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Sabine Hossenfelder, physicist: ‘If you trust the mathematics, we are immortal’
EL PAÍS US EDITION ^ | OCT 06, 2024 - 10:15 EDT | Raúl Limón

Posted on 10/13/2024 2:28:40 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Is there anything after death? What is the meaning of life? Are we just a bag of atoms? The scientist Sabine Hossenfelder, born in Frankfurt (Germany) 48 years ago, is convinced that if there is a branch of science capable of finding answers to humanity’s existential questions, it is physics. Specialized in theoretical physics and quantum gravity, Hossenfelder combines her research work with science communication (she is the creator of the YouTube channel Science without the gobbledygook). Her latest book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (published in English in 2022, and out in Spanish this year) is aimed at “those who have not forgotten to ask the big questions and are not afraid of the answers.”

Question. You ask all the relevant people in science that you interview if they are religious. You define yourself as pagan and agnostic, but you always create a bridge between science and religion, so I will follow your lead and ask: are you religious?

Answer. No. But I do believe that human consciousness – and complexity in general – is more closely intertwined with the universe in its entirety than we currently appreciate. That is, while I do not sign up to any recognized religion, I too have beliefs that are not based on evidence.

Q. You claim that a person’s information, if we trust mathematics, is still there after death, dispersed throughout the universe, forever. Are we immortal?

A. If you trust the mathematics, yes. But it is not an immortality in the sense that after death you will wake up sitting in hell or heaven, both of which – let’s be honest – are very earthly ideas. It is more that, since the information about you cannot be destroyed, it is in principle possible that a higher being someday, somehow re-assembles you and brings you back to life. And since you would have no memory of the time passing in between – which could be 10¹⁰⁰ billion years! – you would just find yourself in the very far future.

Q. In the same sense, you affirm that our existence transcends time: “We have always been and will always be children of the universe,” you write. Does it mean that life and after it there is a permanent link to the universal system as long as it exists?

A. Yes. Think of death as a drop of ink that falls into the ocean. You are the drop, the ocean is the universe. That what made up the drop (you) will spread in the ocean (universe) and become unrecognizable. But it never disappears.

Think of death as a drop of ink that falls into the ocean. You are the drop, the ocean is the universe. That what made up the drop (you) will spread in the ocean (universe) and become unrecognizable. But it never disappears.

Q. If all theories about the origin of the universe are “pure speculation,” should I rule out the idea of the Big Bang?

A. The Big Bang is currently the simplest of our theories about the beginning of the universe. That makes it the hardest to dismiss. But that doesn’t mean it is correct. Maybe the true story is more complicated than that. Our current observations can’t tell us. I would say that the Big Bang is, at the moment, scientifically the most pragmatic explanation, but I think it is scientifically justifiable that you believe in something else, like a cyclic universe.

Q. Do we die because of increasing entropy, disorder, or uncertainty in a system? Do we live because of anti-entropy?

A. You can ask about the causes of death on many levels of explanation. A doctor might give you an explanation on the level of organ failure. A neurobiologist might give you an explanation based on the cell processes that contribute to aging. As a physicist I would say that what ultimately kills us is our inability to keep up order, hence, it is entropy increase. Anti-entropy is not a term that we use in physics, but you could loosely speaking identify it with free energy. Free energy is what it takes to decrease entropy. Our body’s main source of free energy is food. We use it to move and to maintain the functions of our organs, as long as we can. But errors build up inevitably, and eventually our bodies have a malfunction that we cannot repair. It is possible that in the future we get vastly better at repairing our bodies and will live much longer. And yet, entropy increase would still get us eventually because it will ultimately make life impossible in the entire universe.

The Big Bang is currently the simplest of our theories about the beginning of the universe. That makes it the hardest to dismiss. But that doesn’t mean it’s correct

Q. You write that the future is fixed, except for occasional quantum events that we cannot influence. What quantum events?

A. By “quantum event” I here mean any event whose outcome is not pre-determined. This is the most distinct feature of quantum mechanics, that the outcomes of some events are impossible to predict. This might for example be UV radiation hitting a cell in your skin. Will it, or will it not, cause sufficient damage to create a cancerous mutation that will kill you five years down the line? We can only predict the probability of it happening, but we cannot predict with certainty what will happen.

Q. Your book begins with a student's question about his grandmother's theory that we survive in a quantum system. Since humans are basically composed of 10 chemical elements, can their particles transcend biological death?

A. The chemical elements will survive for a long time, and after that there are still the subatomic particles that they are made of. The answer to the question depends on what you make of the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. Is it possible that someone (or something?) measures the entire universe? If you think so, information inside of the universe can get lost for good. But I think it’s not possible – who would do the measuring? This is why I think information inside the universe is forever preserved – and so is your dead grandmother.


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: amateurphilosopher; buddhistsaint; curtjaimungel; erdneombadykow; ericweinstein; faithandphilosophy; fakescience; hossenfelder; kalmyk; kalmykrepublic; mahasiddhatilopa; pseudophilosophy; pseudoscience; raullimon; reductionism; reincarnation; rogerpenrose; russianbuddhism; sabine; sabinehossenfelder; stringtheory; stringtheoryisdead; telotulkurinpoche; the14thdalailama; thinkers; tibetanbuddhist; tulkuhood
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To: hinckley buzzard

I used to like watching her but she has become FAR too political and always from the wackadoodle leftist side of things. Im absolutely tired of her pushing the AGW hoax and just recently she released a video claiming hydroxychloroquine for covid “killed 10s of thousands” of children.


