles to, sorry, that's a little too prejudicial. we don't know what the final theory of everything is, right? so each one of us as individual researchers will have our favorite ways of trying to make progress. and this goes back to what we discussed at the very beginning about preferences for different versions of quantum mechanics. many worlds, as a theory, is as simple as it is possible for a theory to be. be. the problem with it is that connecting it to the richness of the world involves some tricky metaphysical and physical steps, right, about which people can be rightfully skeptical. whereas something like hidden variables or whatever is an ugly, complicated theory, but the world is ugly and complicated, so it matches the world in a more easy way. and you could have different feelings about what to do. there's a third way, which is someone like lee, who says, like, i don't quite see how it is working right now. therefore, i will throw it all out, start from scratch, and try to do better. and to me, we're nowhere close to that point yet. not yet done anything like trying to understand the world in the quantum language to motivate trying to improve on quantum mechanics. in particular, just to be clear about relativity, there's special relativity and general relativity. quantum mechanics and special relativity are 100% compatible. that is literally quantum field theory, which is the best tested theory in the universe ever. general relativity, which says that space-time is dynamical and that's what gravity is, it is true. we do not have a once and for all final quantum theory of gravity. but again, to me, many worlds is the most promising route forward for doing that. and if you'll indulge me just for one more minute here, the reason why i think we're stuck is because even the most highly trained physicist learns classical physics first. newton's laws, kepler's laws, the planets, etc. and then they are taught how to take a classical theory and convert it into a quantum theory to quantize it, right? and that's what we do with electromagnetism and the standard model of particle physics and all those things. there's no law, rule, or even suggestion that says that the correct quantum theory of the universe has to be obtained by starting with a classical theory and quantizing it. the universe doesn't do that. it just is quantum from the start. and if you want to imagine that maybe that's why it's been difficult to quantize gravity, because you shouldn't be quantizing grav. you should be thinking about quantum mechanics. and finding gravity within it. and clearly, i would argue, i'm not going to bother you with it now, but i would strongly argue the right framework to do that in is exactly many worlds.
yeah, so there is a temptation in certain circles to, sorry, that's a little too prejudicial. we don't know what the final theory of everything is, right? so each one of us as individual researchers will have our favorite ways of trying to make progress. and this goes back to what we discussed at the very beginning about preferences for different versions of quantum mechanics. many worlds, as a theory, is as simple as it is possible for a theory to be. be. the problem with it is that connecting it to the richness of the world involves some tricky metaphysical and physical steps, right, about which people can be rightfully skeptical. whereas something like hidden variables or whatever is an ugly, complicated theory, but the world is ugly and complicated, so it matches the world in a more easy way. and you could have different feelings about what to do. there's a third way, which is someone like lee, who says, like, i don't quite see how it is working right now. therefore, i will throw it all out, start from scratch, and try to do better. and to me, we're nowhere close to that point yet. not yet done anything like trying to understand the world in the quantum language to motivate trying to improve on quantum mechanics. in particular, just to be clear about relativity, there's special relativity and general relativity. quantum mechanics and special relativity are 100% compatible. that is literally quantum field theory, which is the best tested theory in the universe ever. general relativity, which says that space-time is dynamical and that's what gravity is, it is true. we do not have a once and for all final quantum theory of gravity. but again, to me, many worlds is the most promising route forward for doing that. and if you'll indulge me just for one more minute here, the reason why i think we're stuck is because even the most highly trained physicist learns classical physics first. newton's laws, kepler's laws, the planets, etc. and then they are taught how to take a classical theory and convert it into a quantum theory to quantize it, right? and that's what we do with electromagnetism and the standard model of particle physics and all those things. there's no law, rule, or even suggestion that says that the correct quantum theory of the universe has to be obtained by starting with a classical theory and quantizing it. the universe doesn't do that. it just is quantum from the start. and if you want to imagine that maybe that's why it's been difficult to quantize gravity, because you shouldn't be quantizing grav. you should be thinking about quantum mechanics. and finding gravity within it. and clearly, i would argue, i'm not going to bother you with it now, but i would strongly argue the right framework to do that in is exactly many worlds.
