Leonard Susskind - What's Fundamental in the Cosmos? (Part 1)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ม.ค. 2019
- Dig down to the deepest level of reality, the smallest things that exist, the building blocks of everything else. What do we find? What's there at the very bottom? That's what's 'fundamental'. Everything else is derivative, built up from the bottom. So what's there at the bottom? So what's fundamental?
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This has to be one of the most criminally undersubscribed channels on TH-cam
Tony Scott its relative. Most people are not interested nor could understand
Kuhn has too much interest in religious and spiritual nutters.
It's simply blows the mind too much. Like a super hot chick who can't get a man
Could listen to Lenny all day
Chris Drzal do you know of Sean Carroll? He’s also a good listen. His lectures on Time and Entropy are great.
His lectures are online -- he's a legend.
I love how simply he explains things. He’s just very straightforward and that’s what I love from professors.
The host looks very sophisticated and asks very interesting questions.
I just can't believe that I only today found out about Closer To Truth. And I can't believe what a perfect job Kuhn does in every episode (that I watched at least). And even further I can't believe what incredible guests the show has.
Thank you
I have a feeling Europeans often times look down on the US media but then you look at the shows of PBS on the internet - or what I see of it - and find all those gems. Space Time, Infinite Series :( , Deep Look, Eons, ... and Closer To Truth
Totally agree
You are not alone (^_-)
Who cares what one group thinks about the other. Each group is most likely ignorant of the other.
Assuming that you're talking about this TH-cam channel, you might be interested in the actual website: www.closertotruth.com/
And if you liked that you may also like www.edge.org/videos
I just found out today. I know they're on PBS TV for their primary viewership, but I'm kind of surprised this channel only has 60K subs.
Fundamentally the more we think we know the more we know we dont know...
Susskind says he has no doubt that there is a boundary at the planck scale on which the other side is cosmological in scale. Awesome.
Leonard is so fucking cool. Its like he is a quantum physics gangster 😎
7:45 - That is one of the most interesting things I've ever heard!
Susskind is a breath of fresh air! I’m no physicist, but I think he’s definitely on the right track. It’s turtles all the way down, but also turtles all the way up. Really loved his book: The Black Hole Wars.
Great video!
I'm having a problem finding my carburettor though!
Incredible questions, and equally incredible answers! Thank you for these convos, I love this channel!
Really a great exchange- thank you to those interviewed and involved in producing this.
Such a wonderful interview
*This was recorded over 6 years ago.*
*Why so long of a time for it's release? yet very thankful for it :-)*
Very interesting talk, Leonard Susskind also has great lectures about black holes and entropy on youtube that everyone interested in science should take a look at. And this is a great channel, always interesting guests and thought provoking questions and content!
Thanks for such a fundamental discussion . It is my humble suggestion that like the planckconstant Prof Penrose may provide more comprehensively the Cosmological constant of course in a mathematical way whose understanding may require transformation of mind and refinement of our sensibility
Science is so humbling.
What an absolutely amazing interview
I think we need to think more in a "systems" view. How systems interact and form the whole. And how the two primary things interact to create all we know. The Flow energy (or vacuum energy and the plank fabric, or aether). I suppose if we limited ourselves to just the aether and the flow energy interactions, we could be busy for a lot of years and probably a lot more productive in terms of knowing.
reversal at the Planck scale is great.
I’ve never heard about this before this video. Sounds intriguing.
As Leonard Susskind was talking about reduction, getting smaller and smaller, I thought of the Planck length.
Gerard 't Hooft disagree with Susskind. He is offer "The Celluar Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" and shows what QM can be reduced to Cellular Automata. This can be the true bottom of physical reductionism. Cellular Automata is the simplest thing. You cant go deeper.
I wish they went dieper on emergent properties of elementary particles kind of dazzels my mind that life assembles itself out of building bloks (self assemblies of smaller parts ) in a certain environment. To be able to understand what could emerge out of a set of particles under certain conditons would be mind blowing.
If you're mathematically/physically minded, take a look at recent papers by Jeremy England using non-equilibrium thermodynamics. He's working on precisely what you're describing.
What is the mathematics behind the orbit of proton Elektron and the trading of particles around its Nucleus
The interviewer is highly articulate and intelligent, yet his name is never mentioned. Now that is a humble seeker.
Questioning what does fundamentalism even mean and its use is a good start. Thanks.
amazing how little we understand
If you place an object across your finger, such as a straw, various outcomes can occur. If you place one end of the straw on your finger, when you let go it will fall. If you try the other end, the same will occur. Only at the center does balance arise.
