Mathematician here 😊. I feel like the reason many lay people think they have discovered grand theories is because of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They just aren’t aware of how little they know. After getting my degree in higher math, I feel much tinier and much dumber. I have been humbled by just how much knowledge there is out there. Also, Sabine is my hero. I’m studying physics now because of her ❤

I love that Sabine is very strict in restricting her answers to her area of expertise. Socrates would be proud!

My admiration for Sabine is almost boundless. So many “I don’t knows” which is fine in a Universe with so many things we can conceive that are determinable. There’s no shortage of answerable questions!

Sabine visibly dying inside at the mention of Deepak Chopra is comedy gold

Sabine is a treasure. A skeptic of science and a good educator.

Sabine is a wonderful communicator, and a wonderful person!!

I've been hooked on Sabines YT channel now for a couple of years. She does a good job of explaining complicated subjects.

Sabine is my favorite living physicist. She defines pragmatism and in her ideas, she is always succinct. I imagine her to be more honest, unbiased and humble than most people, though I have never known her. Such qualities always seem to help make any person more believable.

This was absolutely fantastic. I’ll be listening to it again and mulling the ideas for a long time. I’m definitely going to buy her book, and I just subscribed to her UKposts channel. Thank you so very much for introducing me to this wonderful person!

This was fascinating. As a fan of both, I think Michael did an amazing job with the questions and topics he picked here for Sabine, outside of the purely scientific zone.

I love Sabine's pristine fidelity to her understanding and beliefs.

You forgot to mention that Sabine's channel is one of the most brilliant communicators on the planet. By listening to her broadcasts I find myself actually able to understand more than I ever imagined being able to. Different ideas like the block universe make so much more sense now. And the whole thing about time. My mind has been expanded in ways I never thought was possible.

Thank you, miss Hossenfelder, for promoting real science!

I follow Dr. Hossenfelder's vlog & find it quite educational at a level aimed at the level of we curious lay types & get a kick from her personable humour. Thank Sabine on my behalf, please.

Sabine is such a smart, special, and nice lady. She has to give a lot to humanity ❤

Sabina is an amazing lady! In all of the academic professions from philosophy to physics including engineering, economics, finance, business and politics, people try to baffle you with bullshit. At times, it can be a real challenge to separate the facts from the fiction and to recognize the swindlers and con artists. I think at some point all of us have been fooled by someone myself included.

On female sensitivity: A friend sent me a video clip he’d taken on the train in Germany. Two women were discussing the problems they had being sensitive to the electromagnetic fields in their homes. They suffered terribly from them attributing all sorts of petty ailments to their sensitivity. My friend pointed out that they were all travelling on an electric train and were in a much more intense electromagnetic field than you find in any normal home.

I've been a fan of Sabine ever since I attended her public lectures at the Perimeter Institute of Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Dr. Hossenfelder is a true hero. In Germany we have a nice verb that became uncommen, it is called "verbrämt", If something is "wissenschaftlich verbrämt" this means something is scientifically dressed up. And so Dr. Hossenfelder's telling is true that many scientist hide behind a wall of mathematics, at least the ones that know mathematics, the other ones hide behind a wall of technical terms like social scientists, political scientists and educators. All these people are a real pain in the a..! This is why we need strong persons as Dr. Hossenfelder, who may not have many friends in the scientific community especially not under physicists, but the people that like her do like her very intensely! Keep on! Kind regards from Germany!

Couldn't wait enough for such an episode! Thx guys!

One thing that I have come up with in the shower, many times, and I believe it to be true is, "I think I'm hungry...." That's my great contribution to the theory of everything.

Love Sabine Hossenfelder!

Great podcast! Well done, sir! Thanks a lot!

Great conversation with a great guest! Well done!

I have an average level of science education (primary and secondary) which is to include a basic physics class. My dad was a bio-chemist, and I suppose I have his sensiblities--though not his brains. So, I have found personalities like Sagan, Dawkins, Tyson, and Hossenfelder to be so interesting, even as I have a difficult time following some of the concepts they discuss. It's comforting to know there are people who are intelligent and deeply interested in finding out what is true, rather than making up woo woo (the bible, the koran, or Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, big tent preachers....or pull just about any number of names out of a hat filled with woo woo). Our world is filled with woo woo. It seems to have been the default setting for as long as we've had language. Science is hard. Woo woo is easy--and more profitable.

