Slavoj Žižek & Sean Carroll: Quantum Physics, the Multiverse, and Time Travel | RP #118

Slavoj Žižek is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New York University, and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy. He was also the guest for Robinson’s Podcast #109 on psychoanalysis, wokeness, racism, and a hundred other topics. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is also host of Sean Carroll’s Mindscape, a terrific show (that influenced the birth of Robinson’s Podcast) about science, society, philosophy, culture, arts, and ideas. Sean was one of the guests—along with David Albert of Columbia—on Robinson’s Podcast #106, which covers the Many-Worlds theory of quantum mechanics, entropy and Boltzmann Brains, and the fine-tuned universe. In this episode, Robinson, Sean, and Slavoj (though mostly Sean and Slavoj) talk about quantum mechanics, the indeterminacy of small-scale reality, cosmology and the big bang, major figures like Niels Bohr, Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, and the world of sci-fi, including movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, Indian Jones, and the Avengers. If you’re interested in the foundations of physics—which you absolutely should be—then please check out the John Bell Institute (Sean is an Honorary Fellow at the JBI), which is devoted to providing a home for research and education in this important area. At this early stage any donations are immensely helpful.

OUTLINE
00:00 In This Episode…
00:38 Introduction
04:40 Quantum Incompleteness
15:56 A Problem with Many-Worlds?
27:08 Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen Interpretation
40:30 Ontological Indeterminacy and Quantum Physics
47:23 On Superposition, History, and Art
01:02:10 What’s The Status of the Big Bang?
01:09:57 Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, and Indeterminacy
01:21:13 Will Quantum Mechanics Be in a Theory of Everything?
01:27:55 Everything Everywhere All at Once, Indiana Jones, and The Avengers
01:33:03 Time Travel and Killing Hitler
01:41:54 On Stephen Hawking

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.

[Nick-cvci]

slavoj acting like a philosophy student at a physics office hours. this is awesome, great job.

[Exurba]

What a pleasure, two of the greats of our time. Thank you ever so much for hosting this and mad love to your feline

[pataplan]

Good exchange. I definitely give Žižek credit for doing his homework, and asking genuinely insightful questions. But I think even his most ardent supporters would have to admit that Carroll displays the patience of a saint.

[Sanchuniathon]

Wow, I have never seen Zizek forcibly shut himself up to let someone speak the way he did with Carroll. Carroll also had lots of patience and understanding, and both showed such immense respect for one another. This will go down as one of my favourite podcast episodes of all time, and a great example of how greats like these two should conduct themselves.

[willytingles]

In my own cosmological schema, Sean is a particle, and Žižek is a wave.

[joeyrufo]

Yes! I love this! Slavoj is smart enough that he's asking good questions! A lot of people don't realize how important that is! Just to be able to ask the right questions is a big fkn deal! It's a significant accomplishment!

[HistoryoftheUniverse]

This is so much fun. What a great team to explore reality.

[davegrundgeiger]

Sean Carroll is a planetary treasure. Lucid, patient, respectful.

[GiordanoBruno]

18 minutes in and this is incredible 🎉
You can really see Sean Carroll developing a respect and intensity to his answers as he realizes that Zizek is making a serious attempt to understand the issues at hand, for the sake of his philosophy.

Zizek seems in hyperfocus.

Excellent stuff

[anonymouscat]

Wow, what an unexpected crossover! I'm excited to listen

[MappingMinds]

Truly a miraculous conversation. Thank you for facilitating this.

[jonasmuller]

Never ever would I thought to hear the words "one way ticket to gulag" in a podcast with Sean Carroll

[francisco-felix]

Carrol and Zizek started visibly somewhat restrained, and then expanded aftewards, and even had plenty of fun. This was a most unexpected and marvelous talk.

[zeke]

It blows me away that you’re able to consistently interview these intellectual heavyweights and keep them engaged. Episodes are just banger after banger lately but also this podcast has just been overall impressive

[expr]

Robinson, hats off to you for this astonishing range of breadth of scientists, philosophers, commentators that you've managed to bring together. 118 episodes!!! Bravo, and I wish your cinematic universe a ton of success!

[Fanaro]

Respect to Sean for tackling Zizek's weirdness lol

[skatefastreadmarx]

This is the only time ive ever seen Zizek actually stop himself from interrupting because he was so interested in learning. I love this!

[Wbjpen]

You're a mad genius for synthesizing these mad geniuses.

[erfan]

Enjoyed the conversation, especially as I am iranian and appreciated last words from Zizek ❤

[animefurry]

Slavoj Zizek is going on many different YouTube podcasts which is really cool, he doesn't just go on big network TV, tho he still does, and I love him for it!