Fantastic news! I have always enjoyed your interviews, whether I agree with your guests, or not.. They are fascinating, AND thought-provoking..The only downside is, there goes my poker night..

yea!

A great series of stimulating conversations!

Fantastic news.. Can you give GMT as well (for the rest of us outside of the US). Thanks

Can a universe exist without a consciousness being aware of it?

Indeed. If it was mentioned, it was couched in words too far down into the realm of physicists' language and theory. Maybe have to listen to it again and dig for to find a connection to the "advertised" subject. (Why do they make it so darn hard?!!)

It was inferred from the Anthropic Principle argument.

Indeed, the title is answered by the mention of the anthropic principle: basically *our* universe must contain consciousness (otherwise we could not wonder this question), but any other universe must not.

In other words, click bait.

I am easily irritated by clickbaity titles, although I was not by this title. I see how it is clickbaity in that it is a question, while the content is actually an answer. The title could have mentioned the answer instead, to better reflect the content. My bet is that this clip is part of a series of other clips, all with the same title, which is meant to summarize the general topic (most clips having a different answer to that question).

Exactly, He's understanding him, or 'standing under'.

@tate rosemary All I meant was that the interviewer is 'standing under' or 'serving tea' to the master. Essentially people take turns in playing the master and pupil. Your attitude comes across as super hostile, it wouldn't hurt you be the pupil once in a while. Why not give it a shot? It's so hard to tell what reality is, this scientist is giving it their best go based on what they observe.

Its fantastic for you because your brain is incredibly small.

Would enjoy a conversation with Bernardo Kastrup for an alternative theory

In the same why a Man got to sit and wonder "why, why, why" - a Tiger could typically do the same. In the same way a Man hunts, so does a Tiger. In the same way a bird can fly, a Man can.. which means technically, a Tiger can. There are INFINITE outcomes/possibilities. Including an infinite amount of ways you can interpret ALL of these ideas. Ideas themselves are infinite.

Tiger hunt, bird lift, and man lie. Tiger sleep, bird land, and man die. Ask how and not why, it will make you wise.

There are two kinds of men, Some believe they will die one day, My day never happens, My body? I live outside of this body, that body, I am an infinite kind.

​@@thevulture5750 Prove it. Prove that God exists.

The Vulture - God is infinite. I am infinite. God is not a man-person. I am inside of God. I am.

Bummer, I cannot _unsee_ this anymore

He is his twin brother.

Why is he talking to a knock off Jeff Goldblum, though...

@@Cynry to manifest string theory and the appropriate universe where your comment appears.

Well, that's totally distracted me from the deep subject in the video!

Very well said.

Love the sentiment, hate the supernatural invocation.

well la d daaaaa mr. Ph. D.. lmao.. who puts phd behind their youtube name? comical.

​@@thevulture5750 The first cause could just as easily be non-conscious, an 'eternally existing' mechanism that happens to generate universes. You haven't demonstrated that only a conscious God could have been the first cause. Your discussion on good/evil is a bit confusing. First of all are you sure evil is just the lack of good? In many cases people can be in excruciating pain. Being tortured, for example, is not just "lacking love", its the polar opposite, when someone is giving you harm. Negative emotions are not just the absence of positive emotions; the absence of positive emotion would be no emotions. And so to the extent that evil is not just the "lack of" good, it also doesn't make sense that God simply knowing something makes God that thing. Because then God would know evil, so by your argument he'd have to be evil, which contradicts the fact that he'd have to be good. Moreover, it seems like a fallacy to say that because you know what a moral action is, therefore you are moral - that's just a category error. I know what it is to be extremely generous - to give all one's money to the poor. It doesn't mean I am that way. Those are two logically distinct concepts, and you are combining them together without providing any justification. Even if you could argue for the existence of God, the specific Christian God you are arguing for does not follow. The bible contains references to entire towns rising from the dead, the world being flooded despite no evidence for that flood being visible, and a story of man's creation that contradicts what we understand as our origins from evolution today. Not to mention New Testament scholars openly admit the bible contains contradictions. It makes me think that the whole thing, or at least large parts were made up by man, instead of a perfect God. Beyond that, the justification for sin is still nonsensical. So God creates man, gives him free will, but then creates a situation where man is not at all clear that God exists, in spite of your comments on youtube, and many die never having known if he was ever there at all. According to the Christian religion, they end up going to hell? Please explain to me how that makes any sense at all?? Even more bizarre...why does God need his son to be tortured to death on a cross to forgive people of sin? Why couldn't he have done that without the torture, if he's a perfect, infinitely powerful being with infinite love and all the other infinites? Doesn't that seem like a more moral thing to do? And then again, why are people born sinful for the actions of the first man who supposedly ate an apple from a tree. How does it make any sense to punish generations of future ancestors for the actions of one dude. Would it be moral to punish you for the actions of your great, great, great, great (x 100 or more) grandfather?? That's why I say, the story you want me to believe is so illogical, combined with the historical problems with the bible, combined with the fundamental problems in your "first cause" arguments. I have no cause to believe in the Christian God whatsoever. Ironically, I have had incredible personal experiences that suggest something *may* exist beyond the physical world, but if I were to believe in anything it definitely would not be the Christian God.

