Curt & Neil deGrasse Tyson Feud Over Philosophy of Physics [Preview]

{
  "source": "transcribe.metaboat.io",
  "workspace_id": "AXs1igz",
  "job_seq": 7894,
  "audio_duration_seconds": 684.804,
  "completed_at": "2025-12-01T00:54:32Z",
  "segments": [
    {
      "end_time": 20.896,
      "index": 0,
      "start_time": 0.009,
      "text": " The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 36.067,
      "index": 1,
      "start_time": 20.896,
      "text": " Culture, they analyze finance, economics, business, international affairs across every region. I'm particularly liking their new insider feature. It was just launched this month. It gives you, it gives me, a front row access to The Economist's internal editorial debates."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 64.514,
      "index": 2,
      "start_time": 36.34,
      "text": " Where senior editors argue through the news with world leaders and policy makers in twice weekly long format shows. Basically an extremely high quality podcast. Whether it's scientific innovation or shifting global politics, The Economist provides comprehensive coverage beyond headlines. As a toe listener, you get a special discount. Head over to economist.com slash TOE to subscribe. That's economist.com slash TOE for your discount."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 78.114,
      "index": 3,
      "start_time": 66.203,
      "text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Now what to do with your unwanted bills? Ever seen an origami version of the Miami Bull?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 107.722,
      "index": 4,
      "start_time": 78.626,
      "text": " Jokes aside, Verizon has the most ways to save on phones and plans where you can get a single line with everything you need. So bring in your bill to your local Miami Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal. Rankings based on root metrics, root score report data to 1H2025, your results may vary. Must provide a post-paid consumer mobile bill dated within the past 45 days. Bill must be in the same name as the person who made the deal. Additional terms apply. Why isn't there indeterminacy about knowing how it got up there in the first place? So you have indeterminacy on both sides. What it says is that if you have a mess that's at the top of a dome and it's frictionless and the dome is characterized by a certain curve,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 131.544,
      "index": 5,
      "start_time": 107.722,
      "text": " which needs to be defined specifically then it's at rest at the top of the dome but at any t that's non-negative any time that's greater than zero it can take off why is it why why is what you're describing to me asymmetric at all the point is that you just set up the system like that as a thought experiment in order to just put t equals minus t okay it's just useful to set up the experiment okay so in that"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 156.681,
      "index": 6,
      "start_time": 131.954,
      "text": " What is the okay, so fine. It's interesting thought experiment. I like nobody doesn't like thought experiments then of what utility is that to the practicing scientists, even if it is of high interest to the philosopher, it then makes you say, hey, if there's a classical system that is determined, that's not the case. We shouldn't say if that's really true about the Norton dome, then"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 185.879,
      "index": 7,
      "start_time": 157.261,
      "text": " We shouldn't say classical physics is deterministic, right? Correct. Okay. What does that change? I don't get it. It's fine. It's great, great result. Okay. So let's think about this in a couple of ways. So number one, what is physics? Like physics is understanding what reality is. So we have to put an asterisk on what reality is because like who the heck knows what reality is. But physicists are trying to understand what that is. Someone like Tim Modlin would say, Hey,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 215.794,
      "index": 8,
      "start_time": 186.459,
      "text": " Which I agree with and I never put in these words before quantum theory is never talked about in university as a physicist. You'd learn quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, but he would say a theory tells you what the heck you're dealing with. It talks about ontology. So there needs to be that component as well. What does it need to be if what we're doing still works? It needs to be to you, the philosopher, but to me, the practicing scientists that's building circuit boards based on a complete understanding of how quantum physics works."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 245.486,
      "index": 9,
      "start_time": 216.203,
      "text": " I don't need to know that. That doesn't mean I don't want to know it. But the search for that answer, if it distracts me from other progress I will make in this physical universe, and I'm a practicing scientist, that's how I'm going to choose my paths in that way. So yeah, quantum physics, who was it that said the day you understand quantum physics is the day you can be certain you don't? Because you it's not their variations on our native senses to interpret and yeah,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 271.374,
      "index": 10,
      "start_time": 246.425,
      "text": " So that's one view. You can just take the view that, hey, whatever is useful, let me just build something with it. That's how I think of physics. That's how I think of physics. Physics is matter, motion and energy and every way that allows me to predict the future of those systems so that I can exploit it to the benefit of civilization and intellectual pursuit. That's how I think of physics."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 299.838,
      "index": 11,
      "start_time": 271.578,
      "text": " Okay, so there's a couple of points there. Number one, there's a value in there, which isn't derivable from the physical facts. What do you mean a value? What do you mean? I like it. Because you want to do something that's good. You want to do something useful. So you're not just doing anything. No, no, I didn't say use. Did I say useful? Let me give a different word. Let me be more precise. Sure. And less precise at the same time. I'd like to know ever more about how the universe works."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 330.316,
      "index": 12,
      "start_time": 301.049,
      "text": " so that I can invoke it in the progress of civilization. And by progress, I mean, new understandings, the history of this exercise often hardly ever doesn't convert to new inventions, new means of living to prolong our benefits to our health, our longevity, and just our enlightenment about how the universe works."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 338.097,
      "index": 13,
      "start_time": 330.947,
      "text": " So that's how I think of physics and it adds the most fundamental level with chemistry layered on that and then biology layered on top of that."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 363.251,