These same principles can be applied to physics. If we attempt to understand all of reality from the smallest of scales, then it is like putting the straw on our finger at one end of the straw. If we use the largest of scales, then it is like using the other end. Only when we place the focal point at the center does balance arise.
This can be recognized by considering the level of approximation we make regarding the details of every system. The Earth itself is the one we can understand with the highest level of detail. This is where we should focus our attention and branch outward from as a balance point because it is the *least approximated.* Systems such as photons and all those which are used in quantum mechanics to describe the nature of reality are *so approximated*, in some cases having such limited descriptions that the entire exhaustive list of every detail that we believe necessary to describe them in their entirety can be put into two words, that the picture of reality that they arrive at has no semblance to what we can see with our eyes. The same goes for the large scale. The point of balance is crucial for understanding the universe. Only at the center can we walk the tight rope of understanding.
I remember arguing with reductionist at my philosophy group that it cannot be the only way to explain behavior, or more complex systems. At some point the whole, the emergent, has a backward influence on the parts. The conscious mind can influence exert downward forces on the parts that make it up. Here I like that Susskind states he feels we will get down to the plank level (limit of reductionism in current physics) and begin to build up. One cannot be separated from the other. It is continuum. I would also ask "didn't the emergent have to be there from the start? The possibilities space yield to some environmental que and become reality. You need both, definition by formula and possibility space and environmental influence to make a 'decision'. Well, my layman's view. I read something recently about how the quantum error correction mathematics well fits the 3d projection view on reality. Maybe this new take will grant some more understanding. I also read about the interactions between past and future at a quantum level. It all leads me to believe 'reality' is more an interaction than a pile up of structure. I really like Closer to truth.
I'd suggest reading Godel, Escher, Bach if you haven't already, it's a fantastic book which tackles reductionism/wholism and complex systems.
I must wonder what it be to like to be in the room with these two guys while they are stone and discussing reality as seen and how it could be so, just saying it aloud.....
Where is part 2?
We need to study the human mind from a psychology point of view to understand understanding. We need to understand why and how we think and we need to understand that the universe operates without our understanding it. IOW, we need to look at what is doing the understanding as well as the objects of our senses if we are ever to glimpse at what is.
Reductionism closes veils of existence on its journey to the basics. In the opposite direction the journey encounters new realities that did not exist before. The manner in which you put the basics together creates new realms of existence. From a mass of nuts and bolts, plus wires and plastics, emerges a car into the realm of the car enthusiast, the perceived beauty of the car. Something that did not exist before.
Would Cellular Automata suggest that the parts themselves -- when reduced to their fundamental level -- can tell us something not only about how that part works, but about the process by which that part came into existence and is capable of creating adjacent parts.
I would think that with cellular automata, where every little box is itself the smallest most fundamental unit in that entire model, there is no such thing as reducing it further and indeed to understand what's going on you have to go sort of upwards, towards bigger and bigger groupings and complications. The influence of a single box on it's adjacent boxes requires adjacent boxes to exist around it in the first place, so if you reduce down to a single box in your magnifying glass then you loose any kind of of possibility of making sense of the system whatsoever.
Did he do what I think he did at 2:45?
Words of wise person. There is philosopher in a scientist. Wise person looks everything from both microscopic and macro- level too. And wise person admits whenever he has no answer for some questions.
You have two protons traveling nearly the speed of light to crash into each other winding up with fundamental particles. What more can be done to get smaller?
One could, for instance, learn that it's not the protons that are "crashing into each other" but their constituents, the quarks and gluons. Not sure where you got the idea from that these are the fundamental building blocks, anyway. That's just the physics at the 1TeV scale, which to the universe is a pretty boring energy range in which nothing interesting happens.
A philosopher would dub it "frontier-ism". Because it's about driving knowledge in a respective area to the contemporary edge.
8:30 he really reminds me of that Russian played by John Malkovich in Billions
Detailed parts reduce to abstract wholes. Wholes do not reduce to parts. Life is fundamental, and complexity is created by choices. The universe as a whole is simpler than a subatomic particle.
No matter how much I try right now I am not able to comprehend how emergent properties are connected/influenced by the components which make them up. It's like trying to run a PS5 game on a Windows 98 computer. Our hardware the brain just cannot seem to decipher or make sense of it.
7:53 Gerard 't Hooft offered "The Cellular Automaton Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics" witch is contrary to Susskind belief. Interesting what Leonard think about this work if he know it.
You are completely misunderstanding both 't Hooft and Susskind.
This is philosophical.