Finished her book last night. It is now my favorite physics book. No make that my favorite book overall. Of course the Moral Arch is second.

Many good questions well answered. I'm currently reading her "Existential Physics" and find it refreshing. Her instrumentalist perspective is most refreshing (see Dewey's instrumentalism). I like her use of "ascientific". Many ascientific notions are notions that are claimed to be derivative from science but are really just confusions of metaphysics with science. She makes her own meanings. She is responsible for her life.

This lady, Sabine Hossenfelder is a genius for sure and I love the way she can be critical of mainstream mathematical physics and think out of the box at the same time.

I love how she looks at, and describes -- equations and mathematics. I think it helps that she came at Physics from Mathematics, instead of Mathematics from Physics, where it is basically a toolbox. Math is a language we use to describe relationships between things in the universe. It allows abstractions of abstractions of abstractions. Which can be really useful. But it's still a language. And language isn't the things it describes. I majored in Atmospheric Science, and I did NOT go at it from mathematics... I kind of sucked at mathematics after Algebra 2, though I aced Geometry. I did NOT ace Analytic geometry, or anything after it through Diff Eq. Lotta "C"'s and sometimes only the second time I took the courses. However, I found it eye-opening how we came up with equations to describe fluid dynamics, and it was obvious to me that we were just describing things as best we understand them with the language of mathematics. So does "math" exist? Kind of depends on what we mean by existence. It exists in our heads and on paper. It can be passed along. In that sense it exists. But when we get into discussions like this, you get into Sabine's talk of the past and future and present all exist, and we "invented" this language, so the language exists, so it exists in all of the universe, therefore it is a structure that just exists in the universe ... but I think we're getting into religion here, frankly. I do NOT think we can copy consciousness without literally biologically reproducing ourselves. I think ....and I know this is ascientific ... that consciousness is an integral part of the universe and has some fundamental structure we haven't found the source of yet. If we ever do.

My favorite physics rule: Nothing happens in no time.

Free will and wine drinking. Obviously we can and do learn from past mistakes. So tomorrow Sabina can drink less wine than today. But assuming determinism, she only will drink less wine tomorrow than today if she is already on a determined path that will lead to that outcome. Could she have done otherwise? Yes but she would have had to have been on a different determined path stretching back to the initial conditions of the universe to have done so. That is very straightforward and shows that what we ordinarily think of as free will and I dare say, what Michael Shermer has in mind, is not compatible with determinism.

Hi Michael. I'm old enough to remember that bike race. Good to see you still in action.

Sabine does her best to rescue the realism from the constant speculation that we survive death in some form. Arcane fears are a distraction.

I loved this conversation the first time and am watching it again. Full disclosure. I am a committed Catholic. The questions discussed here are essential to the struggle to understand the world. I have been frustrated with many other discussions which treat a long list of untestable ideas as "theoretically and potentially true". A further frustration is that many scientists exploit their expertise with technical jargon and math unreachable to the average person, implying that big questions are "too big" for "regular folk down there." Shermer's questions are wonderful, and Sabine's answers and explanations are clear. I love her agnostic honesty...where I once lived. I often feel like many scientists prefer to live above the heavens where the smart people go in order to avoid the poor, silly people down below...creating intellectually silly theories of almost anything...which is preferable to even considering the existence of a mind/being/creator outside of the material world. Thanks very much!

Enjoyed this a lot, great guest! 👌

Subscribed! Been a follower of Michael Shermer for years.

I forgot where I read this but decades ago someone once said "biological systems are islands of negative entropy". So just as you can expend energy to store some of the energy in a clock's mainspring, biological systems can expend energy to do error detection then error correction (explains why Michael's 6-yo can heal faster than Michael)

Sabine brilla como una supernova, ilumina todo lo que la rodea Sabine shines like a supernova, lighting up everything around her

You have my attention know Sabine. I really do love watching you.