Slavoj Žižek
but okay, now it came to me. my last. not attack, but problem. you know i mentioned this, i admit it, very suspicious parallel between many worlds and you pointed out immediately the difference and this in our symbolic universe superpositions this may happen that may happen but what is this is my restraint, not that the theory is too crazy. my god, i'm a hegelian. the more crazy it is, the more we like it. but i have another problem. but though this different, for example, 99% the this happens, 1%, okay, and we have both. but... do this too or... i don't know how many infinite universes somehow interact or it's just totally different lines. this is, as a philosopher, maybe it's a wrong instinct. i would be obsessed with some interaction, you know? like to say, it's very primitive what i will say. i in advance apologize right? to say, yes, we live in this 99%. but somehow to understand it. you have to read it against the background of the shitty 1% which that's what. i don't find in many words or i don't know enough about it. how would you react to this?
but okay, now it came to me. my last. not attack, but problem. you know i mentioned this, i admit it, very suspicious parallel between many worlds and you pointed out immediately the difference and this in our symbolic universe superpositions this may happen that may happen but what is this is my restraint, not that the theory is too crazy. my god, i'm a hegelian. the more crazy it is, the more we like it. but i have another problem. but though this different, for example, 99% the this happens, 1%, okay, and we have both. but... do this too or... i don't know how many infinite universes somehow interact or it's just totally different lines. this is, as a philosopher, maybe it's a wrong instinct. i would be obsessed with some interaction, you know? like to say, it's very primitive what i will say. i in advance apologize right? to say, yes, we live in this 99%. but somehow to understand it. you have to read it against the background of the shitty 1% which that's what. i don't find in many words or i don't know enough about it. how would you react to this?
Sean Carroll
the short answer is the different worlds will not interact. this is something which everett, when he first wrote down the ideas in the 1950s, he was not clear on. he didn't have quite the technology that we have, the intellectual technology we have. but this is exactly what decoherence gets you. since the 70s and 80s, when we understand decoherence better, it's not just that you are allowed to think about different parts of the wave function as separate worlds, but it's literally the right way to think about them. they don't interact, they won't interact going forward because they've decohered from each other. and there's a technical exposition about that involving states in the environment being perpendicular to each other. there's a small footnote there because if you wait really long, if you wait 10 to the 100 years, then all of the worlds will in some sense blur back together into one big world. the youth of our universe is a crucial feature in allowing these different worlds to be separate. but even though hollywood would like it to be otherwise, in the real world, the separate many-world branches are completely non-interacting with each other.
the short answer is the different worlds will not interact. this is something which everett, when he first wrote down the ideas in the 1950s, he was not clear on. he didn't have quite the technology that we have, the intellectual technology we have. but this is exactly what decoherence gets you. since the 70s and 80s, when we understand decoherence better, it's not just that you are allowed to think about different parts of the wave function as separate worlds, but it's literally the right way to think about them. they don't interact, they won't interact going forward because they've decohered from each other. and there's a technical exposition about that involving states in the environment being perpendicular to each other. there's a small footnote there because if you wait really long, if you wait 10 to the 100 years, then all of the worlds will in some sense blur back together into one big world. the youth of our universe is a crucial feature in allowing these different worlds to be separate. but even though hollywood would like it to be otherwise, in the real world, the separate many-world branches are completely non-interacting with each other.
Slavoj Žižek
i see sorry it was mentioned to me by our middleman that... did you or am i misreading you, that you kind of read in detail the script of that shitty movie and this very predicate makes it clear, right? i don't like it, everything everywhere and so on. because what i didn't like in it is that with all these different versions, at the end it has this shitty conclusion but this is the real world, we should accept it and so on. i would't like what is missing for me in the movie is precisely what you're trying to tell this, but we don't know where we are and so on. this uncertainty is lost, i think, in the movie.
i see sorry it was mentioned to me by our middleman that... did you or am i misreading you, that you kind of read in detail the script of that shitty movie and this very predicate makes it clear, right? i don't like it, everything everywhere and so on. because what i didn't like in it is that with all these different versions, at the end it has this shitty conclusion but this is the real world, we should accept it and so on. i would't like what is missing for me in the movie is precisely what you're trying to tell this, but we don't know where we are and so on. this uncertainty is lost, i think, in the movie.
