Things I Do (Or At Least Think About)

Much of what I do fits comfortably under the categories of research, podcasting, or writing books. Here are some other things I dabble in when I have the time.

Philosophy and Literature

I have a longstanding interest in philosophy, dating from my undergrad days when I got a philosophy minor. My research interests in physics overlap strongly with issues in philosophy of science, especially foundations of statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and cosmology. In statistical mechanics, I'm interested in both the origin of the arrow of time and how increasing entropy accounts for human-scale temporal asymmetries in memory and causation. In quantum mechanics, I'm an Everettian, and have worked on the origin and nature of probability and structure in that framework. In cosmology, my current philosophical interest centers around dealing with probability in large universes: self-locating uncertainty, anthropic conditioning, and general issues of Bayesian epistemology.

I'm also interested in metaphysics and ontology (especially issues of causation and emergence), not to mention ethics and moral philosophy. I've written philosophical papers on Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?, Falsifiability, Cosmological Fine-Tuning, The Reality of Time, The QFT Underlying the Everyday World, the Origin of Complexity, and the Boltzmann Brain Problem.

I did an interview about science and philosophy at 3:AM magazine. And here are some informal thoughts on various topics: physics and ethicscontingencyought vs. isfree willZizekdeterminismmoral realism, and downward causation. Last but not least, why physicists should stop saying silly things about philosophy.

I'm also very interested in fiction and literature, and have occasionally used my credentials as a scientist to worm my way into meetings on those topics. Here's a short paper I wrote on science as a source of metaphors. I've given a few talks at theater companies to accompany plays with scientific themes.

Teaching
Naturalism, Science, Religion
Media and Outreach
Science and Entertainment
Organizing
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