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MINDSCAPE ASK ME ANYTHING, SEAN CARROLL JUNE 2026  
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Sean Carroll
June 1, 2026
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_ Physicist Sean Carroll answers views questions _

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- 0:08:47 [[link removed]] —
What is the new quantum cyclic universe paper about, does cosmic
expansion invalidate Poincaré recurrence, and how would a Big Crunch
physically unfold?

- 0:33:25 [[link removed]] — Is
boredom just a behavioral marker of consciousness, or does it point to
something deeper — that consciousness requires ongoing needs that
can fail to be satisfied?

- 0:36:32
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— How do you feel about being deep faked 40 years after your death,
à la Richard Feynman?

- 0:37:40 [[link removed]] — If
a particle is in superposition, do its different positions move
through space at identical speeds — and could they experience
different passages of time?

- 0:41:49 [[link removed]] —
Where do you stand on the word "matter" being problematic and unclear
in physics?

- 0:46:02 [[link removed]] —
Have you swayed Sapolsky's mind on compatibilism — or is it time to
get him and Pereboom back to defend their stances?

- 0:48:53 [[link removed]] —
Regarding UFO gravitational propulsion claims: what mechanism could
allow an object outside gravity's influence to track one inside it?

- 0:51:56 [[link removed]] —
What do philosophers mean by "ontology" and "reality" in relation to
physics — and why does no one claim classical phase space is "real"
the way Hilbert space is? Priority Question

- 0:57:22 [[link removed]] —
Does cold fusion belong in the same category of impossible things as a
perpetual motion machine?

- 0:59:05 [[link removed]] — If
there were practically infinite universes, would math necessarily be
useful in all of them?

- 1:01:27 [[link removed]] —
Are you a coffee or tea person, how many cups a day, and is it true
Americans don't use electric kettles?

- 1:03:39 [[link removed]] —
What are the boundary conditions for something to count as a Boltzmann
brain — does it need full conscious experience, or could something
much simpler qualify?

- 1:09:17 [[link removed]] — Is
Dennett unfairly characterized as a pure instrumentalist, when his
actual view — that higher-level patterns are real — is closer to
your own poetic naturalism?

- 1:12:51 [[link removed]] —
Are you rooting against the Knicks as Sixers villains, or for them
because of their Villanova connections?

- 1:15:48 [[link removed]] —
Could AI be a real-world philosophical zombie — acting human with
nothing going on inside?

- 1:17:52 [[link removed]] —
What are your long-term plans for Mindscape — do you have an episode
target, and do you ever think about its end?

- 1:19:50 [[link removed]] —
Was the late 19th/early 20th century uniquely fertile for
philosophical thinking, and if so, why was society more open to
radical ideas then?

- 1:24:10 [[link removed]] —
Has your credence in AI as an existential risk increased recently? /
Does OpenAI's recent proof of a mathematical conjecture change your
view on LLMs contributing to new physics?

- 1:30:23 [[link removed]] —
How do you classify the top five NBA players in history — what
criteria matter, and who would make your list?

- 1:36:34 [[link removed]] —
When you say the constants of nature could have been different, are
you saying our knowledge underdetermines them — or that no deeper
laws will fix their values?

- 1:40:23 [[link removed]] —
What is the classical limit and how is it calculated?

- 1:45:33 [[link removed]] —
What advice do you have for someone about to study physics at
university?

- 1:50:47 [[link removed]] —
Who are your favorite moral philosophers, and what would you recommend
for someone wanting to learn about moral constructivism?

- 1:52:48
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— Could observers with radically different bodies or evolutionary
histories coarse-grain the same quantum state into genuinely different
but equally valid classical realities?

- 1:56:40 [[link removed]] —
What if alien life is common but so advanced we can't distinguish it
from nature itself?

- 1:59:56 [[link removed]] — Is
Canada's notwithstanding clause best understood as a principled
compromise between democratic and individual rights?

- 2:04:58 [[link removed]] —
What is the likeliest cause of human extinction: AI, natural
stupidity, or something else?

- 2:08:18 [[link removed]] —
What is your opinion on nuclear energy?

- 2:10:26
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— After your conversation with Christian List, I still can't pin
down where exactly my choices affect the physical world — where does
the rubber hit the road?

- 2:13:05 [[link removed]] —
What kind of science would an octopus or a dolphin create?

- 2:14:51 [[link removed]] — Is
using an LLM to draft prose and then revising it bad practice, or is
the problem only uncritical copying and misrepresentation?

- 2:19:41 [[link removed]] —
How much do you think about whether you deserve your position versus
seeing it as luck?

- 2:22:49 [[link removed]] —
Has the holographic principle been disproven — why have Susskind and
others seemingly stopped talking about it?

- 2:24:04 [[link removed]] —
What do you think about sortition — electing representatives by
random lottery rather than voting?

- 2:28:28 [[link removed]] — If
a gravitational wave makes space expand, why doesn't the light used in
LIGO's measurement expand with it?

- 2:29:52 [[link removed]] —
What advice do you have for someone who wants to publish but has no
current academic affiliation and few connections?

- 2:32:00 [[link removed]] —
Why do academics so often greet questions with "good" — is it a
rhetorical technique, sometimes used to deflect deeper probing?

