Existential Physics

A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

De: Sabine Hossenfelder

Narrado por: Gina Daniels

A contrarian scientist wrestles with the big questions that modern physics raises, and what physics says about the human condition.

Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is ascientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely.

According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much can we know? The area of science that is closest to answering these questions is physics. Over the last century, physicists have learned a lot about which spiritual ideas are still compatible with the laws of nature. Not always, though, have they stayed on the scientific side of the debate.

In this lively, thought-provoking book, Hossenfelder takes on the biggest questions in physics: Does the past still exist? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? She lays out how far physicists are on the way to answering these questions, where the current limits are, and what questions might well remain unanswerable forever. Her book offers a no-nonsense yet entertaining take on some of the toughest riddles in existence, and will give the listener a solid grasp on what we know—and what we don’t know.

* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF with key visual figures included in the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Sabine Hossenfelder (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Part gonzo journalist, part curious child, part teacher, and part accomplished researcher, Sabine Hossenfelder is a unique writing talent and a unique science popularizer. One cannot help being provoked reading her prose, as she knows how to push your buttons. But she also abhors bullshit, which makes her take on the deepest human questions and what physics has to say about them worth looking at, and also ensures that it will be different than those other physics books of grand verbosity about frontier physics. You might agree with her. You might not. But you will come away from the experience enriched, and will think about the world differently than you did before.” (Lawrence Krauss, best-selling author of The Physics of Star Trek, A Universe from Nothing, and The Physics of Climate Change)

Is Dr. H Predictable?

There's a lot of pseudoscientific or a-scientific stuff out there. It behooves the informed individual to understand what science is, where its limits are, and what it can/can't tell us about deeply philosophical questions we tend to ask. Does free will exist? Are humans predictable? What can science say about the creation of the universe, how it will end, and what happened before? Sabine Hossenfelder is incisive in cutting through the more speculative stuff to something less decorated with bullcrap. I find this refreshing.

Welcome to the Pantheon, Dr Hossenfelder

Dr Hossenfelder has claimed her place alongside Sean Carroll and Carlo Rovelli as one of our generation's esteemed purveyors of physics philosophy. Her explanation of 'course graining' as a mathematical procedure is the best I've yet seen in popular physics writing, and she leverages this knowledge effectively in a later chapter as she argues against the simulation hypothesis (a la Nick Bostrom). Said arguments include 1) there are measurements at the quantum level which could not have been simulated by a classical computer, and just waving your hands and saying "but technology of the future can do that!" is sci-fi, not science nor philosophy, and 2) if reality includes consciousnesses which will themselves make simulations of consciousnesses, this would likely lead to a hardware situation in which some parts of the uber-simulation will use course-grain methods while others use higher-fidelity methods, but this is untenable, as reality is so non-linear that even slight computational differences at the course-fine boundary will lead to results that would not match from one part of the simulation to the next. Dr Hossenfelder's responses to philosophical inquiry such as this, backed by physics, are both novel and profound. Welcome to the pantheon, Dr Hossenfelder.

Fantastic book

A wonderful and open-minded view into serious science written for non-scientists. Highly recommend.

Nerds Are Sexy

I found it funny juxtaposing Sabine's, and Richard Feynman's ideas on lucid dreams. I'd have expected them to not be practically opposite! This is of particular interest to me but I won't inject my own commentary here.

I'm not gonna try to sum up the book, only say that if you like Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube videos, you'll almost certainly like her books.

I don't want to blow this out of proportion but a few words were mispronounced, and it was noticeable that's why it lost a star on performance from me.

What a wonderful way to bust every assumption I have regarding physics!

This title did not disappoint. As a long standing fan of Sabina and her content, this—like most of what she produces—did not disappoint.

I’ll admit many of the topics left me with a headache: Sabina does not hold back, so it took me some time to chew through it all, but for anyone looking for a truly honest approach to all of the topics many modern physicists claim as “fact,” this is a great place to start!

I wish the author had read the book

I love watching Sabine on YouTube. She has a subtle delivery and delightful humor that was written into the book but it wasn't captured by the narrator.
It was a fun read and got me thinking. I argued back with my own thoughts about things. Those are the best books, really.
I especially loved her answer to multiple universes.

Great as long as focused on physics

Great story, much in the spirit of the previous book. Many human issues, such as consciousness or free will, are being analysed from the scientific, or quantum mechanics, viewpoint, That part was truly great, especially when the author would convinvingly deal with those problems and clearly distinguish what human beliefs can be classified as consistent with science and which ones are a-scientific. That was the case until the book covers the problems of AI, the discussion of which was limited to the author's personal opinion and possibly faith. While anybody nowadays claims expertise to pass their biased opinion on the ethics of AI, the end of the book clearly viotated its own rules of engagement with scientific evaluation of facts.

Genuine and honest

The world would be s better place if more people could approach big, complex ideas with the humility, care, and rigor presented in this book. If you identify as religious, scientific, or (gasp) both, this is a must-read.

Separating the Science from the Nonsense

Sabine Hossenfelder’s Existential Physics is a highly informative big thought book on the important big ideas in physics and philosophy. Dr. Hossenfelder is at her usual best, highly intelligent, clear-headed logical and uncompromising in addressing the many attempts to pass off speculative metaphysics and quasi-religious ideologies as science.

Sabine is an expert at puncturing myths and pseudo-scientific nonsense that some attempt to pass off as science. No we do not live in a simulation and religious theories that postulate a god or creator based on fine tuning are not scientific. Dr. Hossenfelder does a great job dissecting specious arguments that the Multiverse idea is compelled by science. Multiverse theories are speculative metaphysics, not science. The simulation theory gets similar well deserved treatment as speculation, not science. And no, the universe is not just a mathematical structure. And it does not think either. So much for Panpsychism.

The author is very good at applying her rigorous Germanic logic to the big questions of science and philosophy. Her explanations are clear, insightful and phrased in a way that helps a lay reader understand them in a way they may not have before.

The one area that Hossenfelder gives a rather superficial short-hand answer to is the metaphysical question of Free Will. For Hossenfelder the answer is simple. “The future is fixed except for random quantum fluctuations that we do not control.” The Author views this sentence as dispositive of the question and repeats it numerous times. It isn’t dispositive. The fact that the laws of particle physics are deterministic (but not predictable because of randomness) or difficult to predict because of chaos theory, has nothing to do with the question of the freedom of biological organisms to do as they like. Physics is the study of the inanimate not the animate. Humans can generally act only in ways that they perceive to be in their own interest. In effect, they do what they want. That’s the essence of free will. The fact that the movements of particles under the Standard Model are largely deterministic doesn’t bear on the question of whether biological organisms can do what they like. The book’s approach to Free will is thus its weakest point.

But there is much to like here, and Hossenfelder gives great clarity to many difficult problems. Existential Physics is well worth reading and it is also very much worth watching the informative videos on her YouTube channel.

Good physics explanations, the right philosophical problems

Physics was at a great level for the interested amateur. Her philosophy misses the mark but in a respectful way and being a good explanation of reductive materialism. AI chapter seemed out of place and is already out of date, but everything else is a great contribution to the discussion.