Susskind says Universe is not Real

Another respected physicist has gone off the deep end. In a new video:

Why the Universe Is Not Real | Leonard Susskind

At first glance, the idea sounds absurd. The universe feels undeniably real. Galaxies exist. Space stretches outward. Matter occupies locations and evolves over time. How could the universe not be real?

In this video, we explore what physicists actually mean when they challenge the reality of the universe. “Not real” does not mean “does not exist.” It means something far more precise — that the universe we experience may not be fundamental. ...

0:00 The universe is not real. I know how that sounds. It sounds like philosophical nonsense, like something a stoned undergraduate would say at 3:00 in the morning. But I'm serious. After spending decades studying quantum mechanics, black holes, and the foundations of reality, I've come to a conclusion that would have shocked my younger self. The universe, as we experience it, is not fundamentally real.

He gives several arguments: (1) Schroedinger Cat is dead and alive simultaneously; (2) We only see one world of many-worlds theory; (3) Physical states are sometimes determined by a boundary condition, so we are a hologram; (4) At the Planck scale, quantum gravity teaches that spacetime breaks down; (5) Observations depend on what observers do.

Let me connect this to black holes again 13:16 because that's where these ideas become most concrete. When you fall into a black hole, you experience crossing the event horizon smoothly. From your perspective, the interior is real. You fall through space toward the singularity. But from the perspective of someone outside, you never cross the horizon. You appear to freeze at the horizon. ...

The fundamental 14:03 reality is the quantum state of the black hole,

He ends up concluding that the universe is not real. So what is real? The Tegmark mathematical universe and consciousness.

20:09 Everything you think is real, solid, definite, is actually quantum, abstract, probabilistic at the fundamental level. The classical reality is an illusion your brain constructs from quantum information. The universe is not real in the way you think it is. It's something uh far stranger. ...

Love is an emergent 21:23 phenomenon arising from brain chemistry, from evolutionary psychology, from social structures. Does that make it less real, less valuable? Of course not. ...

The 23:22 universe is not real in the naive sense. And that's one of the most important discoveries in the history of physics. It changes everything about how we understand reality and our place in it. ...

The universe is not real. 24:14 And that's the most profound truth about reality I've ever discovered.

He is a good illustration of how modern physics has gone wrong.

The Golden Age of Phyics was 1860-1935. Then everyone idolized Einstein for his foolish pursuit of unified field theory and rejection of quantum mechanics. Theoretical physicists studied quantum gravity, nonlocal interpretations, strings, holograms, black hole firewalls, many-worlds, landscape, etc., all to no end.

Susskind went through phases supporting all that stuff, and ends up denying reality.

He is now firmly in the existential crisis iceberg. Accepting what he says is the same as saying we live in a simulation, or that reality is a dream.

All his favorite theories -- hologram, many-worlds, Tegmark math universe -- leave no room for free will or scientific inquiry. He denies that it is nihilism, but that is exactly what it is. We are worse than rats in maze.

He goes wrong at the start, with the Schroedinger Cat. The Cat is just a simple example of uncertainty about two possible events. There is no deep math or physics involved. A child can understand that he might not know what is in a box. But it is very strange to make the leap from that to saying that the universe is not real. I do not think that I could convince a 4-year-old of that.

Susskind also has a new video:

Why Objects Don’t Really Exist | Leonard Susskind

Objects feel like the most basic elements of reality. Tables, chairs, planets, particles — the world appears to be built from things. It seems obvious that objects exist. But modern physics tells a very different story.

In this video, we explore why objects may not be fundamental at all. “Don’t exist” does not mean imaginary. It means that objects are not the deepest level at which reality is defined.

He talks about cats, fuzzy objects, ships with boards replaced, entangled particles.

Another video says:

Why Time Is a Byproduct | Leonard Susskind

We usually think of time as one of the most fundamental ingredients of reality. Everything seems to move through time. Causes come before effects. The universe appears to unfold moment by moment along an invisible timeline. But modern theoretical physics suggests a very different picture.

In this video, we explore the unsettling idea that time may not be fundamental at all. Instead of being the engine that drives reality, time may be a byproduct — something that emerges from deeper processes rather than causing them.

And another new video says black holes are not real:

Black holes are usually imagined as objects with a deep, hidden interior — a place where matter falls and disappears forever. This image is deeply ingrained in popular science. But modern theoretical physics suggests something far more surprising: black holes may not have an interior in the way we think.

In this video, we explore why physicists increasingly question the idea of a black hole interior. “No interior” does not mean nothing happens when something falls in. It means that the information describing that object is not stored inside the black hole as an internal structure.

He says he spent years trying to convince Hawking that if you throw a book into a black hole, then the information will eventually bubble out the surface. His main argument that there is no interior is that if the book fell down to the center, then it is hard to see how the info would ever get out.

He can get away with saying anything he wants about a black hole interior, because it is not observable. But he gets totally wacky and says wormholes are the same as quantum entanglement.

I see now that Susskind has just put out a lot of these videos. Have fun listening to erudite nonsense.

On second thought, I think I have been duped by AI slop. These podcasts have Susskind's voice and his his opinions, but they are more forcefully and coherently argued than he does in real life. I think some AI has scanned his lectures and writings, and made them more intelligible.

I semething similar with Roger Penrose. See Quantum Mechanics Is NOT Random. It is a very good summary of Penrose's view on the subject, and rendered in his own voice. Here is another on Gravity Isn't Pulling You Down — The Ground Is Pushing You Up, and one on Einstein Was Right: Past, Present & Future Are An Illusion — Here's The Proof.

These podcasts are the future of education, I am afraid. They are better than the real Susskind and Penrose, and faithful to their opinions and voices. Maybe we will not have live lectures anymore. Someone will give several lectures on a subject, and then an AI will distill, refine, and polish the material into a better lecture.

Getting back to the original topic, Susskind is not real. He is an AI reconstruction.