Sean Carroll

As always, the AMA episodes are brought to you by Patreon supporters of Mindscape. You could become a Patreon supporter by going to patreon.com slash Sean M. Carroll and pledging a bit of money for every podcast. I need to switch it for every month. That's what we're going to be doing now for every month. And as a reward, you get ad-free versions of the podcast. You also get to ask questions.

As always, the AMA episodes are brought to you by Patreon supporters of Mindscape. You could become a Patreon supporter by going to patreon.com slash Sean M. Carroll and pledging a bit of money for every podcast. I need to switch it for every month. That's what we're going to be doing now for every month. And as a reward, you get ad-free versions of the podcast. You also get to ask questions.

These AMA questions are asked by the Patreon supporters. And every month, every episode and every regular interview episode, not so those are AMAs, but every regular episode, I do a little reflection audio thinking of talking about how I responded to the interview that we just had, the discussion we just had. And that's for the Patreon supporters.

These AMA questions are asked by the Patreon supporters. And every month, every episode and every regular interview episode, not so those are AMAs, but every regular episode, I do a little reflection audio thinking of talking about how I responded to the interview that we just had, the discussion we just had. And that's for the Patreon supporters.

So that could be you if that's how you want to roll. If not, that's also cool. We love you all. Let's go. Cooper starts us off with a priority question. Remember, the priority questions are something that all the Patreon supporters get to ask once in their lives, and I will do my best to answer that one question. We have too many questions to answer all of them.

So that could be you if that's how you want to roll. If not, that's also cool. We love you all. Let's go. Cooper starts us off with a priority question. Remember, the priority questions are something that all the Patreon supporters get to ask once in their lives, and I will do my best to answer that one question. We have too many questions to answer all of them.

In fact, this month we had a very large number, and I feel very bad. There's a lot of good questions that didn't get chosen, so sorry about that. But Cooper's priority question says, the episode with Jeff Lichtman was fantastic and has really stuck with me.

In fact, this month we had a very large number, and I feel very bad. There's a lot of good questions that didn't get chosen, so sorry about that. But Cooper's priority question says, the episode with Jeff Lichtman was fantastic and has really stuck with me.

His comment about how understanding something requires compressing it in some way and how the brain perhaps cannot be compressed in that way is something I keep thinking about. It's as if the only way to understand a brain is to be a brain, sort of like how perfectly simulating a universe requires something the size of the universe. Did this comment of Jeff's leave an impression on you as well?

His comment about how understanding something requires compressing it in some way and how the brain perhaps cannot be compressed in that way is something I keep thinking about. It's as if the only way to understand a brain is to be a brain, sort of like how perfectly simulating a universe requires something the size of the universe. Did this comment of Jeff's leave an impression on you as well?

Don't feel the need to say much if it did not." No, it did leave an impression, but I've thought about things like that before. I think that there are important differences between levels of understanding. You can understand something a little bit or better, right?

Don't feel the need to say much if it did not." No, it did leave an impression, but I've thought about things like that before. I think that there are important differences between levels of understanding. You can understand something a little bit or better, right?

It's very similar to the discussion about emergence and higher-level macroscopic, coarse-grained understandings versus lower-level microscopic understandings. So I might not understand everything about a brain, but I understand some things about it. Or think about something that is a little bit less problematic to get all the nuances down. I understand how to drive a car.

It's very similar to the discussion about emergence and higher-level macroscopic, coarse-grained understandings versus lower-level microscopic understandings. So I might not understand everything about a brain, but I understand some things about it. Or think about something that is a little bit less problematic to get all the nuances down. I understand how to drive a car.

I don't understand everything that is going on in the car, right? That would require a lot more information. But I can still understand enough to be able to drive the car. And I think the same thing is true with brains. We can understand some things about how they work or we can focus in on some aspects of them.

I don't understand everything that is going on in the car, right? That would require a lot more information. But I can still understand enough to be able to drive the car. And I think the same thing is true with brains. We can understand some things about how they work or we can focus in on some aspects of them.

So the complete understanding might involve something at the Laplace's demon level of perfect information at some microscopic level that we might never obtain. But we can get better and better at understanding bits of it and aspects of it. And I think that's perfectly good.

So the complete understanding might involve something at the Laplace's demon level of perfect information at some microscopic level that we might never obtain. But we can get better and better at understanding bits of it and aspects of it. And I think that's perfectly good.

Martin Leitner says, I was wondering how photosensitive organic molecules like chlorophyll implants or the receptors in our eyes are able to react to a range of frequencies. I was taught that an electron needs a very specific frequency to get excited. Similarly, how can two electrons and two atoms that are not perfectly stationary...

Martin Leitner says, I was wondering how photosensitive organic molecules like chlorophyll implants or the receptors in our eyes are able to react to a range of frequencies. I was taught that an electron needs a very specific frequency to get excited. Similarly, how can two electrons and two atoms that are not perfectly stationary...