Sean Carroll
you know, no, you're completely right. i didn't read it ahead of time, but i did interview the directors and writers on my podcast. we had a wonderful conversation. they're very smart people, but the demands of narrative are different than the demands of physics is the problem. and not only multiverse movies, but time travel movies have this same feature where even though there's multiple timelines or whatever, the narrative focus. implicitly lends more value to certain characters and devalues other characters. and if this were the real world, that would be completely illegitimate, right? like all the different people in the different timelines, they have a right to exist. you telling me you're going to eliminate my timeline just because it's not yours? you're a genocidal monster. that's terrible.
you know, no, you're completely right. i didn't read it ahead of time, but i did interview the directors and writers on my podcast. we had a wonderful conversation. they're very smart people, but the demands of narrative are different than the demands of physics is the problem. and not only multiverse movies, but time travel movies have this same feature where even though there's multiple timelines or whatever, the narrative focus. implicitly lends more value to certain characters and devalues other characters. and if this were the real world, that would be completely illegitimate, right? like all the different people in the different timelines, they have a right to exist. you telling me you're going to eliminate my timeline just because it's not yours? you're a genocidal monster. that's terrible.
Slavoj Žižek
no, because that's my problem. now i will go even one step lower. did you see indiana jones's five? i did. i did. you did. oh, we are normal people every day. you know, the moment i like it's a shitty movie, but for some reasons i found some for me it's a very desperate movie. it's clear that indiana joe's desire is archimedes, i want to remain there and that beat punch him go back and it's a very desperate her function of further detection is not erotic, it's just to bring the couple back together. and you know how they are. two desperate old men embracing and so on. can you even compare this with being in syracuse at that point and so on? this i find much more productive. the conclusion is not that this is the real world or whatever.
no, because that's my problem. now i will go even one step lower. did you see indiana jones's five? i did. i did. you did. oh, we are normal people every day. you know, the moment i like it's a shitty movie, but for some reasons i found some for me it's a very desperate movie. it's clear that indiana joe's desire is archimedes, i want to remain there and that beat punch him go back and it's a very desperate her function of further detection is not erotic, it's just to bring the couple back together. and you know how they are. two desperate old men embracing and so on. can you even compare this with being in syracuse at that point and so on? this i find much more productive. the conclusion is not that this is the real world or whatever.
Sean Carroll
you know, i could not possibly.
you know, i could not possibly.
Slavoj Žižek
again.
again.
Sean Carroll
agree more.
agree more.
Slavoj Žižek
i am i don't like. the movie, but i find now really what attracted me to indiana jones that it was so universally attacked as total bullshit or whatever no it automatically evokes my sympathy no?
i am i don't like. the movie, but i find now really what attracted me to indiana jones that it was so universally attacked as total bullshit or whatever no it automatically evokes my sympathy no?
Sean Carroll
well, there's a fundamental, conservative, teleological aspect to this way of thinking that our timeline, our universe, is the right one and we should be in it, and we cannot possibly think about improving it by changing the past or anything like that. i think that the filmmakers missed a chance. they should have left indy, spoiler alert, back there with archimedes. he would have been happier. he's getting old anyway. they went for a sappy, lowbrow ending. no, but so at least...
well, there's a fundamental, conservative, teleological aspect to this way of thinking that our timeline, our universe, is the right one and we should be in it, and we cannot possibly think about improving it by changing the past or anything like that. i think that the filmmakers missed a chance. they should have left indy, spoiler alert, back there with archimedes. he would have been happier. he's getting old anyway. they went for a sappy, lowbrow ending. no, but so at least...
