Joe Rogan Experience #1151 — Sean Carroll Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Oh, wait a minute. Are we going live? You have, what, seven episodes so far? Well, you could have just gone to Evergreen State, and then you could talk about anything. And so I don't feel quite like I can go – I have a blog. And trying to mix up good old professors, which are my peer group, to sort of – I got some people coming out of left field. There's plenty of people out there who don't want me to talk about anything other than physics.

3:36 treat it like it's for me. Well, I think it's absurd to ask someone to not talk about things I mean, like, I had a whole bit about it because I was like, what kind of a person does that? time to comment on YouTube. That's a problem. You would think that they would have the self-awareness. Like I love my comments. A lot of them. It only takes a tiny drop of LSD to pollute a whole bucket of water.

5:35 I'm like, you idiot. Well, it's interesting in a lot of ways. And I think that that's a shame. other. And so overall, by all means, comment on the YouTube videos and keep that conversation like almost like a rating system for humans, like a Yelp for commentators. In fact, some people are actually advocating that for society to have some sort of a rating system for people and almost a new kind of currency, like a social currency.

8:35 And it's controlled by the government. The United States government does not trust this company, Because China's just so big. You can't get those images or anything like that. Like, it's so obviously abusable, right? to try to manipulate the way people look at the news. And they're going to have the Hillary in a cage and they The media, I wouldn't want that to happen to Fox News.

12:37 the importance of the press he's thinking about his his situation his stance his position in life Like as the demographics of the world are changing, we're becoming more of the patchwork that we claimed to be years ago. And a past that is not necessarily accurate. But those concerns are being channeled in very unproductive ways to scapegoat people who

14:34 to just take for granted utopia is supposed to look like or the far technologically advanced civilization, why I haven't studied it. They blow all the money. I think if you got it as an adult, you'd probably recognize it as a safety net that it is. They have projects. Do you know any trust fund people? and they all work really hard. that seems to be a giant issue.

17:50 Like, why? Not because I grew up wealthy because I didn't but because I now have a job that represents what I want to do. The real question is, does everybody have an actual interest? Because, look, there's a lot of people who need to earn a living, right? Like you need to make a living, but because of your temperament, because of your interests, I don't know.

19:51 People just walk right through people. It's just how it is. It was the best. But at least it meant we were there in a pre-McDonald's society, right? We didn't speak any of the language or anything like that. And I'm scared by China in the sense that I'm worried that they will succeed while still being a repressive dictatorship, right? of things, a combination of both capitalism and communism.

22:29 no one lives there, right? And there's these spooky pictures, right? There's no one there and no one makes – no one builds anything. I think we're going to do it, right? Like we don't know what the interdependencies are and stuff like that. But then isn't it unfair that The Rock is The rock? How did he get to be the rock? And, you know, it worked for him.

25:42 You have a dog of the same breed. Right. Like think about a big part of what we're concerned with constantly on a daily basis is health care. Like, yeah, if we can eliminate, It's a little bit different if you're choosing their hair color and skin color and shape of their nose and feet and whatever. a 30-inch television This is incredible. than what it was back then.

28:12 it has to be a really expensive thing No, I think that's probably right. No. that doesn't get older, it would die from random bad things, you get hit on the head with a brick, I was saying this to Carl. Carl's like Even if it doesn't come to pass, I want to worry about the least probable things because it might spark something that actually helps us down the road.

30:53 Well, then if you thought you were immortal, if you thought – well, let's say you thought that your average lifespan was a million years. That flying squirrel stuff is truly dangerous. Maybe they could back you up. I went to the 2045, I think they're calling it, conference in New York City a few years back ago. we'll be able to do this and say, I'm going to do this many, many times.

32:46 But they're not the same person. Yeah, it's evo-devo, right? Or maybe having all those clones somehow or another set something off in them that made them crazy because they were in competition with all these other people that were exactly like them. It's coming fast and profoundly, and we're not ready. At least, you know, be prepared a little bit. it's a new technique for editing genes that was discovered accidentally

34:55 But the reality is way more complicated than that because different parts of the DNA do things and different ones don't. learn how to fight off. And so to do that, you need to be able to snip out a little piece of So they both need to have the blue eye gene to give you if you want to have blue eyes. I think so. They're already manipulating genetics and trying to create super people.