Loved the conversation, going to buy her book. The video editing caused some overlap in speech and at times seemed like you were each responding to a different question.

Thank you Sabina 😊

I understand just from watching these conversations!!!

Sabine and Kathy loves physics and are such great voices here on UKposts.....

Very enjoyable conversation. Now if only Amazon stop delaying my copy of her book!!

Not sure how Michael struggles so hard to imagine death, it's exactly the same as all the time before birth, complete non-existence. For me it's was a literally unremarkable place, for infinite time into the past. Nothing to be afraid of.

Great show Mike you breathe life into an otherwise flat field of numbers and more numbers…

I will definitely read her book.

FYI BN ebooks cannot be read on a Kindle. Ordinarily this would have been a deal-breaker, but I purchased your book anyway.

This is a skeptical feast. Thank you both.

great conversation. Sabine is well spoken, concise, and bold. at 49:02 Sabine goes on to state that a belief in God and belief in the Multiverse as derived from mathematics are both religious beliefs and unnecessary to describe what we observe.

It all reminds me of Kamakurka and Herr Seele's comics strip "The disappearance of Nothing," followed by "The Return of Nothing." By then the newspaper that published the comics strips had received so many complaints from readers that it stopped publication.

1:01:43 computability and free will

I think a lot of technical/academic publications are written because in career terms, it's true - publish or perish, promotion-wise No paper-citations or counts, no tenure. Brutal, but true. So you get stuff published in many fields that while not actually wrong, doesn't genuinely help increase understanding.

Why does humanity not know that everyone is on the Consciousness spectrum? ❤❤❤

Great Interview

I don't know. I'm the MOST comfortable with "we don't know". It is, in fact, the most honest point of view. And I agree with Sabine .... we will probably never know. I, in fact, believe that we can't ... due to the nature of infinity.

Excellent. Thank you

In this video there is a of talking about things in terms of our conceptualisations of such things rather than what those things may be, 'in themselves'. There seems a danger of confusing epistemology with ontology of conflating sensations with conceptualisations and both of these things with any 'objects' that may exist in external reality. As to wether things actually exist in external reality as substancial 'objects' or alternatively as 'processes' between insubstancial forms that are themselves akin to processes is at present beyond my understanding but would seem to bear upon the contrary doctrines of materialism and idealism.

This was published on my birthday 😊.

For sure get her book. She's great.

This is genuinely great stuff. I don't know what to make of Sabine just saying there are things that are untestable and always unknowable. Like the multiverse. On the one hand I admire her ability to do this. On the other hand, I wonder if she's giving up too readily on these kinds of things.

Great to see Sabine's new book discussed, btw "Gospel of Judas" got a huge media blitz back in 2006 it's amazing that anyone managed to miss that!

Meanwhile, Sabine's channel has reached the 1-million-mark!

Wonderful conversation. Michael, I’ve been noticing on a lot of your episodes there seems to be a time lag. Is there a different program you can try? It kind of disturbs the flow of the conversation

Einstein said: The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits. Quasi one and a half hour of genius! Right Frau Doktor Hossenfelder!

Lol. One of the best guests ever! So Dr. Shermer are you skeptical about lack of Free Will?

This interview has inspired me to send Sabina my totally not crazy theory of everything for her to review 😆

It does astonish me how easily and often today the idea of free will is relinquished, given the huge logical problem with denying it. For if we are seriously saying that all our thoughts are in the long run determined by the mindless forces and particles of the material universe, such that we could not possibly have thought differently, how can we know any of our thoughts to be true or false - including our denial of free will? As has been said, the problem with determinism is that if it is true we can never know it to be true since our thoughts are determined, including determinism. It is a self-refuting position. Free will is essential not only to moral responsibility but to reason, logic and therefore science. What Sabine and Michael are saying ultimately is that we know we don't have free will, but let's all pretend for the sake of our mental and social health that we do - which scarcely seems a rational approach.

Isn't Michael's last question taken from "a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy"?

People like Chopra found a safe and convenient place in Quantum Physics to put their ignorance. It is beyond our understanding, so it’s basically magic. Magic makes everything possible, so it’s a great way to tell people what they want to hear. Cyclical deliciousness.