Slavoj Žižek
we can conclude in this way then that, in spite of all, from my side, unresolved tensions and so on, we, you put it wonderfully now, the big lesson of, also in many words quantum physics is always bear in mind that this is not the only possible world. you know, don't, don't put this universe as a measure or as you put it nicely, this teleological sense like that's what again water play in everything, everywhere. as if the reality is here in that tax office even with jamie lee curtis playing and all these tricks stop and back is just so that you return more satisfied, happy to this world. i would opt for a much more desperate solution that she, that actors would have traveled in different worlds where many much better then totally desperately she ends up here with the awareness of what
we can conclude in this way then that, in spite of all, from my side, unresolved tensions and so on, we, you put it wonderfully now, the big lesson of, also in many words quantum physics is always bear in mind that this is not the only possible world. you know, don't, don't put this universe as a measure or as you put it nicely, this teleological sense like that's what again water play in everything, everywhere. as if the reality is here in that tax office even with jamie lee curtis playing and all these tricks stop and back is just so that you return more satisfied, happy to this world. i would opt for a much more desperate solution that she, that actors would have traveled in different worlds where many much better then totally desperately she ends up here with the awareness of what
Sean Carroll
would have been, you know. you know, i i didn't see the script for that before it was made, but i did consult on the avengers movies with thanos destroying the world and then they went back in time to fix it, etc. and i argued that if you go back in time and fix it, you know,'re they had this multiple timeline thing, and i don't want you to eliminate a timeline. i think that's terrible. so i said, what you should do is allow the timelines tojoin each other so that individuals have memories of both in their future selves. but they didn't go for that. it was too complicated.
would have been, you know. you know, i i didn't see the script for that before it was made, but i did consult on the avengers movies with thanos destroying the world and then they went back in time to fix it, etc. and i argued that if you go back in time and fix it, you know,'re they had this multiple timeline thing, and i don't want you to eliminate a timeline. i think that's terrible. so i said, what you should do is allow the timelines tojoin each other so that individuals have memories of both in their future selves. but they didn't go for that. it was too complicated.
Slavoj Žižek
no, but that again, the problem for me would be, i would like to. ri. uh many words. interpretation but i know i'm here confusing a pure physical process with symbolic one where this would have been possible you know this rejoining it not in this sense because as for this time travels and so on you know which is a wonderful totally pessimist version of it i forgot the title you know the british now he is a little bit old actor christopher fry she played or. also in the movie. no. she wrote a novel which is so desperately pessimist he it's even done almost realistically scientifically it's nonsense. a guy, a scientist, whose family died in auschwitz blah blah blah wants to prevent this. so he invents a rather primitive time travel machine not you can move up and down that's you pick up a moment in time and you can do some little change there. so what she does in this is this, this scientist, she there was in the village where hitler was born a small stream above from which all the village was drinking water. so she puts around the time of. when hitler had to be conceived, she puts into the water very limited intervention, just some poisonous element which makes women infertile. so hitler is not born. then he steps out of his laboratory and goes into the world and finds a nightmare. nazism developed, but instead of hitler, somebody like wernher von braun, a much more able scientist, became the leader and developed the bomb and the largest one. so here we have a wonderful totally pessimistic denouement. she tries to go back. to bring back hitler you the good guys will we. i love speaking about alternate histories. there is a wonderful book that i love, i forgot the title. a whole book on alternate histories, stories about what might have happened with hitler. there are the usual ones. he survived, went to argentina, whatever, blah, blah, blah. then different battles, how he might have won. but my favorite one is... in his youth, isn't this wonderful alternate history? hitler