Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Does the part of what is enforced in the Standard Model emerge from underlying informational processes? Are they the informational processes themselves as well? Rick Rosner: Numbers arise from underlying principles, and I assume that physical laws arise from underlying principles, too, where everything goes back to consistency and non-contradiction because you …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How does IC reconcile the view of the universe as an information-processing system with the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, particularly the role of information in quantum states and the measurement process? Rick Rosner: I can answer the first part of that. We’ve talked about it before—Einstein hated the idea that the …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1306: Exploring Quantum Mechanics and Informational Cosmology
Rick Rosner: All right, so maybe we should do Rotten Tomatoes here, and I’ll tell you a crazy fucking thing I’m doing. All right, so you’ve met the brown dog, our white dog, and Frida and our brown dog, Rosie. We inherited Rosie from Carol’s mom. Rosie is 14 and a half. She has a …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1305: Experimental Cancer Treatment for His Dog: A DIY Approach
Rick Rosner: Every night, Carole and I watch some quality TV downstairs. Tonight, it was The White Lotus, the latest episode, plus the opening monologue of SNL. After that, we do squats, I do sit-ups, maybe some curls, and then, after an hour downstairs, we move upstairs and watch another 30 to 40 minutes of …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you want to do any science stuff? Cellular automata is a discrete, rather than continuous, computational model dealing with grids of cells. In this case, these four-dimensional cells evolve based on rules. This is based on Stephen Wolfram's book A New Kind of Science. He argues that simple rules can generate …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How does informational cosmology account for time? Rick Rosner: There are various ways of framing time. We’ve talked about the set of all possible moments in all possible universes. Each moment implies a set of possible next moments, just as each moment implies a set of possible previous moments. We always experience …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1302: Informational Cosmology, Quantum Time, and Simulation Hypothesis
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Evolutionarily, why do we care more about dogs and cats than people sometimes? Rick Rosner: Because dogs and cats give unconditional love. Same reason people love Disneyland—Disneyland doesn’t judge you, doesn’t ask anything from you, except to pay for an overpriced ticket. In Disneyland, everyone smiles, and it feels like love. Dogs …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1301: Why Humans Love Pets More Than People
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The Democrats lost not only substantially, but significantly, in the last election. Let’s quantify it. Every state—all 50 states—the Democrats did worse than they did in 2020. So, how did left-wing social and political movements screw up the election? Rick Rosner: Jake Tapper, the journalist on CNN, coauthored a book that’s coming …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1300: Democratic Failures in 2024 and the Path to 2028 Victory
Rick Rosner: So, in the book, we’re going to have Skynet Day. The U.S. and Russia each have about 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads under New START limits, but their total stockpiles—including retired warheads—are much higher. Not all of them are battle-ready. Maybe a third are immediately functional, but most could likely be made ready quickly. …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1299: AI, Nuclear Deterrence, and the Future of Human Labor
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Did you want to contribute anything on antisemitism? Rick Rosner: We can start by discussing how antisemitism and crazy beliefs about Jews exist. You ran through dozens of conspiracy theories about Jews. Compared to their population size, the number of conspiracy theories about Jews likely places them at the forefront of any …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1298: The Centrality of Conspiracy Theory Psychology in Antisemitism
Rick Rosner 