My undergraduate major was Physics, and I dig F=ma=GMm/r^2 and E=mv^2=mc^2 and it has its place in predicting the outcome of measurements and the building of things. I love the mystery of the single electron whose wave nature manifests itself when "it" passes through two slits and "throws a dice" (when "it" emerges beyond the slits) to determine whether it should avoid going to a place of wave destructive interference and go instead to a place of constructive interference, but the idea that a photon or an electron is a "real" thing that is both a wave and a particle is (beg your pardon) absurd. The idea that conscious awareness is just a spectator in a deterministic universe - like a mouse trap that has some "spiritual" aspect that "wants" to catch a mouse and snaps. Everything we do is completely controlled by elector-chemical processes and "forces". We "think" we have a choice in taking the blue capsule or the red capsule, but the choice is totally the result of electrons and protons and the forces they foster. Whether reality is deterministic or not (under the principal of "uncertainty" where the micro world "plays" with dice to determine the future) "we" are merely spectators and have absolutely NO control over our decisions. And the material world might not even "Know" (or "care" that conscious awareness exists and history would have unfolded EXACTLY the same way if we were all "zombies" like a play without an audience. There are people who want so very much to believe that there is an afterlife where we will be reunited with out loved ones and will remember their names, in spite of the FACT that our memories are recorded totally by the way neurons are configured as we attain them and will be destroyed when our bodies turn to dust (or ashes if we choose to be cremated). They would have to believe that memories are not recorded by a material configuration but are stored in some "spiritual vault" where they can be restored to our "resurrected" body in an afterlife. It is all "Floxy Noxy" and Physicist should concentrate on making theories that have useful consequences. Neither Newton nor Einstein nor Sabine Hossenfelder know ANYTHING about he nature of reality. But I am one of Sabine's followers because I love her accent. :-) I would like to know how Sabine can explain the UAPs that can stand motionless in hurricane winds and can go from zero to Mach 1 instantly without any period of acceleration -- that must muster a G force of a thousand without any apparent means of propulsion. And move through air without a shock wave. And do weird things that highly intelligent pilots would regard as trivial "cat and mouse games" with airplanes.

The question of why we can't imagine being dead is an interesting one, and it points to the philosophy of nonduality. It points to our identification as primarily an observer rather than an object of observation. What if what we take to be "we" (or "I") is more real than our mind or body? What if the only entity that truly exists is an Observer who can only be described as pure witnessing consciousness? Then we would have at least an intuition that we aren't limited to this body and mind, that our existence is somehow never born and never dies. And, in fact, that is what people who achieve self-realization perceive, directly and not through the physics of having a body. This might seem unlikely or complex, but it's actually far simpler than either physics or religion: it says that the laws of physics, and spacetime, are all real, but illusory. It says that prior to matter and energy is consciousness, but not a mystical consciousness based in pseudoscience (like a misinterpretation of quantum mechanics), but a directly perceived awareness of just being aware. Such a pure subjective consciousness would be zero-dimensional, being located somehow at the origin not only of matter and energy, but at the origin of life, peace, happiness, creativity, and intelligence as well.

Very good show

I think one could make an analog between modern computing/AI decision making and our own "free will". I'm too tired too expand, lol but I agree with a lot of what Sabine said.

Superb conversation. Cool that Michael Shermer stressed that an upload of a person is a copy of the person just like a computer file.

Heiight, width, and lenght do not usually change on objects. They are non changing dimensions. Time does move so that dimension seems quite different.

