physics
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A tour of “Newcomb’s Paradox,” in which philosophers who ought to know better argue about the best way to behave in a nonsensical, world-hopping dilemma.
Sometimes, only an irrational choice can help us make the world as good as it could possibly be.
anonymity, anonymous, anonymous action, Blood Test, brains, Charles Baxter, choice, consciousness, Daniel Dennett, emotion, emotions, ensemble behavior of matter, free will, game theory, Hamlet, irrational behavior, irrational choices, irrationality, magical thinking, neural firing, neurons, neuroscience, Newcomb’s Paradox, philosophy, physics, prediction, predictive neuroscience, prisoners’ dilemma, prophecy, quantum computers, quantum mechanics, rational behavior, rational choices, rationality, revenge, Robert Frank, Robert Sapolsky, Roko’s basilisk, Sabine Hossenfelder, science, social opprobrium, storytelling, superposition, The Lion King, The Prisoners’ Dilemma, trust, uncertainty, uncertainty principle
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Wavelike cats calculate faster than you can.
Hypothetical calculator-wielding cats can help us understand the workings of a quantum computer.
calculating cats, cat, chemistry, computation, computer science, computers, factoring prime numbers, flow of information, information-proof box, laser trap, many worlds, physics, quantum, quantum bits, quantum computers, quantum computing, quantum computing made easy, quantum decoherence, quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics for children, quantum physics, Sam Avery Norrell, Schrodinger’s Cat, science, understanding quantum computers, understanding quantum computing, wave function, wave function collapse
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On ‘Existential Physics’ and free will.
If a physicist says you can’t have free will, but you can lift your arm when you want, who should you believe?
brain chemistry, computability, consciousness, continuous space, digital mathematics, discontinuous space, Existential Physics, free will, Hossenfelder, is our universe pixelated, physics, physics of consciousness, physics of free will, physics of thought, pixelated space, Sabine, Sabine Hossenfelder -
On meditation and the birth of the universe.
How we compose ourselves is everything.
anti-matter, big bang, biology, birth of particles, birth of stars, birth of the cosmos, Buddha, Buddha meditating, chaos engines, chaos machines, chemistry, composition of matter, consciousness, cosmology, dark energy, drug chemistry, drugs, emergent physics, emergent properties, energetics of life, entropy, expanding universe, false vacuum, goal of meditation, hallucination, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, how to meditate, hydrogen fusion, hyperinflation, inflation, Jesus, Jesus meditating, LSD, mantra, mantra meditation, matter, meditate, meditation, meditation function, meditation guide, meditation practice, meditation retreat, metastable, more is different, nuclear fusion, Odin, Odin meditating, organization of matter, origin of consciousness, origin of intelligence, origin of life, origin of planets, origin of structure, origin of the cosmos, origin of the universe, particle physics, physics, practice, practice makes better, psychedelic, psychedelic meditation, psychedelics, quantum mechanics, RNA world, RNA world hypothesis, sat nam, Shiva, Shiva meditating, star formation, statistical mechanics, structure of matter, teaching in jail, THC, thermodynamics of life, transcendental meditation, tsar bomba, uncertainty, vacuum energy
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On translation and quantum mechanics.
We have so many ways to depict the world – they’re not all equally good for all ideas.
3 body problems, 3-body problem, base ten numbering, Beyond Weird, Child with a toy hand grenade in Central Park, Chinese, Dance Your Ph.D., Dance Your PhD, decimal notation, describing photographs, Diane Arbus, does God play dice, Eliot Weinberger, God does not play dice, God is a gambler, God is an inveterate gambler, grain size of the universe, Hugh Everette, infinite precision, infinite series, irrational numbers, language, math, math is language of universe, mathematics, meaning of quantum mechanics, metaphoric language, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ninetween Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, Perry Link, Philip Ball, physics, pi, pixelation of physical space, precision, quantum mechanics, quantum physics, Richard Feynman, Science Olympiad, Stephen Hawking, three body problem, translating, translating mathematics into words, translating poetry, Translation, voxelation, what does quantum mechanics mean, Write It Do It, writing
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On resurrection.
We are unlikely to live again … but religions themselves get resurrected all the time. As you might expect, the religions that rise from the grave sometimes come back as shambling monstrosities.
Achilles, ancient European myths, Anthony Appiah, Asatru, astrophysics, Birka warrior, Boltzmann brain, Celtic mythology, Celtic religion, Christianity, Daoism, druid, druids, female viking, female viking warrior, female warrior, forgotten faiths, Greek mythology, Ian Johnson, Icelandic poetry, In Search of the True Dao, life after death, lost faiths, Louis Komjathy, milk, mythology, neopaganism, New York Review, Norse mythology, Odin, Odin’s gift, odinism, Odinist revival, Odysseus in the underworld, pagan, pagan revival, paganism, physics, poetry, prejudice, pseudoscience, rebirth, rediscovering lost faiths, rediscovering lost religions, rediscovering Norse faiths, reincarnation, resurrection, Roman propaganda, Sexism, space dust, The Lies that Bind, The Odyssey, the old beliefs, Viking myths, Viking religion, viking revival, viking warrior women, viking women, white supremacists, white supremacy, Wicca, witchcraft, world mythology, world religions
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On Vaughan & Staples’s ‘Saga’ and parenting metaphors.
‘Saga’ beautifully depicts the trials of parenting … like the risk of plunging into a black hole and never seeing your friends again.
A. Zee, astronomy, astrophysics, babies, big stuff, black hole, blame, Brian Vaughan, child abuse, children, comics, curved space, event horizon, fatherhood, Fiona Staples, graphic novel, gravity, Hawking radiation, interplanetary travel, Interstellar, Lying Cat, math, numeracy, On Gravity, overcoming sexual abuse, overcoming trauma, parenting, physics, PTSD, relativity, saga, shame, space fetus, the universe, time suck, timesuck, trauma
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On asymmetry and ‘The Hatred of Poetry.’
Like you, the people in jail have stories to tell.
45, agitation for change, asymmetry, asymmetry of attention, attention, attention economy, Ben Lerner, By Any Measure, county jail, criminal justice, dipole moment, Donald Trump, grammar, hate crime, Hatred of Poetry, idiosynchratic grammar, imprisonment, In Between Poems, incarceration, Jack Gilbert, jail poetry, Jana Prikryl, lockdown, lyric, lyric poems, lyrical poetry, mass incarceration, MFA, Orlando shooting, Philip Warren Anderson, physics, physics of poetry, physics of symmetry, plea for attention, poet, poetry, prison poetry, reading poetry in jail, rehab, rehabilitation, school to prison pipeline, symmetry, teaching in jail, teaching poetry, terrorism, The After Party, The Hatred of Poetry, the internet, the power of words, Thirty Thousand Islands, waning attention spans, why read poetry, why water flows, why write poetry, writing poetry in jail, [jumpsuits]
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On love and physics.
Even when love doesn’t change the world, it changes us.
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On a guaranteed basic income.
No one among us created the world.
computers, consciousness, correspondence collaboration, creditworthiness, criticizing social studies of finance with Lazzarato, Digital subjectivation and financial markets, exhaustion, free will, guaranteed basic income, gut bugs, hireability, human augmentation, implicit violence, intestinal fauna, market design, microbiome, narrative explanation, neurological consequences of tools, neurology, no cloning theorem, philosophy, physics, prostitutes, quantum mechanics, sex work, stock market, testosterone, the human drive for storytelling, the perception of freedom might well be good enough, Tim Christiaens, tool use, toxoplasma, uncertainty principle, wealth tax, welfare, working parents
Frank Brown Cloud 