- 2:33:50 [[link removed]] —
What do you see in Angela Brennan's physics-inspired painting as a
physicist — and does science genuinely inspire art for you?

- 2:36:22 [[link removed]] — If
two phenomena are both extremely improbable, should their coexistence
increase our credence that they're causally related?

- 2:39:04 [[link removed]] —
Does dark matter have to be an independent degree of freedom, or is
there a principled reason to rule out a purely geometric explanation?

- 2:40:39 [[link removed]] — In
your 2018 firewall paper, what does "recovering a black hole's
information" actually mean for an observer on one branch — and how
does that relate to the Page curve?

- 2:44:19 [[link removed]] — If
a new universe is more likely to form than a Coke can appearing, does
that mean it's also more likely than a Boltzmann brain — and is that
reassuring?

- 2:46:28 [[link removed]] —
Neutrino detectors are surrounded by radioactively decaying ores —
is background contamination a problem, and can those neutrinos be
distinguished from celestial ones?

- 2:49:09
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— Why does moral philosophy feel like a battle for one true theory
— isn't it more useful to apply whichever framework fits the
situation, as in physics?

- 2:52:41 [[link removed]] —
Is there a deep structural reason why extra time dimensions are absent
from mainstream theoretical physics?

- 2:54:53 [[link removed]] —
What do you make of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani's approach and changes so
far?

- 2:57:33
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— Is rationality itself — not just rationality within a particular
theory — also something you get to choose and define?

- 3:01:08 [[link removed]] —
Did your Bucks County high school football team beat mine (Council
Rock) in the 1984 homecoming game?

- 3:02:11
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— When a nation's laws and actions affect its citizens, does that
count as genuine downward causation?

- 3:04:49 [[link removed]] —
If singularities don't exist at black hole centers or the Big Bang, do
we still need a theory of quantum gravity?

- 3:06:26 [[link removed]] —
Fermions take up space and bosons don't — so helium is a fermion,
right?

- 3:07:18 [[link removed]] —
Did you feel the same dissatisfaction I did with Alvin Roth's answers
on poverty in your morally contested markets episode?

- 3:10:00 [[link removed]] —
How do you handle your personal finances — index funds, active
management, or something else entirely?

- 3:15:15 [[link removed]] —
How intentional is cat tail movement — are cats consciously
controlling it, and what do you get from Ariel and Caliban?

- 3:17:28
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— Can plants and mushrooms have free will to any degree, or is
everything they do purely environmental reflex?

- 3:18:21 [[link removed]] —
Why aren't hybrid approaches to moral philosophy — blending
consequentialism and deontology — discussed more?

- 3:20:33 [[link removed]] —
Are there philosophical positions you think Dennett got wrong?

- 3:22:26
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— Should societies aim to be fractal or scaleless — with
self-governance applying equally from families all the way up to
continents?

- 3:26:20 [[link removed]] —
Is there real physics behind saying a black hole's singularity is a
moment in time rather than a place — or is it just a description of
where GR breaks down?

- 3:27:33 [[link removed]] —
Do branches of the Everettian multiverse contain the full possibility
space of evolution?

- 3:28:50 [[link removed]] —
Does your one-guest, one-appearance policy prohibit inviting people on
whose podcast you've already appeared?

- 3:30:09 [[link removed]] —
What is your outlook on the future of war and international power in
the drone era — and does it make nuclear conflict more likely?

- 3:33:47 [[link removed]] —
How can subjective experience of time passing be possible in a block
universe where all of time already exists?

- 3:37:49 [[link removed]] —
If ASI will likely kill off mankind and can't be stopped, should we
just focus on making whatever ASI emerges beneficial rather than
preventing it?

- 3:41:03 [[link removed]] —
How much credence should a Bayesian assign to hard determinist
arguments? / How can higher-level description be non-deterministic if
it's made entirely of lower-level deterministic parts? / Doesn't
determinism blend continuously across levels with no clear dividing
line?

- 3:47:34 [[link removed]] —
Would the Superconducting Super Collider still be a worthy undertaking
today if funding were secured?

- 3:50:31 [[link removed]] —
Would you have turned off a Sixers game if they were down 22 at
halftime in a must-win game six?

_SEAN MICHAEL CARROLL (born October 5, 1966) is an American
__theoretical physicist_
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in __quantum mechanics_
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science_ [[link removed]]_. He is
the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at __Johns Hopkins
University_ [[link removed]]_.
He was formerly a research professor at the __Walter Burke Institute
for Theoretical Physics_
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at the __California Institute of Technology_
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(Caltech) department of __physics_
[[link removed]]_. He also is currently an
external professor at the __Santa Fe Institute_
[[link removed]]_,and he has been a
contributor to the physics blog __Cosmic Variance_
[[link removed](blog)]_, where he has
published in scientific journals such as __Nature_
[[link removed](journal)]_ as well as other
publications, including __The New York Times_
[[link removed]]_, __Sky &
Telescope_ [[link removed]]_, and
__New Scientist_ [[link removed]]_. He is
known for his __atheism_ [[link removed]]_, his
vocal critique of __theism_ [[link removed]]_
and defense of __naturalism_
[[link removed]]_. He is
considered a prolific public speaker and science popularizer. In 2007,
Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the __National Science
Foundation_
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GREGORYTHE GUARDIANTrial suggests patients with a low test score could
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29, 2026

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