Sam Harris [at 4:00]: This is supposed to be science, right?Carroll goes on to explain his beliefs in many-worlds quantum mechanics, block universe, Laplace's Demonm, determinism, and time reversibility.
It sounds like the strangest and least believable thing [inaudible] So how is it that science, after centuries of being apparently rigorous, and parsimonious, and hard-headed, finally disgorges a picture of reality which seems to be the least believable thing that anyone has ever thought of?
Sean M. Carroll: You've come to the right place!
The fact that we think we have free will, and we remember the past instead of the future, is all just a psychological illusion caused by the increase in entropy.
I wonder how Carroll ever got to be a physics professor. He is entitled to believe in whatever gods he chooses, but he represents these opinions as consequences of modern science. They are not.
Harris's question nails it. Scientists were rigorous, parsimonious, and hard-headed for centuries, but now the public image of science is dominated by professors like Carroll who present the least believable ideas.
A recent New Scientist article on how to think about the multiverse quotes him:
“One of the most common misconceptions is that the multiverse is a hypothesis,” says Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In fact, it is forced upon us.” It is a prediction of theories we have good reason to think are correct.”If the multiverse really were a hypothesis, it would be testable. No, the multiverse is just some anti-positivist philosophical belief that has no empirical support, and does not follow from any accepted theory.
For someone who doesn't believe in libertarian free will, Carroll is intolerant of those who disagree with his leftist agenda. He is sympathetic to a restaurant for refusing to serve a Trump White House employee!
I would think that a science professor, who likes to talk about how great science is, would happily promote the open exchange of political ideas. But no, he apparently thinks that leftist Democrats should not necessarily be civil to Trump supporters.
Their superficial understanding of Bell led to all of this. They're still delimiting its generality. That's the relevant issue and not people so stupid as to be uninformed about the nuances and who have flippant responses to it derived from oversimplifications. But what do you expect? Nobody teaches or writes about these issues CORRECTLY and COMPREHENSIVELY. It's like the crisis in statistics educations. It's about a bad generation of teachers who dumbed down the next generation. The past few generations of teachers underestimated how difficult it is to recapitulate complicated developments and they just take shortcuts. Most classes don't even mention the history of the subject. They're lazy, stupid, arrogant and disorganized, so they reap what they sow. They just spread misunderstanding and political indoctrination.
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