succeeds as a painter. and whoops into painting his horrible visions, becomes a great modernist, becomes a celebrated artist and end of nazism so on, you know although this is, i know, i don't take it seriously, but it's very refreshing to think along these terms. that's all i'm saying. it was so l. sorry, i'm getting tired, but i really will so you will write. you don't yet have that text. i don't. but i'll think about it, definitely. please, because, okay then can i, in quoting you, refer to this event here? because i really want to immediately. quickly, in the chapter that you, the middleman, know. i will add a footnote and as not a footnote, a couple of pages, but in a sincere way. you know how we intellectuals, you are more honest, i hope so. physicists, you know how you cheat. i will. to write a page and then i put a footnote. when i already wrote these pages, i noticed that a friend of mine hit a similar idea and so on
no, but that again, the problem for me would be, i would like to. ri. uh many words. interpretation but i know i'm here confusing a pure physical process with symbolic one where this would have been possible you know this rejoining it not in this sense because as for this time travels and so on you know which is a wonderful totally pessimist version of it i forgot the title you know the british now he is a little bit old actor christopher fry she played or. also in the movie. no. she wrote a novel which is so desperately pessimist he it's even done almost realistically scientifically it's nonsense. a guy, a scientist, whose family died in auschwitz blah blah blah wants to prevent this. so he invents a rather primitive time travel machine not you can move up and down that's you pick up a moment in time and you can do some little change there. so what she does in this is this, this scientist, she there was in the village where hitler was born a small stream above from which all the village was drinking water. so she puts around the time of. when hitler had to be conceived, she puts into the water very limited intervention, just some poisonous element which makes women infertile. so hitler is not born. then he steps out of his laboratory and goes into the world and finds a nightmare. nazism developed, but instead of hitler, somebody like wernher von braun, a much more able scientist, became the leader and developed the bomb and the largest one. so here we have a wonderful totally pessimistic denouement. she tries to go back. to bring back hitler you the good guys will we. i love speaking about alternate histories. there is a wonderful book that i love, i forgot the title. a whole book on alternate histories, stories about what might have happened with hitler. there are the usual ones. he survived, went to argentina, whatever, blah, blah, blah. then different battles, how he might have won. but my favorite one is... in his youth, isn't this wonderful alternate history? hitler succeeds as a painter. and whoops into painting his horrible visions, becomes a great modernist, becomes a celebrated artist and end of nazism so on, you know although this is, i know, i don't take it seriously, but it's very refreshing to think along these terms. that's all i'm saying. it was so l. sorry, i'm getting tired, but i really will so you will write. you don't yet have that text. i don't. but i'll think about it, definitely. please, because, okay then can i, in quoting you, refer to this event here? because i really want to immediately. quickly, in the chapter that you, the middleman, know. i will add a footnote and as not a footnote, a couple of pages, but in a sincere way. you know how we intellectuals, you are more honest, i hope so. physicists, you know how you cheat. i will. to write a page and then i put a footnote. when i already wrote these pages, i noticed that a friend of mine hit a similar idea and so on
Sean Carroll
i'm ch.
i'm ch.
Slavoj Žižek
it will do.
it will do.
Sean Carroll
100%, yes.
100%, yes.
Slavoj Žižek
really grateful for this because you know, no we didn't just blah blah and we didn't just fraternally agree. we located the difference but at the same time we draw so many precise lines you know because what you agree to finish in a more upbeat sense that my god, we live in a wonderful time where the big, the big even metaphysical questions are again arising, you know, in the sense of yeah.
really grateful for this because you know, no we didn't just blah blah and we didn't just fraternally agree. we located the difference but at the same time we draw so many precise lines you know because what you agree to finish in a more upbeat sense that my god, we live in a wonderful time where the big, the big even metaphysical questions are again arising, you know, in the sense of yeah.
