{"podcast":{"title":"Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas","slug":"sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522","podcast_index_feed_id":444522,"rss_url":"https://rss.libsyn.com/shows/604590/destinations/5264190.xml","website_url":"https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/b/0/6/d/b06d098337897af116c3140a3186d450/21d641ef836c48dff270cbede4360d187bdd6c56cb126be7d6f51078db34d4675527fa72e13c86bb573ec42c5d4fc493e18e7d95fec734ec77168fc379baefcf.jpeg","author":"Sean Carroll","episode_count":436,"summary":"Ever wanted to know how music affects your brain, what quantum mechanics really is, or how black holes work? Do you wonder why you get emotional each time you see a certain movie, or how on earth video games are designed? Then you've come to the right place. Each week, Sean Carroll will host conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the world. From neuroscientists and engineers to authors and television producers, Sean and his guests talk about the biggest ideas in science, philosophy, culture and much more.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-21T04:17:06.610110+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522"},"episode":{"title":"355 | Solo: Looking Quantum Mechanics in the Eyeball","slug":"355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball","published_at":"2026-05-24T13:56:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522","url":"https://1d1ac211-8392-45fe-82db-99fa7f77076e.libsyn.com/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.libsyn.com/secure/1d1ac211-8392-45fe-82db-99fa7f77076e/solo-austere.mp3?dest-id=5264190","summary":"One of the major obstacles to understanding quantum mechanics is the difficulty we have in simply accepting what the theory itself is telling us. The problem is that we know what the everyday world looks like -- stuff, arranged in space, evolving through time. So we can't resist the temptation to impose that picture on the quantum description, even if it's not actually there. In this solo episode I talk about what it means to take quantum mechanics at face value, and the difficult work involved in understanding how the everyday world of our experience fits into the picture. Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/05/25/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball/ Support Mindscape on Patreon . Here is the survey on physicists' opinions about unsettled big-picture questions: Afshordi, Halper, Rini, and Schirber, \" Big Mysteries Survey: Physicists' Views on Cosmology , Black Holes, Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Gravity .\" And here is a short technical overview on the ideas described in this episode: Carroll, \" Reality as a Vector in Hilbert Space. \" If you want further papers, look at the papers cited in this one.","meta_description":"One of the major obstacles to understanding quantum mechanics is the difficulty we have in simply accepting what the theory itself is telling us. The prob…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":6265,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522/episodes/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sean-carroll-s-mindscape-science-society-philosophy-culture-arts-and-ideas-444522/355-solo-looking-quantum-mechanics-in-the-eyeball.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}