I don't see emergent phenomena (interactions) as being separate from the reductionist goals or describing the parts. It's not enough to just mathematically describe the physical properties of some thing. It is just as important to understand how that thing interacts with other things. This is part of it's reductionist description. To separate them would only be useful to describe it's different properties. This would not serve as an adequate or accurate description of the thing you're describing. For instance you could not describe a gear as simply a geometric shape made of some material. The gear has a purpose and function that is fundamental to describing what it is. The material and shape do not define what a gear is. Separating those parts does not accurately or wholly define what the gear is without describing it's purpose or how it interacts in a system.
Interesting, I hadn't thought of the Planck scale bounce in that way: that new principles might be found after that bounce upwards in scale again. At least that's what I think is being suggested. I'd rather thought you'd wind up seeing the same physics on the way up.
I like how Susskind strips down concepts to their necessary simple level. It helps to be a plumber before turning to theoretical physics...
Wasn't his old man the plumber or Lenny as well?
Anybody know the meaning if the t shirt?
No. Appears to be two snails on some manifold..representing? I dunno.
Two Klein bottles each with a snail [my guess]. Maybe one is left handed & the other is right handed - if not they should be.
I think its a heart. Probably says i heart science. With a real heart.
We need practical applications for all of the theories. We have a catastrophic climate extinction if we don’t convert to a new and/or novel way to create energy. The classical sciences don’t seem to offer this scenario, but the little understood quantum sciences do.
Our Creator's thoughts are the most basic parts of what we experience called Life. From those thoughts, our Creator was able to form all types of visible universes and individual created conscious beings that need to be taught how it's possible for them to be created from mere thoughts.
@T B Your mind is like a computer connected to the cloud of information. Think of the cloud of information as God and the program that gives us all individual created minds life experiences that was created by the over-all consciousness called our Creator.
The question kept been pressed upon Susskind would be much more properly addressed by Murray Gell-Mann.
reductionism means deconstruction or disassemblement into constituents.
Each individual constituent can go reductionism.
He said at the end that for one to understand life - you must understand chemistry. Does he also mean living things are biological robots and what about consciousness?
Lyubomir Ikonomov Quantum fuzziness is best bet for explaining free will, and possibly consciousness
@@AdityaKumar-ij5ok Quantum fuzziness isn't explanation of free will, our mind with such model is still deterministic.
I think the whole way few scientist look at the subject is mess up.
They see human composed of atoms - so the consciousness is being inevitable product of the rest. Although this is true partially I think it isn't the whole picture. Consciousness its force on its own - and so it governance from the inside out, we ain't aimless process that is defined solely from the outside.
But if consciousness is just some product from outside - we ain't even rational beings as Stephen Hawking in his book "The Grand Design" concludes that “human behavior is indeed determined by the laws of nature” and our actions are “as determined as the orbits of the planets” That’s why our decisions are not rational... Making him and his text irrational too.
No, he doesn't mean that. What he means is that one does not build container ships from iron filings. You start with a level of phenomenological knowledge that is already close to that which you are trying to explain. In case of human cells that's biochemistry. At the level of medicine it's high level biological functions like metabolism and homeostasis. In case of consciousness, if it has a scientific explanation at all, it will probably be something along the lines of models of self and environment in neural networks.
Who put these really small things together so that they will work
Unfortunately we can only DoDGE the questions at this time .
Understanding the sum of the parts is more or less useful depending on what you intend to do with that information. Some problems require stepping down a level or a level up in complexity if you like, down a level in size, and others can be sufficiently dealt with at a much higher metaphorical level of understanding. all things are a pattern with a purpose and the resolution of the purpose determines the resolution of the pattern we don't look for more certainty than we need to accomplish a specific goal because when we have enough to do that there's no reason to keep looking for more.
The guest should reply to the question with his beliefs or understanding. Then discuss the nature of the question and how others may view the same question, if its relative. It would be more interesting if these scientists just presented their view instead of dancing around the nature of the question.
Although some things have a life expectancy beyond what we can wrap our minds around everything in the universe has its begining...middle and end....and then is recycled..The whole Universe is in a state of Motion/flux relative to time....Then Chaos and order reensue.
philosophical argument VS technical reason
hello
Could be,that small is the pinch off to another dimension,universe and all new laws. Beings there wonder what is there on their other side of small?..Us!
A touch of mandelbrot too.
one is a scientist who accepts that he must question everything to understand the organisational properties of our realitys make up and the other is one who questions everything just for the sake of it with no invested effort .
i'd like to ask the person who shot this why is a jiggly, drifting, unsteady camera better? what does it add? seems quite stupid to me.
isn't sliced bread the real question, what was better than sliced bread before sliced bread????
This is old. Great bit of Lenny, but old.