Sean Carroll
one
one
Slavoj Žižek
so sees it now. you cannot just... ignore it. no
so sees it now. you cannot just... ignore it. no
Sean Carroll
and just want to insert that if you go back to the past and change things, they like, as you imply, they might get better or worse.. best. or the
and just want to insert that if you go back to the past and change things, they like, as you imply, they might get better or worse.. best. or the
Slavoj Žižek
one worse, because i even read a pessimist novel about stalinism where stalin is killed, but he's killed in '35 and the one who takes over is yezhov, his secret policeman. and it's even worse. you can imagine. i think my pessimist lesson also from my, although in yugoslavia communism was pretty soft, you know. but you know here, also, i think, a quantum approach in a general sense. gives you to think for example. i will make not just a political point but a modest one. i was recently at a round table. sorry in london and there were some black ladies from south africa. when i asked them frankly i wanted to be honest, not eurocent. i said, listen, i read a lot how in south africa, electricity caps, the state is falling apart, blah, blah, blah. and i almost cried. while of the black ladies was so honest. he said, i'm engaged for decades in anc struggle, but he told me, he told us that the situation is now so sad that among the poor blacks, blacks. po, in south africa, what is the predominant nostalgia? for a part. because she said, listen, the standard of living was even a little bit better than now. they said enough thought, blah, blah, now it's no electricity, chaos. while there was it was a police state, which means, let's violence some kind of basic order. and now, you know, the black are, you know that now, after three decades or how of nc. you know that south africa is a country with the greatest tension between rich and poor in the world. in the entire world. and then, of course, something totally predictable happened. another black lady attacked me. although i didn't say anything. as a racist, you don't have the right to talk about this. you know, she played the game of you, white people are responsible even now for all the mistakes. to be cynical, she played this in bad sense supereterminism. you, white people are responsible for all the mistakes now, you know. and here i think this kind of alternate thinking is necessary. like, where did things really go wrong? and i think it's too naive because the radical leftist answer is it's too naive. it's because mandela didn't go to the end. if he were to make no compromise with, but then it would have been... then it would have been mugabe's zimbabwe, you know, only earlier there, you know, and this is a terrifying problem for me. but we are losing time. listen, it was such a pleasure for me. i hope that we meet again. and are you allowed? the middleman to give me chance him and know but i have it because you see see. yeah, i have it yes. if i really, can i don don't be afraid. i'm not this kind of a stalker who now in two hours will ask you 10 questions and share this. but if i have a short, precise question, can i ask you and you give me one sentence answer, you know. because you are my only, the last thing i'm always tempted. sensational but is it true what many quantum physicists okay sound which that ste hawking did his real work while he was young. lately he was more just popularizing things, is it true or it's not so simple?
one worse, because i even read a pessimist novel about stalinism where stalin is killed, but he's killed in '35 and the one who takes over is yezhov, his secret policeman. and it's even worse. you can imagine. i think my pessimist lesson also from my, although in yugoslavia communism was pretty soft, you know. but you know here, also, i think, a quantum approach in a general sense. gives you to think for example. i will make not just a political point but a modest one. i was recently at a round table. sorry in london and there were some black ladies from south africa. when i asked them frankly i wanted to be honest, not eurocent. i said, listen, i read a lot how in south africa, electricity caps, the state is falling apart, blah, blah, blah. and i almost cried. while of the black ladies was so honest. he said, i'm engaged for decades in anc struggle, but he told me, he told us that the situation is now so sad that among the poor blacks, blacks. po, in south africa, what is the predominant nostalgia? for a part. because she said, listen, the standard of living was even a little bit better than now. they said enough thought, blah, blah, now it's no electricity, chaos. while there was it was a police state, which means, let's violence some kind of basic order. and now, you know, the black are, you know that now, after three decades or how of nc. you know that south africa is a country with the greatest tension between rich and poor in the world. in the entire world. and then, of course, something totally predictable happened. another black lady attacked me. although i didn't say anything. as a racist, you don't have the right to talk about this. you know, she played the game of you, white people are responsible even now for all the mistakes. to be cynical, she played this in bad sense supereterminism. you, white people are responsible for all the mistakes now, you know. and here i think this kind of alternate thinking is necessary. like, where did things really go wrong? and i think it's too naive because the radical leftist answer is it's too naive. it's because mandela didn't go to the end. if he were to make no compromise with, but then it would have been... then it would have been mugabe's zimbabwe, you know, only earlier there, you know, and this is a terrifying problem for me. but we are losing time. listen, it was such a pleasure for me. i hope that we meet again. and are you allowed? the middleman to give me chance him and know but i have it because you see see. yeah, i have it yes. if i really, can i don don't be afraid. i'm not this kind of a stalker who now in two hours will ask you 10 questions and share this. but if i have a short, precise question, can i ask you and you give me one sentence answer, you know. because you are my only, the last thing i'm always tempted. sensational but is it true what many quantum physicists okay sound which that ste hawking did his real work while he was young. lately he was more just popularizing things, is it true or it's not so simple?