@@Daniel-yo5es lol :P.

Thought induced youth ?

I like your initials

Internet troll? You should not talk about Professor Susskind like that. He means well. Give him another hundred years and he might figure out what those pockets of information are. HINT: Everything is just information which according to the Minus one law of the conservation of information demands our universe keep expanding as it records and stores the action reaction information within our universe.

Hahahahahahahaha!!

The Vulture I thought I answered this. The universe does not exist. Look at it. Talk to Ray Kurzweil. The universe is a virtual reality,. Science looked into this and discovered what you think is substance consists of molecules which are composed of Atoms which are made up of sub atomic particles called quarks , charms bosons etc. They built a 27 mile long Hadron Collider because they want evidence of a singularity. They wasted their money. I could have a planned the fact. That the past does not exist .... it’s over zero 0.... the future does not exist, yet either..... it’s zero 0..... all that exists is NOW .. one 1. The Bible explained it 1 cor 13:13 We use our FAITH in memories of a past which is over and gone to create HOPE in plans and expectations of a future does not exist yet... but...only NOW will ever exist.... so we just keep making stuff we want .... here is how it works.... we take now and decide what we want based on what had. Then we make it NOW. We make the future now... we also make the past now.... Now is all that ever exists. 1010101010101010 we are creating nows ONE AT A TIME.... when they are over , they do not exist anymore.. now here is what we create them out of... INFORMATION -- that’s all that exists. I think therefore I exist. Who what where why how when” NOW WHAT? I keep changing. That’s why those virtual particles seem to appear and disappear. They are NOT violating the laws of physics, they are simply constantly changing form. We take those disturbances in the quantum wave fields and we give them meaning, angstroms decibels wave pressures... those light frequencies are the sights and sounds and life experiences Einstein was talking about when he said “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”...... THINK ... we are the ones who assign the attribute “mass” to those virtual particles... suddenly magically a massless photon, a wave pressure acquired mass....??? FROM WHERE ????? there is no mass... it is just a label used to described the information of that disturbance in the quantum wave field... it is then stored as DARK MATTER... until we decide to use it to create the sights and sounds and experiences that GIVE LIFE MEANING... and we can only do that ONE NOW AT A TIME!!! Love is a good tool to use to create good things. We enjoy love belonging purpose esteem self actualization and self ascendancy.. yes by getting those things we satisfy the Purpose of Life which is the Pursuit of Happiness ... we created a perception of physical needs of food shelter and security... and by meeting the physical NEEDS OF OTHERS.... that’s how we satisfy our own needs of love belonging purpose esteem self actualization and self ascendancy.... That’s the purpose of life because ... nothingness is a very boring and lonely place to be ....