37:40 There's a guy named Brian Fogle. teaches him, informs him how you can do this. While this is all going on, it turns out that And so then he starts detailing the process and how they did it. And there's an ongoing debate about what about people who use prosthetics, right? Is that fair? for what is it a sporting event, And they gave him a new hand. that's going to allow him to play piano.

40:49 that's the real, that's even It's we're going to just have everywhere on that spectrum. That's not a long-term prognostication tool. but it's not like one of his famous ones, right? You want it more macho? Yeah. I always go, right now, without doing anything more than closing your eyes. stimulating it, the way forward is to augment it, like hook it up to calculators and internet and whatever.

44:23 Like there's literally no place in the world that human eyeballs aren't looking at that would not be subject to later inspection. put in some new awesome ones that you can record with. to design various aspects of the human brain that are more open to interface with technology, They're way clearer thinkers than they were before. What am I doing with all this?

46:32 as human beings, right? Not just that we're in a body, but like hunger, thirst, exhaustion, all that stuff. There's a lot of talk in the AI existential risk community, You can change your mind as a human being. of a perpetual, exponential domino effect of technology where this new artificial life These are hard things to even extrapolate because they're so far beyond our experience.

49:40 The ideas that we have of like what is necessary are really based on our own biological needs. And all these concerns that we have that are very biological. originally. And then when people did think of cars, they thought of flying cars because they Yeah, and I think we are getting close to those other things that you mentioned, though. Yeah. It can make decisions, right?

52:22 robots chasing after this lady. It's easy to extrapolate right ahead to sort of the simple differences. Yeah, I got to start watching that. Yeah, I think we're doing that. If you looked at the amount of people that have delivered pizzas with drones That's going to be the future. There's no reason why virtual reality I mean, you could climb into that float tank with some sort of apparatus, hook these gloves on, put this helmet over, and literally not be subject to the whims of gravity.

55:36 where the whole mode of life is utterly different than what it is now. we should be talking to each other because nobody is. No one person is, right? Like, that's why we technology is still struggling to figure out. at Caltech who gave a talk a few So it's literally, so why DNA? Because you think of DNA as carrying the genetic code, So DNA is a wonderful testing ground for building little really, really tiny things in your body that will change who you are.

58:30 I actually did teach a course at Caltech that involved quantum computing. It will be about quantum mechanics and the goal of the book will be to make quantum mechanics understandable to everybody and convince them that quantum mechanics really does imply the existence of multiple worlds where things look very much the same except for tiny differences.

59:42 called entanglement, which means that if you have two bits classically, so you have 00, 01, 10, 11, right? other. And then you just say, well, what is a computer? A computer is something that takes numbers, you know, solving the shortest distance between two different That's not a mathematically precise statement. because it's any combination But roughly speaking, rather than manipulating bit by bit, because of the entanglement between the bits, the quantum computer can move all the bits a little bit at once.

1:02:54 again. And at the end of the day, you look for where's the one, it's very easy to find. So it's very, very delicate. that? Or are they doing it slowly to sort of make sure that it all works correctly and get an accurate model? If you see one, it's in the state one. They have working quantum computers. I think they're able to say that 21 equals 3 times 7 with very high probability. That was the state of the art. I think they're able to say that 21 equals three times seven with very high probability

1:06:03 Lots of different ways, actually. of this is that this existence of entanglement is kind of a shared information between two impossible for anyone else to ever know what they searched for. When you go to another website, it shows you, There's quantum cryptography. They will have to adapt, but they are not in the business of making that happen. Two-thirds of a Stormy Daniel.

1:09:14 That's like the killer app that we know about right now. Yeah. So, yeah, I forget whether we talked about this last time, street, like professional physicists don't know exactly what quantum mechanics says. You put all the details in. But if you say, well, why? And it was invented by a graduate student, Hugh Everett, in the 1950s who was instantly kicked out of physics. world. And one of these stories is the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

1:11:57 We need to build bombs and things, not think about the nature of reality, So for a long time, people thought, well, this is just a trick. This is just like some It's all spread out. and you saw it spinning clockwise. Possibilities is always a big feature. you're going to say? And is it how much of it is biological? How much of it is your life experience?