Sean Carroll
i mean, that there is some truth in that, but there's also truth in exactly the same statement applied to a lot of people who did not have a degenerative neuron disease. i's special.
i mean, that there is some truth in that, but there's also truth in exactly the same statement applied to a lot of people who did not have a degenerative neuron disease. i's special.
Slavoj Žižek
he was obsessed with these hidden variables for decades, but it's... il mit.
he was obsessed with these hidden variables for decades, but it's... il mit.
Sean Carroll
scient that he did his great work, no? physics is a young person's game, no matter what your level of physical ability is. that's why i share.
scient that he did his great work, no? physics is a young person's game, no matter what your level of physical ability is. that's why i share.
Slavoj Žižek
it's even historically wrong. this tendency to look at the old age, the last text or words by a big name as if there is some final truth in them. it's totally wrong. like to amuse you with the last story, jacques lacan, when he was dying had a young mistress, catherine millot. and she almost made a career out of being there at his side when she was dying and she mumbled some things. what did she mean with those? well, what if it was nothing? it was just a confused tremblingbling. and i see this even with many philosophers. a lot of them reached their greatest point in their middle ages. and then the gas slowly go down. i mean, no? well, i that in the battle off. quantum physicist, you will. he merged as a winner kgb terror to you know what look when i give a talk and you know usually before they ask you there could you just say some words to test the microphone you know what i always say robespierre, no freedom for the enemies of freedom. this should be our motto off we. thanks very much. thanks very much. you, the middleman, if there is something too stupid or whatever, i give you, now i will be the victim. i give you all the stalinist try to cut it short, do we did whatever you want. i'm not a narcissist here. i'm really a communist this level. you know that whenever there is a conflict between an individual and an institution, i prefer to be automatically on the site of the institute because i edit some book series and don't you hate authors? see, you threw one comma there.
it's even historically wrong. this tendency to look at the old age, the last text or words by a big name as if there is some final truth in them. it's totally wrong. like to amuse you with the last story, jacques lacan, when he was dying had a young mistress, catherine millot. and she almost made a career out of being there at his side when she was dying and she mumbled some things. what did she mean with those? well, what if it was nothing? it was just a confused tremblingbling. and i see this even with many philosophers. a lot of them reached their greatest point in their middle ages. and then the gas slowly go down. i mean, no? well, i that in the battle off. quantum physicist, you will. he merged as a winner kgb terror to you know what look when i give a talk and you know usually before they ask you there could you just say some words to test the microphone you know what i always say robespierre, no freedom for the enemies of freedom. this should be our motto off we. thanks very much. thanks very much. you, the middleman, if there is something too stupid or whatever, i give you, now i will be the victim. i give you all the stalinist try to cut it short, do we did whatever you want. i'm not a narcissist here. i'm really a communist this level. you know that whenever there is a conflict between an individual and an institution, i prefer to be automatically on the site of the institute because i edit some book series and don't you hate authors? see, you threw one comma there.
Robinson Erhardt
well.
well.
Slavoj Žižek
destroys everything and so on, you know. so i'm really grateful for this. it helped me a lot. the only my only reproach to you, sean, is that you ruined my evening. because i wanted dirty old movie, now i be set to go into it and quickly write two-3 pages. no. my apologies for that. that's what i do. no, here, i your pardon for everything but not for this. when the people takes power for this, okay, i'm a good guy. you don't get gulat. but you will get. two years of re-education camp, you know like.
destroys everything and so on, you know. so i'm really grateful for this. it helped me a lot. the only my only reproach to you, sean, is that you ruined my evening. because i wanted dirty old movie, now i be set to go into it and quickly write two-3 pages. no. my apologies for that. that's what i do. no, here, i your pardon for everything but not for this. when the people takes power for this, okay, i'm a good guy. you don't get gulat. but you will get. two years of re-education camp, you know like.
Sean Carroll
yeah
yeah
Slavoj Žižek
get that picture. i could use that.
get that picture. i could use that.
Sean Carroll
anyway, that's okay.
anyway, that's okay.