The principle of observational equivalence - the foundational principle operating as the equivalence principle in physics, the principle that Einstein used to formulate his theories of special and general relativity, also tells you that any object, of any size, can only be modeled probabilistically when you cannot observe it. That, right there, proves that there is no qualitative difference between the quantum and classical worlds, other than the fact that the classical world is observable. It also proves the equivalence between a particle observer of quantum mechanics, and a human observer - showing that observation is fundamental to any statement that can be formulated relative the physical world. This equivalence is what allows one to draw valid inferences that are mathematically supportable from the position of the human observer. This equivalence can then be used to infer that observation must be the source of the determinism we see in the Universe, but that obervation is also a radiator of entropy, and that 'observation' and 'locality' are fundamental to each other, because by radiating entropy an observer is correspondingly concentrated to a point of low entropy. Modern physics is still completely stumped about this. The next major discoveries will not come from some egghead who has spent 30 years on some deep detail of reality. It will come from someone able to perform a fundamental conceptual inversion of the concepts we all understand, to reveal something foundationally new about them - while keeping the resulting effect as unremarkable as it is now. The fact that both of you are making fun of people trying to be creative in ways you no longer are - while being unable to even approach the foundational questions of life - was my motivation for leaving this comment. I welcome you to try and falsify my above statements - good luck!

The fine-tuned argument for intelligent design assumes that there is something essentially special about us. It has the same basis as the argument that the world is the center of the universe. It can be counter-argued that this universe is simply the one that is. If it didn't exist, if the laws of nature were different then an entirely different universe might have come into being. The fact that this universe evolved us means nothing in particular.

How does Sabine define what is and isn't science if not whether something is "Testable"? What other criteria is there? Her personal opinion on whether she does or doesn't like the hypothesis?

Sabine is a truther physicist . Much love to you Sabine.

She's awesome !!!!!

At 51:24, Michael talks about being agnostic vs. atheist, which is actually two questions. Gnostic/Agnostic refers to what someone knows and theism/atheism refers to what someone believes or has a lack of belief of. If you do not know if a god exists, then you are agnostic. You can still be a theist or an atheist either way. I don’t know for sure what Michael or Sabine believe, but if I was to guess, I would think neither are convinced a god exists, or in other words, they lack the belief in a god or gods. This would make both of them agnostic atheists. Michael did mention hard atheist, however, and this often is interpreted as a strong conviction or belief that no god exists. This belief is often backed up with reasons (knowledge) to support the lack of belief. So in this case you might say they are a gnostic atheist. Honestly, though, if we do not have conclusive evidence, either way, does’t that mean we are all agnostic and its just a matter of degree?

The Greeks two and a half thousand years ago wondered about the 'The One and the Many'. Moving on to the mid 20th century, Heidegger wrote in Being and Time about 'The Ground of Being' (the ONE) from which all entities (the MANY) emerge. Is it not true therefore that there can be no information in The ONE in and of itself as there is no differentiation until entities, (energy fields/particles), 'emerge'. It seems that information is not a thing in and of itself. Information is about relationships between entities and seems to be entirely meaningless independent of entities? If all the individual entities being consumed by a black hole are destroyed and become entirely undifferentiated from the Ground of Being, the question of whether or not information is destroyed appears to be moot?

We don't say, "What is the purpose of a neutron star?" so likewise a scientist would not of necessity ask, "What is the purpose of a biosphere?", which is perhaps akin to the question "What is the purpose of life?" But one does ask, "What is the purpose of the Antikythera Mechanism?", and likewise, "What is the purpose of this or that component of the biosphere (such as an organelle in a cell)?" If life is the same kind of thing as a neutron star or a galaxy, i.e. a naturally occurring phenomenon of physics, then why do we ask the purposes of the workings of one but not of the workings in the others? Why does one natural phenomenon of physics posses a collection of "purposes" while the others do not?

For a comprehensive description of the concept of time discussed here Julian Barbour wrote a book: _The End of Time_ it’s tough going, but I’ve not come across better.

As grad student, my professor (leading robotics researcher) said he knew of many scientists who were denied publication, they banded together to start their own journal, thereby getting their questionable articles published. (professors need publications to get jobs). And while attending science conferences, noticed many "scientists" trashing others, because FUNDING was dependent. (aside - the earthquake thing is interesting, many stories of women who sensed impending earthquakes - one lady moved out of Cali to an earthquake free state (VA), because she was getting migraines all the times, then she got a serious migraine - few days later historic, first time ever earthquake occurred. A high level of magnetite was found in her brain ,,, )

Love it👍👍

"When we are saying "only God knows," we are saying, no one knows." - Christopher Hitchens -