The Vulture great question. Let me explain life to you. Of course Jesus of the New Testament is the son of his Heavenly Father, in fact to them gave he the power to become sons of god. To who? Even unto those who believe on his name. Are you illiterate? Who is god? The spirit of loving the TRUTH and doing RIGHT....anyone who loves the truth and does right SINCERELY is a sin of god.... now the fun part... explaining how truth and right are god. No matter what subjective humans choose to believe, as Carl Sagan put it “But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God” the absolute truth of the physical laws is the god that will have authority when our sapient human universe intersects with our sentient human universe. Science seems to forget Humans are the authors of their own fate, based on the decisions we make. Relative to the physical laws of the universe. Truth is VERY important when making these decisions. It can mean the difference between life and death. Intent right or wrong can also mean the difference between life and death...... funny how that works isn’t it?... GOD life and death depend not on some supernatural entity but the spirit as defined as “those qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person”.. because THAT is what decides your fate... I can point you to the TRUE GOD that created the universe and tell you exactly how that God created this universe. I figured it out based on the scientific evidence.

The Vulture I would love to answer any questions you have about God. I am serious. God is very real ... as 1: creator- where did this existence come from ? What is it ? I can tell you 2: ruler controller laws of physics 3: highest authority ... simply put subjective understanding must yield to absolute fact... IOW What Einstein constantly pointed out is that “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”... because .....”Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”..and “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”...

they are not smart they r mentally screwed up

What if it is not? What that question eliminates all other possibilities to the detriment of finding the correct answer?

@@Chaxar -- Sorry.

@@Chaxar But that makes only sense, because consciousness is too powerful to be formed by unconscious matter

@@justaguywithaturban6773 How do you know that?!? What power are you talking about? Do you know that DNA is not conscious? Do you even know what consciousness is? How much more powerful is consciousness than say the fusion power of the sun? Stars = unconscious, yet their existence is responsible for all the heavy atoms in the universe. Without which, humans would not be possible. (Atoms which are released when stars explode, in case you didn't know...)

@@Chaxar If consciousness is fundamental (which it most likely is) then stars and the whole universe is conscious. I know this because like you I’m experiencing consciousness. And that combined with common sense tells me that unconscious dead matter cannot create consciousness, if it did it wouldn’t be like right now, we would be mindless robots without free will. Or we would have millions if not billions of personalities in one person.

And the insights ain't bad either!

@BLUE SKY PUZZLE Part of it is because he’s got a lot of content online. He also has a way presenting things that’s pretty accessible to people without a math background.

This is fascinating but also a bit defeatist. I think we need to keep all options open to explain consciousness.

He is like the world's cleverest barman.

Fact require evidence.

Not so sure 😁.

You're so right. I don't consider the fine tuning question to be a challenge at all. It raises the issue that our present phenomenal universe could not exist if the constants of nature were even minutely different than what they are. So what? It presumes that complex, self replicating forms could not arise or exist in any other phenomenal universe. There is simply no basis for any such presumption. There could be any number of possibilities for other universes with different particles and different forces to create complex, self replicating forms. We humans, and the rest of biological life, are simply the forms that were possible and arose in this particular universe, as you stated. I was surprised that Dr. Susskind even considers the fine tuning conjecture to be something that theoretical physicists need to get their panties in a twist over. General logic has wiped it off the board, with no need to go into arcane theoretical concepts, like positing string theory, to deal with it. There's no telling how many popular philosophical channels, like Atheist Experience and whatnot, have redundantly disposed of this lame argument. The discussion in this video provides an excellent example of why the contempt some physicists have for philosophy is so misguided. Any half-assed philosopher could have told Dr. Susskind that the fine tuning "problem" doesn't rise to the level that he needs to waste his time over. If a significant number of high level physicists are bamboozled over this non-problem, that's dismaying, but I'm skeptical about that. I'm pretty sure that Sean Carroll is not straining his brain over it. As for the host of this channel, Robert Kuhn-- I never tune into his channel unless I'm particularly interested in the views of the person he's interviewing. It's so obvious that his actual quest is shopping around among physicists in the forlorn and wistful hope that he'll hear something that suggests the theoretical need for a God. It's so cringey, it just makes my butt itch. His problem seems to be that he thinks all philosophical problems must be addressable through high level physics, or otherwise must have some kind of supernatural basis. He isn't explicit about this idea, but I can just smell it in every video of his that I've ever seen. Having that idea is a product of philosophical ignorance.

@@donnievance1942 agreed

> maybe nothing Impossible. Existence exists.

