158 | David Wallace on the Arrow of Time

The arrow of time — all the ways in which the past differs from the future — is a fascinating subject because it connects everyday phenomena (memory, aging, cause and effect) to deep questions in physics and philosophy. At its heart is the fact that entropy increases over time, which in turn can be traced to special conditions in the early universe. David Wallace is one of the world's leading philosophers working on the foundations of physics, including space and time as well as quantum mechanics. We talk about how increasing entropy gives rise to the arrow of time, and what it is about the early universe that makes this happen. Then we cannot help but connecting this story to features of the Many-Worlds (Everett) interpretation of quantum mechanics.

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David Wallace received a D.Phil. in Physics and a D.Phil. in Philosophy from Oxford University. He is currently W.A. Mellon Professor of Philosophy of Science, with joint appointments in the Philosophy Department and the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According to the Everett Interpretation. Among his honors are the Lakatos Award for outstanding contribution to the philosophy of science. His most recent book is Philosophy of Physics: A Very Short Introduction.


Episoder(424)

352 | Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to the Body

352 | Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to the Body

The connectome is the wiring diagram of a brain, a big matrix that tells us what neurons talk to what other neurons. Understanding it is an important step to understanding how brains work, but a long ...

27 Apr 1h 14min

351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

351 | Peter Singer on Maximizing Good for All Sentient Creatures

Peter Singer has been an influential philosopher for a number of decades. He was a significant early voice in animal rights, has been a leading thinker of utilitarianism, and helped inspire the effect...

20 Apr 1h 15min

350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It

350 | J. Eric Oliver on the Self and How to Know It

We are more familiar with ourselves than with anything else in the universe, but we generally don't come very close to really understanding what our "self" is. That's not too surprising, as selves are...

13 Apr 1h 21min

AMA | April 2026

AMA | April 2026

Welcome to the April 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patre...

5 Apr 3h 46min

349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics

349 | Daniel Harlow on What Quantum Gravity Teaches Us About Quantum Mechanics

There is something special about gravity. After decades of effort, there is still no convergence on the right way to reconcile Einstein's theory of general relativity with the framework of quantum mec...

30 Mar 1h 25min

348 | Jessica Riskin on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Life as Creative Agency

348 | Jessica Riskin on Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Life as Creative Agency

"Lamarkism" is a term often attached to a seemingly discredited idea in evolutionary biology: that one organism could acquire characteristics (e.g., becoming stronger through exercise) that would then...

23 Mar 1h 15min

347 | Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on How Your Data Will Be Used Against You

347 | Andrew Guthrie Ferguson on How Your Data Will Be Used Against You

In the 18th century, philosopher Jeremy Bentham suggested the Panopticon as a model of a prison where inmates could be constantly observed by just a single prison guard. Although his original idea was...

16 Mar 1h 8min

346 | Erica Cartmill on How Human and Animal Minds Think and Play

346 | Erica Cartmill on How Human and Animal Minds Think and Play

Intelligence is a many splendored thing, especially when it comes to comparisons between species. Chimpanzees are better than humans at some numerical tasks, but less good at understanding what number...

9 Mar 1h 28min

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