Abhay Ashtekar on Gödel Universes, Buddha's Poison Arrow, Time Travel, and Loop Quantum Cosmology

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

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LINKS MENTIONED:

- Physics and Consciousness Contest: https://youtu.be/V93GQaDtv8w

- Dialect's video on Newton's Bucket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3mOlUOGoY

- Brian Roberts (physicist and philosopher): https://personal.lse.ac.uk/robert49/

- The Monk and the Philosopher: https://amzn.to/3Bva2mf

- More on the Gödel Universe: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/15/1/013063

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:00:00 Inner World (conscious experience) vs. Outer World (physics)

00:05:35 Buddha's Parable of the Poison Arrow

00:11:05 Philosophy and Physics should be merged

00:13:33 No one wants to say that the Buddha was wrong

00:19:30 Scientifically studying "enlightenment"

00:23:29 When to stop taking psychedelics ("when you get the call, hang up!")

00:25:17 What is Loop Quantum Gravity?

00:36:39 Wheeler DeWitt equation

00:44:48 Self Dual and Anti Self Dual

00:48:16 Hodge Dual and the Metric

00:52:06 Linearized Gravity

00:55:32 Quantum Gravity

01:03:22 Einstein vs. Schrödinger (the behind the scenes scuffle)

01:09:24 Technical details of quantizing geometry

01:13:41 What is Yang Mills theory?

01:20:52 Tetrads and Vierbeins

01:24:26 Roger Penrose's approach to quantum gravity (Twistor Theory)

01:26:44 Einstein's "Hole argument"

01:40:48 Mach's Principle

01:49:04 Singularities and Black Holes

02:12:18 Quantum Bounce (the "Ashtekar Bounce")

02:23:07 Pure and Mixed Quantum Mechanical States

02:26:38 Black Holes and Event Horizons

02:42:09 ADM Decomposition

02:43:55 The Gödel Universe, Time Travel, and Closed Timelike Curves

02:52:38 Salvatore Pais asks about the Superforce

02:56:13 The universe before the Big Bang

03:01:44 String Theory vs. Loop Quantum Gravity

03:17:31 Ed Witten disses Loop Quantum Gravity and Ashtekar responds

03:21:14 Duality between String theory and LQG?

03:25:20 The Philosopher and the Monk

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Just wrapped (April 2021) a documentary called Better Left Unsaid http://betterleftunsaidfilm.com on the topic of "when does the left go too far?" Visit that site if you'd like to watch it.