Mindscape 200 | Solo: The Philosophy of the Multiverse

The 200th episode of Mindscape! Thanks to everyone for sticking around for this long. To celebrate, a solo episode discussing a set of issues naturally arising at the intersection of philosophy and physics: how to think about probabilities and expectations in a multiverse. Here I am more about explaining the issues than offering correct answers, although I try to do a bit of that as well.

#podcast #ideas #science #philosophy #culture

[tookie]

Sean Carroll in another universe is arguing against this crazy Sean Carroll

[ZenoDay]

I like your talks… you’re honest and you speak with clarity.

[StevieObieYT]

Wow! The 200th episode of Mindscape! And I've been subscribed since the very first episode. Hard to believe it's been 4 years though. Time flies when you're having fun. Especially when you're learning new stuff everyday... 😏

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

(31:00) *"I'm not creating a different region of space far away; I'm creating a whole other parallel universe. And it's not located anywhere. They just exist simultaneously."*

... And this parallel universe exists for what reason? By all other standards, Existence is efficient and expeditious. What is gained by more than one universe when everything that can be extrapolated from a single universe is mirrored in all others. "Multiverse" presents _special pleading_ for unnecessary multiplicity.

*"There are many copies of my future self, so there's one copy of me right now. There's other copies that have descended from my past self, but here I am right now. There will be many descendants of my present self in all of these different worlds."*

... And why do these multiple versions of you exist when one version of you suffices? Eight billion humans produce a satisfactory amount and a variety of information. Why would infinite versions of eight billion individuals even be necessary? What is gained through this needless pleading for multiplicity?

[seionne]

The Monty Hall problem is similar to this observer/world first approach problem but framed in a game show. And Congratulations on 200!!

[justabunchofbees]

laugh=your success. Best science podcast on the internet today!

[risunokairu]

If the universe is infinite and there an infinite number of you'd in the infinite universe due to how there are only a finite ways matter can come together, there's no reason why two of the copies of you -have- to be a long, long way from each other.

[kylecarter]

Congrats and thank you for the 4 years of free physics and philosophy education. Please keep this going for another 200 episodes.

[cripplingautism]

isn't a universe that produces minds less complex than a mind itself? the universe didn't start with minds, they evolved out of simpler conditions. i don't get why boltzmann brains are more likely than these evolved minds.

[manfredullrich]

Maybe UFOs are just Boltzmann saucers, they fluctuate into existence and disappear by fluctuating away again. 🤔😋🤫

[Lance_Lough]

Glad to hear the Ask Anything episodes will continue...I was worried there for a moment!

[hamentaschen]

"I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers."

[kirklyus]

Congrats on the milestone! I struggle to find any meaning in what you're saying. Your reasoning just doesn't make any sense to me. My opinion, however, doesn't lessen your work in any way and I will keep listening to your podcast in hope that I will eventually reach an enlightenment.

[tomlicata]

I hope that some of the other versions of me are having more fun!
But more seriously, great episode, great series. Congratulations!

[vladyslavkorenyak]

I think we could have a different approach to the Multiverse through the question "Why is there something instead of nothing?". The answer with the least amount of presuppositions is that EVERYTHING EXISTS. And existence has no rules a priori, so our consistent physics is just a coincidence.

From this perspective, Boltzmann brains fall short since they assume that they exist because of QUANTUM fluctuations. But actually you have to take into account every possible instance in all of existence with a subjective experience identical to yours, and compare it to the instances of you in the subset of all existence that appears to have our rules.

[Reddles]

It always seemed to me that these bad anthropic arguments implicitly depend on the idea of a disembodied soul that is somehow randomly assigned to a specific body. Then "observers" is just code for "people with souls", and it makes sense to talk about the probability that you could have been a jovian or someone in the future or whatever. And I think this sort of thinking seems intuitive to most people even if they aren't religious, since religion is such a big part of our culture in general.

But if you don't believe in souls then the whole thing immediately falls apart, since "you" are the result of your genetics combined with your specific life history, and if any of that changed then the result wouldn't be you anymore. So the only anthropic arguments that really make sense are the fully non-indexical ones, and the stuff about the mediocrity principle or observer classes just seem like attempts to make the soul-based reasoning seem more rigorous that it really is.

[BIGWUNuvDbunch]

In the string multiverse, wouldn't you eventually tunnel to the ground state, i.e. some negative CC and then the universe would eventually crunch?

[websurfer]

If it’s true that a successful coherent consistent universe where causality is preserved would be fine-tuned like ours is then the multiverse would definitely consist of a finite number of universes?? I personally don’t think there could be much variation in the laws of physics since the laws are mathematical and mathematics is based on logical entailment?? As in if P then Q. And mathematics in terms of logical entailment is already bare bones, mathematics is pure entailment. Every equation speaks entailment with both sides being equal, so there cannot be much variation or no variation at all in the laws of physics?? Actually the laws of physics we have may be the only variant of any physical laws in any universe?? So, if these laws give rise to fine-tuning in order to birth a logically consistent universe where causality is preserved then the tolerance for physical laws birthing successful universes is very very narrow?? Logical entailment is the glue that keeps a universe that could be called a universe together!!

[shubhamagarwal]

Congrats Sean and every mindscape community member.🤗🤗

[metiusabt]

Congrats! I hugely appreciate it that great physicist and other scientistss are willing to share and explain their insights over here