Being following Closer to Truth for years now. I find it excellent. With regard to reductionism and reversal at the Planck level I would strongly recommend another excellent source of info https:\\Footnotes2Plato.com. Segal is an world expert on Process Theory particularly on the works of Alfred North Whitehead - the first philosopher to fully integrate the implications of Quantum Mechanics into his philosophy.
If John Malkovich hadn't made it as an actor he'd have been a physicist.
Fundamental is not a problem, it's reletive and relevant.
I propose the word "reductamental". So you can now ask "How reductamental have we gotten?"
Does anyone really still believe that we can
- whenever - find anything fundamental? It
shouldn't be like that, because the history
of science so far shows exactly that. Can
we imagine that there is no limit to a
fundamental? Questionable.
If you dare, you can also take a secret
look at the various philosophies -
and also religions.
I like the even more absolute term 'base' instead of 'fundamental' - fewer letters and syllables.. As a neoclassical realist Susskind's universe is far too way out for me.
Liquid Crystal Space -- Bottom-Up Universe Thought Experiment.. Colloidal Crystal Multiverse
Constraints: 3D, minimal base rules + parts. No singularities with the infinite possible
Like charges repel, unlike attract. A -ve ether balances close-packed +ve lattice cells
Cell volume of Ether -6, Cell +6. Pulls 6 opposites to light speed in 1 cell length
Escape velocity = light speed (C) tied to the constant time light takes to move between cells
Tunneling: stretched, faster than light front, light speed or slower rear
Tunneling cells form in phase extrons+holons that often annihilate to regular='empty' lattice
Tunneling particles reform elsewhere and their original space 'heals' as regular empty lattice
Particles: Inflows repel. 6 equatorial and 2x3 polar flows (-6 if poles flow in, +6 if out)
Extron - extra cell compresses the lattice, pulls in ether that repels as rays
Holon - ether-rich lattice hole stretches the lattice, pulls in cells that repel as rays
Dipolons: extron + holon.. Diextron: +ve + -ve extron.. Diholon: +ve + -ve holon
3D polar flows are more concentrated than flat equatorial flows so effect particles more
Moving extrons push cells that -ve ethereal space behind pulls in with an inertia-providing kick
Particles make lattice and holon flow waves that can interfere and alter a particle path
Strong gravity may force (some) particle outflows to repel back to its inflows in various patterns
Charge / Entanglement: -ve inflows, +ve outflows. Polar flow count. Lattice, holon, extron charge
Close flows attract or repel, regional gravity fields affect velocity and direction
Holon charge flow is one unit so changing spin/flow direction or cutting it effects it all at once
Dipolon / Matter-Antimatter: Gravity shrinks cells, lowering phase difference resolution
Close out of phase extron+holon pairs form dipolons, in phase annihilate and radiate excess ether
A feeding black hole's core extrons+holons are forced in phase and annihilate. A universe grows
Black Hole Universes / Recursive Conformity: Big Bang = black holes colliding and merging
light speed core shell extron+holon charge flow+vibes stop and gravity blurs phases. Annihilation
Total energy and matter potential is conserved. No fine tuning, universes follow the same rules
Level n +/- particle lattice fields or cubic lattice of joined holons (+ free particles) feasible
Mass / Gravity / Dark Energy: lattice charge balance, charge inflow, entanglement, universe shell
Mass is (the number of) out of place lattice cells. An object's extrons + holon charge flow
Mass pulls in ether dragging mass. Lattice vibes up to 1 cell radius and light speed effect matter
Outflows bounce in all directions, inflows lead to the center. Outflows tend to join inflows
Mass uses up ether so void cell repulsion increases. Open universes expand, closed shrink matter
Universe grows, shell thins, excess ether radiates, lattice expands. Shell gravity cancels inside
Photon / Light / Time: relatively quantum.. lattice compression-expansion blobs ripple holon flows
Lattice shock wave. Compressed, +ve mass/charge front and stretched, -ve rear. No mass overall
Holon charge flow has mass. Transverse waves concentrate mass. 2D adds effective area
Moves between cells in a constant time (+ universe expansion) as denser lattice takes more energy
Gravity shrinks and acceleration compresses the lattice so both absolutely slow light locally
Units shrink too and acceleration slows kinetic processes so vacuum light speed measures C locally
Velocity stretches kinetic processes in time as they travel more to complete. Clocks run slower
The Standard Model: the possibilities are numerous
Many particle collision scatterings may be holes and chunks of lattice too large to stabilise 'healing' to in phase extrons+holons and/then empty regular sp
That was quite a list! Takes a lifetime to grasp even on the most superficial level. But thanks, anyway!