34:30 could information from another person get added to another person or persons as the info is getting reformed

Note that the human organism's onboard, sensory-environment mapping computer uses the current state of its onboard map(s) as both 'map' of 'as is', and as its 'blueprint' for its 'to be' states (see "Turing machine") -- i.e. as its 'program(s)' to 'instruct' its subsequent sensory environment mapping/'interacting' ['sensory input'-conditional decision] [re]actions. As for compelling evidence (if not "proof") that _what_ we humans transmit (or "communicate") to each other with our language is [a 'facsimile' of] our 'on-board' sensory-environmental (se-) maps, and that our internal (neurological) se-maps function as our brain's [if…then…] conditional response "program(s)": I am confident that every reader of this 'meme' will be familiar with the concept of a "lie". When we humans "lie" to each other, we are using our language to transmit a false map in the guise of a "true", i.e. ["in good faith"-] accurate and [hopefully] reliable, map to one or more of our fellow human beings for the purpose of manipulating (or "programming") their subsequent decisions and behavior in a way that is primarily in our own, rather than their own best interest. Exactly the same result would be achieved if we presented a deliberately inaccurate roadmap to a traveler who asked us for directions. Note that "the scientific method" has proven to be our species' most effective, accurate, and self-improving (sensory and "scientific technology enhanced"-sensory) environment mapping technique/technology/algorithm so far devised. Why is that? (Teach your children. Explain why "it works out that way" to your fellow citizens. Drop the affectatious "Scientific Truth" misnomer. Grok "scientific" methodically reproducibly demonstrable and testable "sensory (and equally 'clearly documented and understandable scientific and engineering technology enhanced'-sensory) observable evidence", verified [and re-verified, and IV&V re-verifiable, etc., etc.] against "the territory" itself (to the extent, given the inherent limitations of our sensory apparatus, and the intriguing implications of quantum mechanics, that we can consistently ascertain the existence and nature thereof as such.) For example, the 'category name' in the scientific nomenclature to indicate a "scientific evidence"- supported linguistically encoded map is "theory". And note that, like any other 'map', the scientific paradigm implicitly and explicitly recognizes a "scientific theory" as inherently 'provisional', pending the unambiguous discovery of consistently verifiable sensory observational evidence to the contrary. We ("human civilization") are [i.e. hopefully will soon recognize ourselves as] an intelligent, self-aware, self-designing, and self-improving, information processing I/O circuit -- a.k.a. a "[human societal] network" (HSN). Take _particular_ note of the word "we" in that statement (because, in addition to the conventional "network" definitive reasons, "we" is "quantized" - I'll explain later, or you can go ahead and deduce the physical, logical, and phenomenological significance of that for yourself, based on the nature of "the speed of light" [Hint, "connect the dots", if you will]. Note that, as a self-organizing, 'auto-catalytically' self-sustaining network of 'specialized' living 'individuals', this HSN will come to recognize itself as an intelligently self-aware [by means and in terms of its "popularly"/"culturally" shared 'se-map' of itself as such (serving as its 'DNA', if you will] "super-organism". If we keep this in mind, and operate accordingly, our potential as such might be virtually limitless. Our new [or hopefully very-soon-to-be] 'Constitutional Bill of Fundamental Human Rights', as the official minimum, and minimal (sufficient to ensure one's own, and likewise the "individual integrity" of one's fellow human beings) civic code of ethics for the individual citizen, and for all organizations thereof (civic, private, corporate, and government), and "the law of the land", is [i.e. hopefully very soon will be] our foundational self-organizing network (SON) protocol and network operating system (NOS). Note that, as if by 'providence', and unlike most other species, we humans have been 'blessed' (if you will) with the ability to produce our offspring incrementally - one at a time - thereby enabling us to intelligently control and manage our population with both arithmetic precision and without violating the Fundamental Human