The Passage of Time and the Meaning of Life | Sean Carroll (Talk + Q&A)

Long Now Foundation
Long Now Foundation
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Published 2021-05-30
What is time? What is humankind’s role in the universe? What is the meaning of life? For much of human history, these questions have been the province of religion and philosophy. What answers can science provide?

In this talk, Sean Carroll will share what physicists know, and don’t yet know, about the nature of time. He’ll argue that while the universe might not have purpose, we can create meaning and purpose through how we approach reality, and how we live our lives.

Sean Carroll is a Research Professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His research has focused on fundamental physics and cosmology, especially issues of dark matter, dark energy, spacetime symmetries, and the origin of the universe.

Recently, Carroll has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the emergence of spacetime, and the evolution of entropy and complexity. Carroll is the author of Something Deeply Hidden, The Big Picture, The Particle at the End of the Universe amongst other books and hosts the Mindscape podcast.

“The Passage of Time and the Meaning of Life” was given on May 4, 02021 as part of Long Now's Seminar series. The series was started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking from some of the world's leading thinkers. The Seminars take place in San Francisco and are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. To follow the talks, you can:

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All Comments (21)
  • @IntricateUniverse25
    If you can’t explain something to someone who doesn’t know in a way that they will understand then you don’t really know. This is how you know this man understands his concepts. Very easy to follow.
  • @jessejames6216
    Sean Carroll is my favorite and I've learned a whole new world from him in a few short lectures and there wonderfully entertaining enlightening videos he is brilliant fun and cool 🥰🥰🥰🥰 we need more Sean Carroll this is what we should be marketing broadly and widely to everyone in every language tuned to every dialect to each region let's educate the masses the world needs mass intelligence the herd is manageable but the smarter the POPULATIONS the less potential for nevermind LOL we love you thank you for this content
  • @Virsconte
    So you can remember the past, but not "predict" it from current data. You can't remember the future, but you can (in principle) predict it. So the present moment tells you more about the future than the past. That's kind of breaking my brain.
  • @michaelchildish
    "The purpose of being alive, is to be alive" - Alan Watts, renegade 'process philosopher' who left the Anglican Church and studied eastern philosophies. I like science for that is what is observable, and love his words for society matters, psychology, his clever wordplay, and his view of The Big Questions. He believes the universe itself, is ALIVE!
  • @honesttraveltipshonesttrav7808
    Brilliant. You have explained abstruse concepts that can be understood easily in lay person’s terms. I for one am excited you have left Caltech. You are making physics accessible to everyone. Thank you. Keep going!
  • @segism.810
    Excellent explanation, thanks for making such abstract concepts understandable.
  • @feszty
    Sean Carroll is my favorite.
  • @sandeepguha5997
    Thank you so much LNF for arranging such an amazing session. You are precious Sean Sir , beautifully explained 😇
  • @jessejames6216
    This is wonderful 🏵️🏵️🏵️🏵️🏵️ much appreciated ❤️☺️🙏
  • @robertw1871
    Philosophy is not the enemy, if you consider that most, if not all, of the major breakthroughs in physics were brought to us by nearly pure imagination and grounded common sense not necessarily by elaborate and verbose mathematical ideas. I still have a sense that time is fundamentally more rich than just a marker of movement in 3 dimensions.
  • @sherlockholmeslives.1605
    I really like this. I have read Patrick Moore's book 'Exploring The Earth and Moon', some of it I thought was obvious, saying that T-Rex was the largest ever land predator is plain wrong, but I enjoyed reading it, although I found it a bit demanding, and I didn't understand tidal effects, but the book is aimed for 8 - 12 year olds. I understand Plato's 'Wax Tablet Hypothesis' but that is about my limit. Lol! I'll study quantum statistical mechanics now.