#238 — How to Build a Universe

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2021

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Frank Wilczek about the fundamental nature of reality. They discuss the difference between science and non-science, the role of intuition in science, the nature of time, the prospect that possibility is an illusion, the current limits of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, space-time as a substance, the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in science, the possibility that we might be living in a simulation, the fundamental building blocks of matter, the structure of atoms, the four fundamental forces, wave-particle duality, the electromagnetic spectrum, the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the implications of infinite space-time, dark energy and dark matter, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
0:09.1	This is Sam Harris.
0:11.3	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.8	feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
0:18.6	In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe
0:22.5	at samharis.org.
0:24.5	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:28.3	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.7	We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support
0:34.7	of our subscribers.
0:35.7	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:39.8	As always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't get access to the podcast.
0:44.0	So if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at samharis.org to request a free
0:48.1	account.
0:49.1	And we grant 100% of those requests.
0:51.5	And no questions, hence.
1:00.1	Today I'm speaking with Frank Wilcheck.
1:03.6	Frank won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for a work he did as a graduate student.
1:10.8	He was also one of the earliest MacArthur Fellows, and he has won many other awards for his
1:15.6	scientific work and writing.
1:18.0	He's the author of several books, but most recently he has published a fantastic primer
1:23.5	on the state of physics, and that is called Fundamentals.
	...

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