Slavoj Žižek
education is always good. thanks very much. and again. the middleman. really, i mean it, don't even ask me do all the dirty stuff. you know.
education is always good. thanks very much. and again. the middleman. really, i mean it, don't even ask me do all the dirty stuff. you know.
Robinson Erhardt
yes.
yes.
Slavoj Žižek
the
the
Robinson Erhardt
confusions in one. s, the middleman is probably is not going to be cutting anything out because this has been the middleman's most successful conversation yet since i haven't had to say.
confusions in one. s, the middleman is probably is not going to be cutting anything out because this has been the middleman's most successful conversation yet since i haven't had to say.
Slavoj Žižek
but i like the middleman, the term, you know why? because the reality this hell today people don't like authority. i always like authority in the sense that sometimes you need authority in a debate when it goes sideways but today already at the level of words it gets confused. no longer likes to talk about director, leader, the favorite term is coordinator, you know. it sounds you keep all your power, but it sounds much more innocent, you know, and just coordinating things, you know. so i know, and you know, that's why i still have hope in iran. extra connections there on the opposite side. and they told me, you know, still you cannot compare iran in spite of all that's going there now with something like saudi arabia. women were able to protest precisely because they have a strong crowd. for example, it's a common joke they are dead. the big guy is a minister, usually a man. although even this is not the case, you have one two feminine ministers in government. but immediately when you make there to make a business deal, you discover that the minister is an idiot and you have to talk with persons around him who are in majority women. don't underestimate iran. it's tremendous. they are so crazy, they translated 15 of my books. they are, it's intellectual, no, this is not a good sign for them, it's a sign of confusion. what i want to say is that it's intellectually alive. while in other countries, egypt and so on, it's very tragic how little they translate, they simply don't have this humanities, social sciences life.
but i like the middleman, the term, you know why? because the reality this hell today people don't like authority. i always like authority in the sense that sometimes you need authority in a debate when it goes sideways but today already at the level of words it gets confused. no longer likes to talk about director, leader, the favorite term is coordinator, you know. it sounds you keep all your power, but it sounds much more innocent, you know, and just coordinating things, you know. so i know, and you know, that's why i still have hope in iran. extra connections there on the opposite side. and they told me, you know, still you cannot compare iran in spite of all that's going there now with something like saudi arabia. women were able to protest precisely because they have a strong crowd. for example, it's a common joke they are dead. the big guy is a minister, usually a man. although even this is not the case, you have one two feminine ministers in government. but immediately when you make there to make a business deal, you discover that the minister is an idiot and you have to talk with persons around him who are in majority women. don't underestimate iran. it's tremendous. they are so crazy, they translated 15 of my books. they are, it's intellectual, no, this is not a good sign for them, it's a sign of confusion. what i want to say is that it's intellectually alive. while in other countries, egypt and so on, it's very tragic how little they translate, they simply don't have this humanities, social sciences life.
Sean Carroll
the. know, the history does matter. the histories there are very different.
the. know, the history does matter. the histories there are very different.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, yeah, but as iranians point out, they are not simply a muslim country, they are fararsii persian know, and they always proudly point out, we are not. arabs. you know. sorry for this because today you never know what will be proclaimed as racism, you know.
yeah, yeah, but as iranians point out, they are not simply a muslim country, they are fararsii persian know, and they always proudly point out, we are not. arabs. you know. sorry for this because today you never know what will be proclaimed as racism, you know.
Robinson Erhardt
yes, thank you both. this has been a blast. hold on, geisslings. before you go, please like, subscribe, follow if you haven't already. smash all those buttons. and also, if you haven't followed me on twitter at robinson erhardt, or if you're not joining me every morning as i eat my pint of ice cream on twitch at robinsonerhardt on robinson eats, please do so.
yes, thank you both. this has been a blast. hold on, geisslings. before you go, please like, subscribe, follow if you haven't already. smash all those buttons. and also, if you haven't followed me on twitter at robinson erhardt, or if you're not joining me every morning as i eat my pint of ice cream on twitch at robinsonerhardt on robinson eats, please do so.