Carlo Rovelli is both a high-flying physicist and a deep thinker. He calculates but refuses to shut up! And good on him for that. Bravo Carlo, forza! A professor of quantum physics confessed to me recently: we really don’t understand what’s going on down there. It works (our theory works) but we don’t know why it works. “Shut up and calculate” means use the theory and don’t worry about what it means or why it works, as long as it works. - When you think of it, isn’t that what almost all of us do all the time with technology? I use my iPhone, my computer, the electronics of my car, etc. etc. even though I don’t know how any of that works! I press a button and voilà, it works. I don’t know to build it and I don’t know how to repair it. But it doesn’t stop me living my life. Fine for most people, but to some this state of affairs is frustrating, even infuriating. And so some do not shut up, and kudos to them!

Very interesting discussion. The whole idea of spirit as something separate from materiality is a dualistic model. If talk about phenomenological experience then there is no separation - there is just unity of experience which different discernible qualities which do exist independently but in relationship. The idea of a reality ‘out there’ is itself a mental concept, a useful but limited model of what we experience. The early Buddhist texts use quite specific terms for describing experience, in terms of khandas or aggregates of experience. The purpose of such a model is specifically for solving the problem of suffering/ happiness which is central to human experience. The idea that there are no objects out there, like atomic particles, but simply relationships between events is actually pertinent to the Buddhist project as it applies to the problem of suffering (dukkha). Here the relationship is framed in terms of suffering, cause, cessation and method, which is known as the four noble truths. It is also expressed in the process of dependent causation, which is a description of the causal relationships between the components or activities of experience. The most basic level can split into form or materiality and name which includes: feeling tone, perceptions, mental fabrications (thoughts etc) and consciousness. These are all activities which are directly experienced - there is no doubt about the reality of these aspects of experience. But they can’t be really considered to have a separate reality or be things out there just like atomic particles - there is only the relationships between these activities of experience. This kind of model is central in a Buddhism for solving the problem dukkha or pain. The relevance for physics is probably not very useful but it is interesting to hear the discussion moving to relationships between qualities rather than the idea of a ultimate reality out there.

Rovelli is such a great and impactful teacher. I may actually become one of those little fans of his, and go look up his former department in Bologna. 🥰

In the end, reality appears as connections, rather than objects - physics, philosophy, spirituality. Beautiful video, thank you. What a time to exist. Enjoy the journey all 🙏

I've had that idea for a long time, so I'm studying Graph Theory, which is all about connections. There are no objects. There are Only connections. A group of connections forms a Node, but the node is Only the connections. This is the basic idea, but there is an enclosing level where objects on our level are only nodes in the enclosing level, and the connections between those nodes are dynamic, based on feedback from our level.

Feynman said the same thing more or less, that those hoping for an 'ultimate answer' may be disappointed in that endeavour and that he himself had no such ambition and wanted only at each moment to find out more about the world.

What we call reality is essentially a manifestation of purely abstract relations. Take observers A and B. If B defines A by it’s relation to A and vice versa, what can be said about A or B in isolation? Each has internal relations( constant flux) which gives rise to a field of potentiality. When A and B come together the potentialities become interaction. It’s essentially about flux fields and the path integral or Sum Over Histories principle and constraints that form in the dynamic.

Category Theory. A monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?

Sprituality is within the domains of physics

Part of a comprehensive art education will inculcate in the aspiring artist a sensitivity to relations, be they color, line, surface or scale. To create coherence and believability is an essential aspect of art, and science is on a quest for that as well. The biggest difference is that science seeks repeatability of results. The fine artist seeks the unique. Although an artist's painting may resembles others of his/hers in aspects, it is hopefully always new in its particularity. In science, something that occurs but once is an anomaly. It's just written off.

Very Buddhistic. Reality we experience are chains of dependently arisen point-moments translated into phenomena of impressions, ideas, and conceptions by collective, yet subjective mind.

You are right on the money.

YES 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏I LOVE THIS

something exists only when interacted, that's quantum mechanics. Objects have meaning only when it is related to other, that's classical mechanics. So, which one come first? Whether meaning makes something to interact, to get that meaning, OR, the interaction itself brings objects to relate to get that meaning.

I am interested in the computer simulation of quantum mechanics making use of a random number generator. This will enable me to explore situations involving antimatter. Any hints on how to proceed?

Gold

This exhibition reminds me of a certain episode from twilight zone.

Explore your inner Connections via the *HU* Sound Current.

I liked the interview next to the amazing art, especially the Plato's cave at the end

The self is a relation. Keirkigaard.

Experiment to safely explore your inner universe: Sing *HU* daily, as a tuning fork? Search how to sing *HU* .

I see! A cod is only a cod when it is walloping. (native english idiom)

Carlo is onto something!

My whole life was a lie 😢

This whole Physics thing, rather like Art, seems to rely an awful lot on the human eye - what we can see. To some extent what we can hear. Little to do with taste, touch and smell. If we were all blind, could we know about Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Gravity, waves and fields? Perhaps we need a new Sense to “sniff out” Dark Matter and Quantum Black Holes?

Connections made of what?

Clicked on #rovelli

"philosophical" means an insult for most people:weird

Science is about "directly testable things". I adore physics and cosmology and all things empirical but here Rovelli sounds a bit like Chopra without all the word salad.

I agree with Carlo that all this is real or, to be more precise, that "there is only the Real" (10:00); a very important realization. However and this is where I differ with Carlo; there is definitely a (one) meaning for all this however (11:38 does the universe have a meaning or purpose?). He is very very close however and the answer is related to the beginning of his talk but he still makes the erroneous distinction between living- and non living whereas "there is only one consciousness". So in that regard he still needs to grow in his understanding. That being said. One day he will understand the why of John 15 12. Again... he is super close... just a matter of time and when he realizes what it's all about I will look forward to hearing his talks even more than I do now. So far so very good. It took me a while to figure it out as well. So thank you Carlo and have a very Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year everyone.

Well the art would look good in a dumpster. Not sure about the author's books. If they reflect this video then it's too bad a tree had to be sacrificed for the books. What is not jiberish but wrong as well. Science is about testable things. That is science. I agree other things that are not testable may have value. Still don't go to a poet for a physical illness or an artist to determine the structural safety of a building, find an engineer, a doctor, that is a scientist.

that isn't art to me. it's a pile of junk hung on strings

Sounds like a bunch of BS influenced by postmodernism. The very concept of interaction implies there are "interacting things". Also, interactions have been the focus of physics since Newton. Not a new thing, not a new "discovery". Last but not least, the "artist" he uses as an example is pure BS too.

I see a pile of rubbish suspended by wires instead of being heaped up on the floor by gravity.............. No wonder AI art generators like Midjourney are killing it and winning art prizes : they are so much much better.

Connections between what? Objects! A connection is formed between objects. Qua art in the video, you as a certain entity with certain values connects to an object with a certain form, which gives you a chance to create that connection. Everything he says about Quantum is non-sense. Everything he says about reality is non-sense.