Sabine Hossenfelder on Physics and the Big Questions | Closer To Truth Chats

Sabine Hossenfelder talks about if the past exists, how the universe began and how it will end, information, math as reality, time, and consciousness. She also discusses her new book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.

Sabine Hossenfelder is an author and theoretical physicist who researches quantum gravity. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and produced and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[wolfgangpetersun]

WOW ! Two of my favorite scientific and philosophical channels discussing with each other, thats great. I love how Sabine challenges the sometimes existing mainstream thinking in science and how Robert opened the world up to many philosophical and religious questions for me and introduced me to great people in that field. Thank you both. Dankeschön. A physicist.

[infcreate]

Such a good interviewer. Some of the experience I have listening to Sabine is getting ruined by terrible questions or people around her who don't seem to understand what's going on. Robert is following her thoughts very attentively, and always seems to articulate his questions in a profound and elaborate way, very close to the manner in which Sabine is used to answer.

All I'm saying is, I think the interviewer is worth the interviewed here, and I think that doesn't happen often

[truthbsaid]

Dr. Kuhn must be one of the best science interviewers ever and Dr. Hossenfelder has the spark of genius in her eyes. What a pleasure to watch even though I do not understand some of the deeper arguments discussed.

[maekong]

Closer to Truth rocks and Sabine is a rock star for soundly coming back to what enables predictions. As usual I understood nothing yet somehow still got to walk away feeling smarter and, in fleeting moments, vindicated. It is rare nowadays to get through an entire interview and not feel that a refund of time spent was in order. Thanks for the respect.

[Boudica]

What a discussion! The thing I love about Robert is he really listens to his guests and admits when he doesn't understand a particular argument. The high quality and relevance of his questions demonstrate how open minded and incisive the man truly is. I love Robert and Sabine and could listen to them for days

[mariavm]

Dr. Hossenfelder is so brilliant. I look forward to reading her book. This channel and hers are two of the best. What a great chat. Thank you, Robert and Sabine.

[owencampbell]

Sabine's conscious mind and her honesty are way advanced. Thankyou RLK for the interview and hopefully we'll be seeing more with interesting topics and Sabine's opinion.

[cgmp]

A great communicator with a very logical analytical mind (and sense of humour in her videos).

[Mutual_Information]

I appreciate how Sabine consistently advocates for Occam’s Razor. As she says, she’s skeptical of any theory of the early universe that introduces complexity that isn’t necessary to explain observations.

It’s a principle that holds true almost everywhere, but is often abandoned because it can deal devastating blows to otherwise respected theories.

(I think everyone knows what theory I’m thinking of)

[ericstorey]

As an outsider I love physics and especially the history of physics, it’s all about the progress of thought with me, so these discussion’s are brilliant to listen to and what I like about Sabine is that she dares ask major questions, she is by her own admission a contrarian and questions the direction of the physics community is taking. I have two of her books, Lost in Math and Existential Physics and they are both a joy for me simply because of her ability to explain difficult concepts with utter simplicity.

[johnmanetas]

Thank you Robert and Sabine, for this beautiful presentation of philosophical and scientific ideas. I'm sure I will dream tonight the big Nothing full of small everythings.

[ashroskell]

Her YouTube channel is one of the best on physics out there.

[Thomas-gk]

Every interview with Sabine is a garanty for an intelligent, pointed, couraged and refreshing talk. This here is, wow, one of the best. Many thanks

[biedl]

This was a very interesting chat.
When Sabinə (don't ditch the schwa sound, if you want to pronounce her like she'd be pronounced in Germany) first uploaded her freewill video, I didn't believe her assessment. It caught me off guard how she spoke about it, in this seemingly dismissive tone. But really, it wasn't dismissive. Since, I've seen many talks and debates about freewill, looked into the topic deeper and I even went back to her video and deleted my comment, where I was originally accusing her of arrogance. How would she know, was what I asked, that she should stick to physics instead of diverging to armchair philosophy. I took it personally allegedly not having freewill.

Today, I do believe it's a mode of thinking you have to develop, to assess the things the way she does. It's not really assessing, it's rather postponing the assessment if you lack sufficient knowledge. And really, if you get used to it, it's like that thing you can't make unseen anymore. Since I'm very familiar with this mode of thinking when it comes to God, it wasn't all too hard to stick to the data and re-evaluate my stance on freewill. The difference is, the data suggests, that there is no freewill, while it suggest that we can't know anything about God, because there is no data to be gathered. So, ye, it's the same mode. Stick to the data. Don't be afraid to say, that you don't know. Don't let your emotions influence the data. Don't add unnecessary assumptions. Then you should come closer to truth.

[pandemicentitlements]

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, the David Letterman of the world of physics and philosophy. Sabine, you know you've made it, when you're on with Mr. Kuhn.

[JAYMOAP]

Sabine very good to try to keep it deterministic. Also most things she said very much on point. Including the universal computational potential, strings, holographic superconductor, and emergence of different level of computation ylup to coherent living matter states. Nice conversation 👌

[cannettedebiere]

Sabine is so down to earth in her analysis of the reality, which is good in my opinion, and at the same time brave enough to question the most fundamental laws, conventions and implicite rules of physics. Unfortunatly sometimes it sounds a bit too brave (like the doubt about the 2nd law of thermodynamics). I haven't read her second book but I hope there will be some serious arguments for this one.

[mintakan]

She has a wonderful YT channel, where she is a very clear science explainer. Love it. Clear explanations calm my mind (lol).

Her position on super-determinism is a minority view. I've now gotten used to the probabilistic view of quantum mechanics. This is the mainstream view (e.g. as presented in PBS Space time). But I really don't have a dog in this fight. It would be interesting to see if we can make progress on this question, e.g. her suggesting the quantum mechanics is still a proximal theory, that there is a testable way to move towards a more deterministic theory, though it would involve non-linearities, and making progress on measurement problem.

[papasmamas]

The Queen of Physics 🔥🔥🔥 If you want 0 BS, just check her youtube channel.

[PurnamadaPurnamidam]

Sabine is here also now thats a GREAT news. She explain things very well. I like here talks very much. Thanks Lawrence keep the good work as ALWAYS Sir.