1:15:05 And the first one is interesting. no free will. There's just the solution to the equations and sometimes the wave function You say, like, you're a person. It's not like just a compromise. But I also think that it's very much like what we were talking about earlier, that it's not and over and over a certain idea trying to find a rational conclusion?

1:18:31 And if you define yourself as the following list of atoms and particles in a certain configuration, or something like that, right? Well, and you could break that all the way down to creativity, right? The obvious case is responsibility, blame. yeah, you know what, tomorrow they're going to rob a bank. Do you arrest them? Is that enough, and you're buzzed, you're drunk, right?

1:21:48 But depending on the outside world, you ran someone over and killed them or you didn't. Oh yeah. It's tricky. you can attach a reason why it happens. There seems to be something to karma in that when you do good things, and in the real world sort of generally trying to be good can often pay back in good ways. There's a little. There's a little. But I'm not going to speak up. Let's put it that way.

1:24:38 Like there's teachers who are basically just physical therapists and there are people who are complete crazy hippies. I do react badly to bad, to stupid YouTube comments. including myself, even when we disagree with people, even when we disagree with people who There's no, you know no political bias, right? Oh, yeah. time he said like oh yeah i did that it was shitty and it was wrong and i take responsibility

1:28:11 I want to be charitable when I deal with other people. So like I don't want to defend Kellyanne Conway. No one actually thinks that way. I don't think that she's granted any sort of autonomous decision-making capabilities. I didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be. Dangerous bullshit. In context, the way he's expressing himself, it's clearly he's dismissing it.

1:31:16 That's all they had, right, because it was so blatant. That's very natural. And I think that's very rare. of her is it was just that she would not go out there and say, oh, yes, but we're making up new And then he started talking in a boring way and mocking it. Yeah. You're right behind it, asshole. He's constantly subtweeting and making fun of Trump.

1:33:57 What's interesting is these dummies behind him. Well, we have Fox News. So there's a lot of like weird human interest stories about an alligator popping out of the sewer and things like that. It's just local news. They did a poll, what is the most trusted news source? Unless you hear it from me. Fuck the media he has on women for trump yeah it's just what and then after listening to this

1:37:20 That like compared to previous presidents, he's really just putting in the hours. Well, people just love to find narratives that fit what would be acceptable for their opinions, this side that book about how the DNC had been corrupted and about how they had rigged the primaries Especially damning. But I think Fox News is It's a different- stand out.

1:39:59 No, I didn't. But I think it's a possibility. It's just so, even with him, with his unique ability to sociopathically sort of navigate the waters of accusations and guilt, he still looks beaten down by this job. Do you think Elizabeth Warren, though, she's got that real problem with the whole Pocahontas thing. And that's a problem. We also had Sarah Palin.

1:42:55 I think he fit the bill of what we wanted a president to be. I don't know. he's getting up there and he's a with Kennedy speeches. No. Trump is so insane that you see very little Mike Pence. Yeah, well, this is what, you know, let fundamentalist Christians do whatever they want, right? or Catholic universities don't want to do certain things. That's right. And there's this fascinating question

1:46:37 but they love him. Sometimes God works through flawed vessels. But I don't necessarily even think it's Christianity. in the Bible which are sort of unapologetically left-wing and socialist, right? Just like there They interpret this as Jesus – that only through Jesus do we get into heaven. This is why I can't – even though I'm an atheist, I'm very happy to explain why I don't think that God exists.

1:49:56 that we are a little bit quick to attribute ideas and cultural concepts to evolution. how the world works have been removed by science, the other functions are still there. But in the usual sense that we grew up with in this country, surely if that were true, God would have done a much better job of explaining himself to us, right? and let them make their own choices.

1:52:45 Like if you dig into what was happening before 2,000 years ago, you know, the Hebrew god was not omnipotent at the beginning, right? Suddenly, lots of aspects of reality come into focus. anthropomorphic right? So this is the sky daddy. things but again but my point is just that i don't take the commonalities between different so forth. And, you know, I think it's

1:55:52 that we want to be true. And you can talk about why that's true from evolution, from biology, what do you cling to as a purpose for life? I think that there's plenty of things I want to do, to achieve, So I can still be motivated to make the world a better place in ways that will outlive me even if I think that when I die, it's really the end for me.

