Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas 215 | Barry Loewer on Physics, Counterfactuals, and the Macroworld
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Oct 24, 2022 
Barry Loewer, a distinguished philosopher at Rutgers University and co-founder of DeepMind, delves into the fascinating interplay between physics and philosophy. He explores the historical challenges of linking thermodynamics to microscopic behavior and discusses his theory of the Mentaculus, mapping probabilities across time. Loewer unpacks counterfactuals and causation, addressing their philosophical implications, while questioning the nature of physical laws and the relationship between entropy and time. Their conversation ultimately bridges profound scientific concepts with deep philosophical inquiries.
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The Philosopher
- Barry Loewer recounts a philosophy party where David Lewis was called "the philosopher."
- This highlights Lewis's significant influence in contemporary philosophy.
Defining Laws
- Physicists determine the specific laws, while philosophers explore the nature of laws themselves.
- Philosophers try to define laws in a way that doesn't rely on theological concepts.
Laws as God's Volitions
- Descartes, in "Le Monde," proposed searching for mathematical laws in physics.
- He, like Newton, initially viewed laws as God's volitions, a concept now largely abandoned.