21 posted on 10/13/2024 3:50:09 PM PDT by gnarledmaw (Hivemind liberals worship leaders, sovereign conservatives select servants.)
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To: gnarledmaw

I dropped her for the same reasons.


22 posted on 10/13/2024 3:51:49 PM PDT by BipolarBob (I may have flunked high school but the pigeons have accepted me as their leader, so I have that.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Yes, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are still with us.


23 posted on 10/13/2024 3:58:45 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; hinckley buzzard; PGR88; null and void; plain talk; jacknhoo; BenLurkin; cgbg

Energy and mass are conserved.


24 posted on 10/13/2024 4:01:38 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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To: glorgau

“..Yes, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are still with us....”

In spirit as Biden, Odongo, and Waltz??? /s


25 posted on 10/13/2024 4:05:43 PM PDT by lgjhn23 ("On the 8th day, Satan created the progressive liberal to destroy all the good that God created..." )
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To: The Duke

The Entropy may be a Feature, not a Bug.
The apparent ‘disorder’ could be the universe’s way of expelling excess energy. i.e. flatulence, which is indispensable in keeping the bowels ‘regular’.


26 posted on 10/13/2024 4:16:53 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: kiryandil

And matter can be converted to energy and vice versa.


27 posted on 10/13/2024 4:24:51 PM PDT by null and void (Illegal aliens are put up in fine hotels, Americans in Appalacha are left to starve in the elements)
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To: Williams

Mush is right. The “big bang” makes no sense. If all matter was once concentrated in a single clustered location (wherever that was), whatever the size, why did it explode? What changed to make this mass unstable? It wasn’t more particles (there weren’t any), it wasn’t time (time didn’t exist), it wasn’t changes in space (space didn’t exist). So WHAT, or rather (WHO) happened?


28 posted on 10/13/2024 4:27:05 PM PDT by Sgt_Schultze (When your business model depends on slave labor, you're always going to need more slaves.)
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To: Stosh
I guess I’m unclear as to how information can have existence in and of itself

The argument is that if you have perfect knowledge of every single particle in the universe, you can use the laws of physics to rewind all the way back to the beginning of time and the entire history of the universe is entirely knowable.

However, some physicists say that this is not true and information does get destroyed in black holes.

29 posted on 10/13/2024 4:27:28 PM PDT by Right_Wing_Madman
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

bkmk sci


30 posted on 10/13/2024 4:29:32 PM PDT by conserv8 (Casual to casualty?)
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To: Sgt_Schultze
You have a common misconception. The Big Bang was not a concentration of matter in a tiny element of otherwise empty space. Space itself was also concentrated at a single point in the Big Bang. The universe was much smaller at the Big Bang, not just the distribution of matter within it.
31 posted on 10/13/2024 4:45:11 PM PDT by Chad_the_Impaler
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
But it is not an immortality in the sense that after death you will wake up sitting in hell or heaven, both of which – let’s be honest – are very earthly ideas

Supposing the Bible to be true, the reality of them is obviously not Earthly. On the other hand, if she has the childish idea of playing harps on clouds, then sure that is an Earthly idea, but its not Biblical.

32 posted on 10/13/2024 4:54:19 PM PDT by AndyTheBear (Certified smarter than average for my species)
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To: jacknhoo
Atheism is a religion.

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist.

33 posted on 10/13/2024 4:58:27 PM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux - The Ultimate Windows Service Pack )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“And since you would have no memory of the time passing in between – which could be 10¹⁰⁰ billion years! – you would just find yourself in the very far future.”

And someone will still be trying to contact you about your car’s extended warranty.


34 posted on 10/13/2024 5:00:52 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: PGR88

(Fame!)
I’m gonna live forever
I’m gonna learn how to fly
(High!)
I feel it coming together
People will see me and cry
(Fame!)
I’m gonna make it to heaven
Light up the sky like a flame
(Fame!)
I’m gonna live forever
Baby, remember my name


35 posted on 10/13/2024 5:05:20 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: hinckley buzzard

I love her channel also. She’s one of the most down to earth scientists who actually speaks out against man made climate change promoters.....


36 posted on 10/13/2024 5:11:03 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: Hot Tabasco

And she’s brutally honest about where physics is heading, i.e. not in the right direction.

She said modern theoretical physics has largely degenerated into arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It has essentially been driven into a ditch that neither side knows how to get out of. And most physicists aren’t admitting there’s a problem, but she is.


37 posted on 10/13/2024 5:27:16 PM PDT by DarrellZero
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Tulku-hood.(It is a reconstitution of former existence.)

CONVERSATION WITH A MONK


Telo Tulku Rinpoche was born Erdne Ombadykow in Philadelphia. His parents are from Kalmyk origin. At 7 years old, he was sent by his parents to live at a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery where he spent most of his childhood and was recognized by the 14th Dalai Lama as the current reincarnation of the Buddhist saint, mahasiddha Tilopa and was tasked with leading the the revival of Buddhism in Russia in the Kalmyk Republic. In this video, he shares the pressure of being such a revered religious figure at age 20 & how growing up far from the streets of Philadelphia helped him avoid the sad fates of his siblings. We also covered the Buddhist version of self-care, what it means to progress while preserving culture & the interconnectedness of the world.

38 posted on 10/13/2024 5:45:42 PM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!),<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>)
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To: BenLurkin

I wonder if Yogi could translate Kamala speak.


39 posted on 10/13/2024 5:48:10 PM PDT by waredbird
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To: null and void

Right.

It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s all still here.


40 posted on 10/13/2024 5:51:52 PM PDT by kiryandil (Kraft durch Freude! - The Kamunist and The Walzrus )
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