​@@donnievance1942 First we have to prove that other universes can actually exist outside of mathematical form, then we have to discover wether other universes actually do exist. We know neither of those to be true. Then we have to explain the mechanism by which these other universes form, and then we have to explain how that mechanism is tuned to the right parameters in order to spit out universes. Explaining fine tuning via a multiverse is akin to saying God did it. It's an idea that could be plausible, but we haven't a single shred of evidence that a multiverse exists, let alone proof. Also, if you look up the history of the fine tuning problem you'll discover that the idea of a multiverse was explicitly and intentionally created as an alternative to the God hypothesis. There were two camps of physicists, religious and atheist, and the atheists had to come up with some solution to the fine tuning problem that didn't involve a deity. Thus the multiverse hypothesis was born. Ironically the atheists came up with what is essentially a religious idea, in the sense that it's unfalsifiable, and can't be tested, at least with our current understanding of physics and technology. Maybe we'll come up with some way to test for the existence of other universes, but then again maybe we'll come up with some way to test for the existence of God. In any case, that's why I don't buy the multiverse hypothesis.

What if string theory is wrong. It is not even wrong at the moment.

I believe most of these old timers are finally giving up on string quackery.

@@scottyandell3644 What do you say about quantum loop gravity? I like it… 🤷‍♀️😂 But the idea of strings as “DNA” definitely to me is evidence of its veracity. The way he describes it in the video. Frickin awesome. I love hearing him talk. A great mind.

Dr Susskind really understands the issues. I could listen to him talk all day. The mechanism for me is the issue as well. Been working on that for many decades. I do have a degree in psychology with honors. Lol 😂 Also epistemology and the nature of knowledge is my big-questions field. I feel like it would be very fruitful for Leonard and I to talk. I moved to Sunnyvale partly for those kinds of reasons, but the coronavirus interferes with everything…. 🤔 Well, I feel his described frustration in people about equations not showing how everything arises. We are leaving our large swaths of evidence in the universe and I am writing another book about it now. Like we forgot half the universe. 😳🤷‍♀️ This was one of my favorite conversations ever. ❤️👁🤔🥰

@@spiralsun1 I agree completely. I get discouraged hearing some of these guys giving up on the theory in its entirety. It's so obvious that things are close, but maybe there is no way to make a connection. There could be two completely different operating systems. It's possible, if not plausible.

Very good.

Agree, he is like a golden face with his eyes cast down.

@Psychiatrysts This depends how you define proof. Inference is how we "Prove" many things in science. This is not direct proof by definition yet is accepted. Enough inferred data can count and we have no idea what will show itself in the future. I stay hopeful. As for 20 years of stagnation, 20 years is NOTHING when considering the results of scientific study and the time it takes. As far as string theory or M theory in general..... I still don't buy it yet.

@Psychiatrysts With all due respect friend, you are wrong.. Perhaps you dont have a mathematical background, OR expertise in this matter.. Out of STRING THEORY equations, general relativity just POP'S out.. Added to that, the BEST mechanism for explaining quantum gravity NATURALLY emerges.. This IS evidence.. Curiously the Multiverse MAY also be predicted, including the NUMBER of possible universes, (10 to the 500th power ). The explanatory powers of string theory to unify the four fundamental forces, are unparalleled in physics.. In my opinion equating string theory to a RELIGIOUS belief is naive, or reflects a bias.. Definitely no personal offense intended friend.

@@robertseeley1808 He never said proof, just evidence, and that is incorrect.. There IS evidence.

Obviously we need MORE.

Yes I want it to have the same criteria of evidence for the biblical god😂

Why do you think that friend?

Bill Norris Because only consciousness exists.

That's what I'm asking you. Why do you think that? I'm curious.

Idealism gang assemble!

@@Dht1kna Here here ! A modern monistic idealism such as "Kastrup's alters" is exactly what currently seems to connect the most dots & by far, imo of course.

You're right yes, but if for example you went from a flat (infinite) geometry to a curved (finite) one like we have now, you could the produce the effect of a big bang. And that would also provide the energy for it. The big bang we know isn't necessarily the beginning either. If the proton turns out to be unstable on long timescales, that could affect the geometry of the universe, flatten it over a finite time. You're asking way outside what's been proven though.