      "index": 14,
      "start_time": 338.592,
      "text": " I think that's an unfair characterization of how physics developed and even develops to this day. Now, as for modern examples, okay, let's put that aside. What makes it unfair? What makes it unfair? Einstein thought plenty about Mach's principle and Einstein also thought about other philosophical positions. By the way, Mach's principle was a philosopher from the 19th century. So that's pre the era that I'm describing here."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 393.097,
      "index": 15,
      "start_time": 363.251,
      "text": " In terms of the value and influence of philosophers in the thinking of a modern physicist who's doing actual, making actual discoveries. So, so you can mention mock and I'll give you a mock, but there's not much after mock that you can cite. Yeah, but go on. John Bell of the Bell's theorems that we just mentioned are the Bell's inequalities of Nobel prize. He was influenced by John Bell. Great question to you. Um, was he trained as a philosopher or as a physicist?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 421.92,
      "index": 16,
      "start_time": 394.48,
      "text": " That's kind of my point here. I think he was trained as a physicist. And so. And not not to be pedantic about it, but it's the value of learning how the physical universe works. With laboratories, OK, relative to armchairs, that's really what I'm getting at here. But sure, it's great. The Bell's inequality, very important."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 433.763,
      "index": 17,
      "start_time": 422.142,
      "text": " very thought-provoking as any good philosophical conclusion should be."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 461.391,
      "index": 18,
      "start_time": 433.985,
      "text": " What I'm saying is that physics benefits from an understanding of philosophy and also physical statements by a physicist have embedded in them philosophical assumptions. So if we say something about material, there's like materialism is in there. What is that? What is a material? Can we define it specifically musings like actually sitting and thinking about what the heck exists? What is the nature of this? What is space time? You mentioned that this is something we don't talk about much. Actually, there's several"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 480.589,
      "index": 19,
      "start_time": 462.039,
      "text": " People who think that space-time is something that's emergent, and so deeply they think about, well, are we on the boundary? Are we in the bulk? Is it discrete? Is it not? What does that mean? Is it real? Does it have a variable associated with it, like there, before we measure it?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 506.63,
      "index": 20,
      "start_time": 480.794,
      "text": " Does our consciousness have something to do with it? There's like 30 interpretations of quantum mechanics, maybe four of them have to do with consciousness. But still, those are all- By the way, since we actually really don't understand consciousness and the evidence that we don't understand it is that people keep writing books on it, claiming they know it, that's the evidence that we don't know anything about it. To take consciousness, about which we know very little, to explain something in quantum physics or to have quantum physics"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 533.729,
      "index": 21,
      "start_time": 507.295,
      "text": " And understanding a quantum fix that nobody has, co-mingle with consciousness feels like very tentative land to stand on, to take two things that are not deeply understood and use one to explain the other. I'm disturbed when I see people do that. Not that that overstates it. I'm intrigued that people have the urge to do it, but I've"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 561.288,
      "index": 22,
      "start_time": 534.07,
      "text": " Make sure I do not ever have the urge to explain something I don't understand with something else I don't understand. I don't think that's the wisest path to be on. It's a fun path, like over beer, sure. But to commit your life to it, I don't I don't know. I would question that. Relative to having applying that same brain power in other ways. Now, you mentioned other things like materialism, OK, that, of course,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 591.698,
      "index": 23,
      "start_time": 561.698,
      "text": " I don't think there's any dimension of spiritualism, if we take that as the opposite of materialism. I don't know any dimension of spiritualism in traditional Western science. So you said, how do we define materialism? Is that a problem? How to define that? Is this a challenge?"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 609.838,
      "index": 24,
      "start_time": 592.449,
      "text": " Is this really something people are distracted by? I wouldn't put the term distracted with anything that's a philosophical investigation because of reasons like I mentioned before physicists are steeped in philosophy even if they don't know it and this is a point Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 627.756,
      "index": 25,
      "start_time": 610.213,
      "text": " Sure, you know them. I met Lee and I know Lee and I only know, of course, Rovelli's books. Carlo Rovelli and Lee Smolin, as well as this guy named Abhay Ashtekar, are the founders of loop quantum gravity. This is also something that Abhay Ashtekar says. He makes a great analogy. So if you have a sphere, you have to cover it with two open sets."
    },
    {
      "end_time": 653.404,
      "index": 26,
      "start_time": 628.114,
      "text": " You can't just cover it with one, otherwise you distort it. So what if reality is like that, where you need multiple covers, and the physical world, the material world is just one of these open sets, but it doesn't cover everything? Interesting. There's an internal world, and it doesn't have to be spiritual, like, well, you can call spiritual something associated, yes. It's just a different world. It's different. Just call it different. Right. Very cool. It could just be different, whatever that different is. Yes, yes. And he would say that,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 672.637,
      "index": 27,
      "start_time": 653.404,
      "text": " He has investigated some of that via his inner world. He calls one the inner versus the outer. I love it. I don't know if it's as simple as there are two, maybe there's a plethora anyhow. Uh-huh. No, I love it. But of course, uh, Rovelli and, and, um, Lee Smolin have degrees in physics. Okay. So, um,"
    },
    {
      "end_time": 684.804,
      "index": 28,
      "start_time": 673.2,
      "text": " Most of the philosophers of physics are trained in physics. If you enjoyed that clip, then the full podcast is out right now. You can click around here as well as subscribe to get notified. Enjoy."
    }
  ]
}