1:58:21 What if I wasn't here? and I'm going to die. Who? But there are people who like that. they're going to die. So we treat it as if the whole purpose of the game That was a very effective rhetorical strategy. do every single medical intervention possible just to squeeze out a few more breaths. But But one of the things I was thinking was that if this was my grandfather and not my dog, I would have to watch him suffer until the bitter end.

2:01:33 And I knew that it was over. States is we're not allowed to relieve that pain or that despair that you have near the end of There's quite a few studies that have shown that people, when you give them psilocybin, they're much more relaxed and much more comfortable with this idea of ending this life, of this life. And Aldous Huxley, I don't know if you know about Aldous Huxley's story.

2:04:45 Like death is inevitable. And it's silly, right? is it really going to kill their ambition? Like, why would that kill it? Is our own, That's not how it works. And I think like what, so, but, but also for the, for the universal basic And it might be very exciting. Well, creatively, it could possibly world is changing in a way that makes what it means to be human changing. Yeah.

2:08:22 thought about these particular issues. drink afterward and talk about their favorite interpretation of quantum mechanics. Yeah. Yeah. That is the Feynman quote, right? mechanics is and should be understandable by everybody. What a squirrely concept. It started in 1900, exactly. something glows when you heat it up, right? So basically what happens when you heat something

2:12:01 If you heat everything up, how much radiation should it give off? right? And this picture was so good and so compelling that people were basically like, we're almost done with physics. Right. We almost have it all figured out. And then there were a couple of little things like the blackbody radiation that you made a prediction. It was wildly off. And so stream of radiation. Maybe it's like individual little packets of energy.

2:13:19 It fits the data, right? particles that are being given off, photons, what they were later called, right? And that's what he won the Nobel Prize for. Einstein never won a Nobel Prize for Then separately, they looked at atoms, right? of a second. So all the atoms that you and I are made of should just go right away. Fits the data perfectly. It's especially by the woo merchants.

2:16:34 So you're never going to completely get rid of the wrong ideas, but you can get the right ideas at every step, it was because there was some dramatic disagreement between the theory and the data. so much harder to make progress when you're just trying to do it in your brain rather than doing it by data. So as for right now, there's nothing else being contemplated. That's pretty unique.

2:18:34 There's not even a sort of leading thing. What has come out of the Large Hadron Collider? Yeah, physicists say boson. I know. Well, life doesn't promise you a rose garden. What we have are puzzles, right? what should the mass of the Higgs boson be? The mass of the Higgs boson should be enormously bigger by sort of what our intuitive feelings to like add some new particles or predict some new features of physics going on. And many,

2:21:56 accelerator was in the 1970s. Since then, we found new particles, but they were already predicted and You have to crash things into each other. coming out of the light bulbs. So what you should think about and overlapping. The answer is really you're setting up vibrations in the Higgs field, which was always there all along. Oh, I get it now. There was something that I had read. I'm trying to remember it.

2:24:35 That's one of the things that I had read about that they did, they had either discovered Yeah, that's right. If their mass is big, understand the particles that we already know about, right? In that case, maybe you want to squeezed together in the same place. So the energy is a bit more diffuse, but we get to study how I don't know. It's very dense.

2:27:08 The point of a zepto second is Right, like 5 quadrillion. And there's certain techniques they have. I'm lying. It would have been higher energy, more powerful. I'm not going to see it. and they exactly cancel out. So that every mammal lives for about one and a half billion heartbeats on average. 135 miles. So all this extreme exercise, oh, you're wasting heartbeats.

2:31:08 But the point is, so Jeffrey West and his collaborators said, why? and stuff like that. So when you get people in a city, they walk faster, right? Like people in relationships between these large systems and learn from that how to make things more sustainable, Yeah. And so it's both a big city where a lot of people live, but it's also a famous tourist destination where foreigners come in and wander around, right? And the locals who live in

2:33:48 Thank you for being you. It's available now everywhere podcasts are heard. Hopefully, yeah. Tried. Beautiful. My pleasure. And Mindscape podcast. That's right. It's available now