Rights of a single individual, in order to precisely balance the individual's Right to a "humane" and "optimum" environment (whatever, as a scientifically-informed democracy, we decide that should be) for the health and happiness, and 'se-environment mapping ["intelligence"] developmental potential' (e.g. one that is biodiversity-rich, instead of a "bacterial lifestyle"-grade monoculture) of the individual human being, and for the sustainability and extraterrestrial advancement and survival potential of our species, with the right of competent (I recommend we scientifically and democratically define) citizens to bear and support at least one offspring -- the well-being of the child being the primary consideration. So, Thank You for this video. (And until this 'blueprint' is realized -- 'Careful with those maps, Eugene'.) P.S. "Information": A specific pattern of momentum 'pulses' (waves) as input to a particulate mass object (PMO) I/O device, which 'reroutes' that input (maps it to) a correspondingly specific output pattern and trajectory of momentum "pushes", and/or stores [a portion of] it as a reconfiguration of its internal circuitry/structure/'point-radial momentum' ("mass")'. RE Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: regarding the inherent 'ambiguity' between 'the motion through space over time' of a "spatially extended (i.e. "mass">0) quantum particle" and the presumed specific "point" position of presumed 'fixed' spatially extended 'surface' of such a presumed 'hard particle' at a given duration=0 "instant" in/of "time". It has to do with the fact that "mass", i.e. [the 'manifestation' of] "spatial extension" at every [self-relative] "size scale", is fundamentally comprised of "[self-relative] motion" [a.k.a. "acceleration"/"push"/"momentum" - as in point-radial fluid vortexual 'acceleration-flow' of the otherwise 'scale-uniform superfluid medium' (SUM) [that Einstein 'categorized' as "spacetime"] -- i.e. through/as "space" over/as "time" -- and simply does not exist (is not "physically[/phenomenologically] manifested') as such at a single "instant" (a [mathematical limit] 'point' on the clock, of interval duration = 0) of time. (Even a "snapshot" photograph requires the aperture to remain open for a non-zero duration of time). And since "mass" particles are also "waves" (propagating point-radially with respect to the "EMR" waves they 'encounter' in their own 'inertial reference frame'), we can model the problem as follows: It's easier to determine the 'spatial extension/size/location' "over time" of a large cluster of ping-pong balls (wavefronts) by bouncing a single ping-pong ball [moving in a different (i.e. 'orthogonal' as opposed to 'parallel'/"the same" - since "photons" don't overtake each other) direction] off of it [at] several [different] times than using the same method to identify the spatial extension/'location over time' of another' single ping-pong ball (wavefront of [nearly] the same wavelength) over time. ----- i.e. the interaction of the waves results in the phenomenological "standing" Fourier waveform that we call our "sensory awareness" (and our other internal "consciousness" activity). And note that the only function -- and "meaning" -- of the _[self-]relative_ "size", or "scale", of the component waves that additively constitute such a waveform is in the '[self-] engineering' (if you will) of its structure. FULL DISCLOSURE: Yes, this _is_ "just another" linguistically encoded "mind program" -- analogous in this respect to each and every one of the countless other such linguistically encoded and transmitted "worldviews" [societal network coordinating 'shared se-maps'] contrived by our species since we evolved and began using our "language" to encode and share our personal 'onboard neurological maps' of our 'sensory-(and /or 'se-simulator'-generated)-experiential environment("s") with our fellow humans -- the only distinguishing innovation being the author's primary engineering purpose for _this_ "linguistically-encoded mind program" (or 'se-map') is not 'simply' to "program your mind" (or "simply provide you with a map of your environment"), but to "program your mind with an enhanced ability to program itself". Anyway, that's [my abbreviated linguistic encoding of] _my_ map. What's yours? [Note that, and consider why, I'm genuinely interested in, and "tolerant" thereof.] See also "What is a Worldview" (ukposts.info/have/v-deo/eYZyoY9of6x22X0.html) Please 'decipher' and make 'beneficent use' of this to the maximum extent you are able. Thanks again.