Because the big bang doesn't mean an explosion from nothing. It's a transition from one state to another. So it may well have been infinite - the big bang does not preclude that. Also think of the big bang as an expansion, not an explosion.

@@zoeherriot My Dad yells "I heard a frikkin loud explosion in the back yard! Dammit Steve, are you shooting fireworks?"! Me: "It was not an explosion, but an expansion. No law against that."

The big bang model (expansion of space) and the big bang event (origin) are not one and the same. The former has been proven (microwave backround radiation, red-shift) the latter if taken to be (singularity) is false. The origin (beginning event) of the Universe is unknown, singularity prediction based on general relativity that does not take quantum mechanics into account. 10 to the minus 23 seconds "before" model event all of the known laws of physics and equations break down. You have to keep this distinctions in mind to find the answers to your "simple" questions. (Continued >)

Q. Can Universe grow to be infinite when it began finite, in a finite span of time? A. No. If the Universe is infinite today then it was always infinite. Expansion of "space" refers to relative distance between objects in observable Universe, not the size of the Universe in its totality. Big Bang expansion model was not a position in space, it was a moment in time. Notion that Universe grew from size of golf ball to what we see today refers to relative density of objects in observable Universe. Q. How can we posit Infinite Universe where objects exist beyond observable Universe? A.The speed of light is finite and the accelerating expansion of space means there is a finite distance light can travel in 14 billion years. We can not see anything beyond this point hence the term observable Universe

What are you talking about ,complete nonsense

Haha 👉

Was he the one flying the chopper?

Agreed. well said

Hmm. I think they were talking more about whether or not consciousness is a fundamental part of the fabric of reality. Could there be universes without consciousness? Why is it that our universe is set up so that consciousness arises? I don't think it's simple stuff, really. My own view is in line with Susskind, in that there is nothing particularly special or fundamental about consciousness; we just happen to exist in one of the huge number of universes whose physical characteristics give rise to the thing we think of as consciousness.

@Maitreya Huisintveld What's your expertise in understanding design, if you want me to believe your claim you're going to need the proper evidence to back it up. I'm willing to listen to whatever ideas you might have against design, but just saying it's BS doesn't really prove anything.

@@alistairmaleficent8776 Ya, I think it might be talking about something different.

@@SongWhisperer Ha.. wow. We're really doing this whole thing? Show me the evidence of the "designer"!

agreed

Eh ??

Worthless interview. Didn't even interrupt when Susskind wrongfully stated Darwinian evolution acts on oxygen and carbon. I was like WTF when I heared him say that but the interviewer seemed fine with it.

@@anonymous-rj6ok Not really what he said. The remark needs to be interpreted in the context of what he was saying immediately before that about DNA. The context is that Darwinian evolution is acting upon the molecules that make up DNA, which in turn are made up of: carbon, oxygen... and I might have thrown hydrogen in there, too, but Susskind's hand gesture at that moment implies a continuation of all of the other things that go into organic molecules. There are other elements in organic molecules, of course, but those are the big three.

BFG? Its the fi fi fo fum blood of englishmen that sustains his youthful looks XD

This fragment is from a Closer to Truth episode from 2008 when he was around 68 years old.

I think it ought to be: “the more we know, the less we understand.” I know more than I understand.

If you are knowing things with a sharp analytical mind then it is not very surprising that the beautiful flower of existence is cut into endless pieces.

Jewish people are nostalgic

No offense, but it's clearly YOUR idea that kicks the can further down the road.. WHERE did god come from? Nice try to oddly reverse who's doing the real can kicking friend.

@@billnorris1264 God is eternal and therefore doesn't come from anywhere or anywhen. Hard to grasp? Of course it is for the extremely limited human mind.

@@suncat9 To which of the 6,000 plus gods that exist in the human pantheon are you referring? Or are you saying the universe is cause/effect? I suppose if you create a god you can give it whatever magic powers you want it to have. If your answer as to why the universe exists is a magical alien, you have no business "informing" anyone of facts.

