Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas 215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld
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Oct 24, 2022 
Barry Loewer, a distinguished philosopher at Rutgers University and co-founder of DeepMind, delves into the fascinating interplay between physics and philosophy. He explores the historical challenges of linking thermodynamics to microscopic behavior and discusses his theory of the Mentaculus, mapping probabilities across time. Loewer unpacks counterfactuals and causation, addressing their philosophical implications, while questioning the nature of physical laws and the relationship between entropy and time. Their conversation ultimately bridges profound scientific concepts with deep philosophical inquiries.
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Intertwined Disciplines
- Physics and philosophy share common ground in fundamental questions about the world.
- These fields overlap in exploring the nature of reality, origins, and existence.
Origins of Counterfactual Thinking
- Counterfactual thinking originates from considering potential actions and their outcomes.
- It extends to past actions and general events, becoming a tool for understanding reality.
Lewis's Possible Worlds
- David Lewis used possible worlds to clarify discussions about the actual world.
- He believed possible worlds consist of spacetime points with "perfectly natural properties."