Quality of guest matters....are you listening Kuhn?
He should have asked Lenny if there is possible an infinite small? The whole Russian Doll/Turtle thing goes on forever.
I think he implied that in his view the Planck scale is the hard limit on smallness.
You don't know what you don't know... right now
As a political scientist, I smile and shake my head. Social sciences have known since many, many years that knowledge on that complex (and emergent) level is situational and depends on context.
"To make an apple pie you need a universe" Betty Crocker
Nah there's the rules of the system and the configuration of the system, reductionism only tells you the rules, we probably have enough rules, we need to pay as much attention to configurations (superconductors, brains, life, medicine)
Robert Kuhn is an interviewer extraordinaire and seems to possess the ability to make an interview “flow.” Despite his multifaceted talent, I found this interview disappointing. Perhaps Professor Susskind was having a bad day.
Hard to believe he is 80. He looks like he’s in his late 50s.
whatttttttttt is he really?
Math good old math: whatever!
1:10 😂
I love Lenny but I can’t tell if he’s actually getting closer to the truth or if he’s just playing a semantic shell game with words like reductionism and fundamental because at this time nobody really knows the answer or even if the question makes sense.
It seems to me that the whole point of understanding eveything is to get to the point of not having to understand anything anymore and that iis what zen has been teaching all along, nothing
A123 A321 what do you mean the whole point of understanding everything is not to understand anything anymore? Because it gets so weird and detached from our reality?
If you understood everything...There would be nothing left to figure out. Intelligence wouldn't be intelligence anymore. You would realize the point to everything and it would be that their is nothing to learn. Just be. You try to understand everything so you can stop trying to understand it. Unless you would like to keep asking why all the time when you don't even know why. Seems the answer doesn't really matter. What matters is just being
What this basically says is that everything is written with precise laws in principle of organization, technical term but basically means everything is 'humanly' written, programmed down to the bits in clear precise form. That's how it is, a thing to ponder and accept when you stop being arrogant and listen.
Physically fundamental is a non-starter, because we keep finding lower layers. Fundamental in any other sense is purpose dependent.
As the host presses on the question, Susskind became more extreme in his view as opposed to his earlier moderate and more nuanced view.
What was extreme about what he said? He clearly said that microscopic physics is not the only science we will ever do. There are layers and layers of emergent phenomena above that and nobody is even attempting to enumerate the entire richness of those by a bottom-up approach. There is nothing extreme about that. It's actually first semester physics.
Susskind is awesome and I think he's contributed a great deal but I thought he might have caught the myopic disease that so many physicists have contracted until he said to understand smaller and smaller things we're going to have to understand bigger and bigger things. Infinity is the only thing that is fundamental. Everything you know is just a language that preserves your identity, allowing you to be a single viewpoint into infinity. If we lose sight of this we'll never decipher the language to our full potential.
Constituent.. I think that's the word you're looking for!?
Awkward that gravitational waves have now been confirmed for a second time. You have to feel for the string theorists "I've wasted my life!" Add string theory to the long list of mathematically beautiful theories which are demonstrably false. Next!
A second time? Haven't they been confirmed like about once or twice a week since 2017?
Whole detectors have been built for grav waves.
@@stoferb876
Yes, but LIGO’s mission was to confirm their existence
@@spuriusscapula4829
Yes, the LIGO mission was to confirm gravitational waves among other things.
@@TheBenevolentDictatorship ah okay, so it's just been two times as of now? I thought it might've been more.
Does anyone else find this type of conversation like pure stimulation after years and years of tik tok instagram garbage?
Fairy tales and pixie dust
This interviewer keeps interrupting and won't shut up. It's maddening.
Fundamental is our inability to measure 'real' state of system. We only measure some eigenvalues using Hermitian appropriate linear operators and clever apparatus (combined system) - we are in the prison of our math. Partial truth is still better than nothingness. Like in a famous novel: the final answer is 42! Come back after billion years to know it's meaning. (Was it 2007, when we lastly understood photo synthesis macro system - about 1000 molecules forming photon capture and basic energy storage/synthesis system vital to life by example - system is more than sum of ''fundamental" parts!, it need to have purpose -> 42.)
Fully reductionist is neither desirable nor possible. Sufficient reductionism is always desirable, often possible.
The interviewer should shut up and let Lenny talk.
This physicist contradicts himself over and over. I do not subscribe to his thoughts. Reductionism is wrong on so many levels. A wrong path playa.
reductionism = mereology, and it's metaphysical, not physical
He is a smart guy, I just wish he wouldn't have wasted so much of his life on string theory.