If the multiverse is real, so is infinity and consciousness and infinite consciousness which means you're eternal in that sense since you'll always exist in some physical Space time. Which ultimately means you're fundamental. Space time is only the approximation and substrate for which you're expressed.

@Psychiatrysts Its my habit friend to avoid negatively personalizing any debate.. I only criticize IDEAS, not people.. You have done the same.. In that regard, the notion that God is the only LOGICAL choice for explaining what we observe in nature is patently ILLOGICAL.. A discredited "God in the gaps" argument.. The trouble is, as the gaps of scientific understanding continually narrow, correspondingly so too does the space allotted for Gods to exist in..

reverse engineering life ls intellectual theft .. as then Gods monopoly is over.... Divine copy right law sucks!!!

@@thevulture5750 why “ him“ ... omnipotence is genderless

@@thevulture5750 I like using IT.

@@thevulture5750 it depends what you are referring to as Jesus. I have been informed that the historical figure of Jesus was an incarnation in 4th aspect consciousness of a cosmic master from the Venusian life cycle.

The same way as Universe has Holographic properties because it can contain Holograms!!!!!!!!

The other way up... We can make hologams, beacause the universe has holographic properties!!! How come we can produce holograms if the Universe can't?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!??

That means that the Universe itself is consciousness as consciousness contains and is contained by the universe, as consciousness contains itself. Right?

We are part of the universe We are aware of the universe The universe is self-aware

I am Conscious. All I know/see/fell/perceive is in my Consciousness. My Consciousness contains all that Universe.

global!

Does a tree fall in a forest if there's no one there to see/hear it? Does the wave function decohere without observation? Phenomena [universe(s)] exist independently of perception. The wave function collapse becomes an epistemological, rather than ontological, determinant. At least at the fundamental quantum microcosmic level.

@HenryDavidT I would surmise that the "atomic arrangement" of your brain is probably fine but the practical use of it is suspect.

@@ericg3810 blistering insult. Bravo. That's gold

See my comment above.

U poor thing

Yeah probabaly

and since absolute truth hasn't made itself known to anyone, science is the best we have.

@@timq6224 It is love, science will be afraid to admit this for a while, it is infinity, you can't get more true than infinity as it includes all possibilities and is self-contained as the absolute truth/infinity as it is. You can't only use science to find truth because you ARE the Truth. You being able to experience, sitting there, is truth. Collapse infinity and you get pure nothing, pure nothing because the universe never got created in the first place! This IS nothing. Quantum Mechanics seems to be catching up with the mystical world. Reality isn't logical, it is strange, it is magical, and that is painful even for a logical scientifically minded person like me to admit...

You can say this about anything - there are an infinite number of possibilities of keyboard strokes too.

He's walken here

Glad you realized it, now give me a well reasoned logical proof.

@@candletube8607 The bible and its prophecies. Give us proof what came first the egg or the 🐔😘

@@Chriswilcox28 That is not a reasoned logical proof, that's just you pointing at a book.

@@candletube8607 Ok sorry should have been more specific. Isaiah 53 was written 400-500 years before Christ walked the earth. It fortells exactly what happened to Jesus.

@@Chriswilcox28 You're still pointing at a book. Also, if a book is written about a guy who supposedly did magic 500 years later, it's way less of a stretch to assume that they lied about what he did because it matched well with their prophecies. You know, that's just a little bit less insane than implying that literal fucking magic is real

Only a multi verse does not get us away from this infinite regress problem, it only covers it up temporarily....and if it just so happens that they finally reach the conclusion that our universe must be infinite, then the second law of thermodynamics tells us the evolutionary process would no longer have the properties to still exist.

Nothing is easier. Go to get admission to MIT.

Whta

@@nikokapanen82 NO, it is alleged in some modern stacking together of old myths and legends that HE did:/ Different thing entirely to "facts":/

@@nikokapanen82 Hah, all your beliefs are "faith", not fact:/ What a joke you deluded fools are,lol. Mind you, if i had been one of the thousands burned as witches, or butchered in "crusades" maybe i would not think you and your ilk were so funny:/

@@nikokapanen82 You keep on waiting for your god to reveal himself, you be waiting a loooong time,lol.