Parallel universes at an Engineering Company. A Co. has two foremost engineers vying for different models, but the Board of Directors can only select one. Engineer A wants a blue wire with accompanying hardware which differs from B's model which uses a red wire and other hardware. In two days the Board of Directors must decide on which model to fund, by taking a vote But the very next day one of the Board members is talking to a neighbor, who sees the Board member sneeze twice. The neighbor thinks to herself, "If the Board member sneezes a third time, I'll recommend a certain remedy and that the Member should stay home. and rest In parallel universe #1, the Member doesn't sneeze, doesn't stay home, and votes for the engineer's model with the blue wire. In parallel universe #2, the Board Member sneezes, and with the recommendation of the neighbor, stays home. The result is that the Board votes for the engineer promoting the red wire... Wrong choice! The client was displeased with the model, crashing the Co. due to lack of funds. Did the neighbor cause this? Question: How much energy is involved in the neighbor's thought to intervene on behalf of the Board member? Did a single fleeting thought disconnected from the Co. sink it? Was she a spy who deliberately did this, paid by an enemy of the Co?

Why did you change this to the Michael Shermer Show?

I can tell you exactly how to imagine not being conscious anymore. I died once. It's just like not being born yet. That's the best way I can explain it. So, if you can think back to that, there you have it. No memory of it all. I could not be more sure, now, that you only get one life, and then you don't exist anymore. I'm actually a bit of a medical anomaly, since I was without oxygen for over 10 minutes. They were already telling my parents that I would never regain consciousness, or if I did, I would be a complete vegetable. That is really about as dead as you can get, and still be revived, I guess. I remember the moment I slipped away, very clearly. But then there was less than nothing. I just didn't exist anymore. I actually died twice, but the second time I don't consider a real death, because I didn't slip away like that. You definitely know the moment that you leave your consciousness behind. Unless you're killed really quickly, I guess.

I suggest that the main difference between postmodernist mumbo-jumbo and a scientist using technical language is that you can quiz the scientist and present the material in a simpler way (which Sabine does really well). You can't do the same with post-modernism.

There really isn't much debate among non-philosophers as to what constitutes free will. The concept can be summarized as follows: "Jones is free with respect to action X if it is within Jones' power to do X or not to do X; no antecedent factors determine that he either will, or will not, do X." There has been quite a bit of debate about this definition among philosophers, because they realize that certain problems can't be solved when using it, but the definition given here is nevertheless the one which most closely captures our intuitions about what it means to say that an action was performed freely.

1:12:00 there is a little man in my head who suggests to me what i should do, and he lays awake at night wondering if there is a little man inside _his_ head telling _him_ what to do. how can you have free will if you can't listen to your thought and then decide if it's a good or a bad thought? we don't even know hos _will_ works, let alone free will. on god's free will: no one can "give you" free will. if there is a god, then i'm his creation and i live in his creation, that's god's will not mine, let me_decide_ to live here, let me _design_ my own universe, _then_ i have free will. how can i have free will when there are commandments? god makes laws, provides you will a painful alternative to obeying those laws, then says "you chose freely" - i can only swear at him. free will is just a "gotcha" that allows you to be sadistic and burn someone alive while claiming to be moral, if we have no choices in life we are not culpable, religists HATE that, they want an excuse for hell so they have an excuse for heaven.

Fun video. Personally I'd like the question of 'why do so called smart people do dumb things?' to be scrapped or updated. Its a question that comes from a pre-supposition that 'smartness' equates to a grip on reality... whatever that is. To paraphrase John Vervaeke "The very things that make you so intelligently adaptive simultaneously make you vulnerable to self-deceptive, self-destructive behaviour."

56:00 mathematics is a representation of human logic, human logic is a different story ...

*1:08:00** Krauss' "physic's of star trek" was the first pop science bk i read as a kid.* & it likely put me towards science later. & Leftism, bc star trek can be framed as an ideal of comunitariasm. (im doing youre interview w him nxt. bc that tends to be what i do when i have an eve: rabbit hole. i would imagine Lawrence is pretty happy to let most of theoretical physics go. but cant wait to see.) _JC

If this Mem-self could be created, it would lack the emulator (your physical system) to get anywhere close to a person that could be mistaken for you. If that Mem-self were loaded into a different emulator, it would not be you. Over the course of a lifetime, concepts, biases, and such change. To complicate this, your mem-self in a totally unique physical, emotional, or community environment would behave differently. What would be the point of all this?