@@TheZacdes you are implying that the wait will end???

@@sayamqazi NO, i said you be waiting a looong time, meaning forever,lol

Im intruiged by your statement actually. A part of me agrees it is a fascinating hypothesis

succinct. I take your point as self evident. All springs from that. The only real mystery is how people don´t get it for themselves.

Prove your god before implying it...

@@Leispada it's not a hypothesis it's a projection.

@@cartesiancircle As well as you might be - which renders your implied construct invalid... isn't this fun?

Terence McKenna always talked about how he had a hunch that the universe more or less runs on word creation, language....

@@babywhalecrypto1346 word creation in a higher dimension to define the one we are in.

And without the brain - no consciousness.

Regardless if we were here or not, regardless of consciousness or words, the universe would still be here:/ The universe does not need us to validate it,lol

@@TheZacdes I thought that until I saw this e8 crystal video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rZaqp896pr-4c4k.html

Creator forbid we say God is the connection ?

What is purpose to you?

@@greenlantern1123 purpose for what we know to be life ? there is only one purpose and that is to record God's Creation. We were obviously designed to witness for God and His Creation. Everything we are as human beings screams recording device and all that we can record is perceived by us as Universe. ' Read my book, on Amazon you can get the E-Book for only $1.99 THE TRUTH The Illumination of Conscience

Excellent question! ... and my answer would be: Not necessarily ... But here, we're already far beyond the scope of anything Suskind discusses ... or, I suspect, has ever considered....

Alan Guth, et al. , originally described inflation as a potential result of the Higgs field, as you know. Since then, dozens of potential theoretical mechanisms have been proposed.. Most physicists now believe that the core concept of inflation is valid. The current debate centers around the nuances of this generally accepted postulate. Choose your favorite. Although string theory is the leading candidate for a Theory of Everything, it doesn't seem to play well with inflation. (Which I'm certain you also know) The LATEST studies for reconciling this difference center around type llA versions of string theory.. Compactification has emerged as a potential candidate to accommodate inflation, but the future validity of string theory Still remains uncertain.. Much work is needed, and only time will tell.. I doubt this is satisfying to many, BUT, string theory is much too elegant to abandon at this point. Peace.

@@billnorris1264 My initial response was simplistic. I appreciate that there are myriad versions of string theory. Thanks for pointing that out. My main issue is that when highly intellectual people like Leonard Susskind are left to their own musings, unfettered by the rules of doing good philosophy, they get sloppy. But...I think that is Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s intention at least to some degree. Not that Leonard Suskind doesn’t have unconstrained ramblings on his own time and in his own head. But perhaps it is not any Closer to the Truth. Put Lenny in a room with the Verlinde twins with a whiteboard and a pile of equations and you get a real discussion of what has meaning in the universe to Leonard Susskind.

@@psmoyer63 Friend, that's fair enough. I don't think your initial comment was simplistic, SUBTLE might be a better word.. As a learned man of philosophy, you have my respect. From your concise word usage and your knowledge of physics, I suspect you are a polymath.. I ASSUME you would say that the nature of reality is beyond the purview of physics.. That's a very reasonable position, and possibly correct.. ignoring the Lenny angle, (Theres more there than meets the eye) I would kindly ask, are you CERTAIN that physics is an impotent line of reasoning in this task? Considering that among philosophers, there are many divergent schools of thought concerning the nature of reality, how can one have confidence that any choice is unassailable? I'm very curious, and I assure you, my motives are not to be contentious.. Peace friend.

@@billnorris1264 Bill, I truly appreciate your considered responses in this discussion. I’m saying that when Lenny, or any scientist, is free of the scientific constraints, i.e., isn’t required to faithfully examine the meaning of the questions that he or she is answering, the results can be somewhat “fanciful” -- what some would erroneously call philosophical. And I do believe the nature of reality is in fact the purview of physics. That an interview with Gerardus ‘t Hooft would certainly get all of us closer to the truth.

@@psmoyer63 You are a complex man.. I'm not necessarily a fan of Susskind, but I would ask what attributes of his you consider fanciful.. Could you expand a little?