Q&A - What We Cannot Know - with Marcus du Sautoy
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- Is there a distinction between something that doesn't exist and something we don't know? Is there a limit to what science can tell use? Marcus du Sautoy answers questions from the audience after his talk.
Watch the talk here: • What We Cannot Know - ...
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Is it possible that we will one day know everything? Or are there fields of research that will always lie beyond the bounds of human comprehension? Former Christmas Lecturer Marcus du Sautoy will lead us on a thought-provoking expedition to the furthest reaches of modern science.
Marcus du Sautoy is a mathematician and popular science writer and speaker. He delivered the 2006 CHRISTMAS LECTURES on mathematics, titled THE NUM8ER MY5TERIES. He is currently the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the Oxford University.
This talk and Q&A was filmed at the Ri on 13 October 2016.
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This talk, is like the Rohirrim's King speach before the great battle!
"We must think there is nothing we can' t know"... is like when he scream "Death! Death!".
Scientist must scream "Frustation! Frustation!" because is the way to the victory, to the knowledge.
Thanks for your talking. So epic...
Marcus du Sautoy, what a fantastic scientific presenter!!
Specifically a presenter of science to laypeople.
@Ron Maimon A person is brave not to don't fear, is it because he or she can face the fear.
A scientist face the nonsense, fighting with the meaningless just having a positive probabilistic hope of exit.
That makes science just for badass people.
A delightful presentation. I wish I had his energy and enthusiasm.
I think this guy is an excellent speaker and what is great about him is that he doesn't give final or definite answers which is generally a good start to answering questions
Big fan of Marcus du Sautoy and his style. Thanks for uploading!
He is always incredible in his viewpoints and examples as to astound me!
What a talk! Thank you Sir !
Professor Quirrell was very cheerful indeed until he got possessed by Voldemort
@6:37 This is the question I waited to hear him address. He kind of side skirted the question and talked about senses...but the questioner mentioned his dog, which has the same 5 senses we do...but it will never comprehend quantum mechanics. Either way this is a great talk. Thanks for uploading them !
Perhaps we could think of extra, mental senses? Sense of scale, sense of proportion, sense of maths, sense of concepts, etc. Or maybe they could be "meta" senses? Senses that combine the input from other senses in novel ways.
Superb presentation. Will have to buy your book.
At 6:13 he talks about Descartes' famous axiom, "I think, therefore I am" ... I've never fully believed in the importance of that notion because, to me, it seems to boil down to nothing more than something like this: "I think I am" ...
We might all be figments of the imagination of some "higher" being ... until he or she wakes up and remarks to himself, wow, that was a weird dream.
The beauty of Descarte's axiom is that it applies whether we're physically here, virtually here, brains in a vat, in a simulation, part of higher consciousness, etc. If we think, we are (for all intents and purposes).
@@PongoXBongo you said "virtually here" ... as if the "thinker" possessed Artificial Intelligence. I'd say "no" to that, because Alan Turing's criteria for intelligence can eventually deduce who *is* a human and who *ain't* by asking enough of the right questions, unless, unless a human is bent on deception, which ain't part of the game.
Have you ever had a vivid dream? Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.
@@neilanderson891/videos/videos The point of something like the Turing Test is to show that intelligence is intelligence regardless of the source. If it thinks like a duck then it is a duck. Humans, or biological beings, are not the only ones capable of intelligence (at least in theory).
As for the lucid dream, it's still just your brain running a simulation. If you notice, no information is expressed that you don't already know. The only person actually present is you.
@@PongoXBongo I'll speak about my 2nd point first, to which, you proceeded to denigrate my "vivid dream" as merely a "lucid dream" and then bastardize it further as "just a simulation". Sir, please allow me to use my chosen words to describe what I talk about. Lucid is not the same thing as vivid. And then you declare (that in all dreams) *no information is expressed that you don't already know* Excuse me, dear Sir, but you are ill-informed.
Throughout history, many people have claimed to have received insight from their dreams, i.e., things they did not already know. Yes, yes, you would quickly retort that "such things were known in the subconscious" ... to which I would point-out that you don't "know" what "facts" are locked-up in your subconscious, until such facts are "in" your conscious ... that's what "knowing" is defined to be.
That's why I offered to describe one of my vivid dreams, if you would give me one of yours ... but you declined, probably because you do not remember any such dream.
I spoke specifically about the Turing Test ... your response spoke vaguely about *something like a Turing Test*, which clearly fails to address my point about Mr. Turing's Test at all, which should lead all readers to conclude that you yourself have spectacularly failed a make-shift Turing Test, thus we all can quickly conclude that you've shown no intelligence ... not "native", nor "programmed" ... in other words, if you would like to entice a human (such as myself) to respond to a human (such as yourself), you would be advised to respond with the appropriate fore-thought. In coarse terms, you're boring me. Please don't expect another reply.
I think; therefore I think that I am
This is awesome
Brilliant! Thanks.
No problem
More familiarization with Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" might be helpful in discussions such as this. Kant had demoted Reason to a faculty of the brain/mind, fairly well describing what Reasoning does, it's grounds and limitations, and what it can't do. One major point he made was that Reasoning is fated to be bounded within 3D+TIme (1D and 2D are covered under 3D). The surety that a Reasoned explanation gives to us is a kind of feeling that only arises if the explanation makes sense in 3D+Time. Another major point was that Reasoning can only operate on attributes....meaning something that is different from something else, so for instance, two totally identical objects, identical even in space and time, would be the same and non distinct. He also cited math axioms as being "apriori", suggesting they might be absolute and non-subjective in some way, but they also might be limitations of Reasoning, requirind that Reasoned explanations not violate the axioms, which themselves might be biological oddities embedded in the brain/mind, which play a role in defining and limiting Reason.
As a major conclusion, Kant said that all Reasoned explanations will have the same form regardless of the empirical data fit to those forms as none other is possible, and so the laws of physics are not "out there",. but in the brain/mind. Some of what is in the brain/mind may, by coincidence, get it right about what is out there....but unfortunately, we don't have a way to check on Reason to see how right or limited it really is. Kant claimed Reasoning will, by it's very nature, always seek to provide a deterministic explanation of everything, then consider itself correct, though it can do no other. Friedrich Nietszche took that a step further, citing vanity and as prior to and thus part of Reasoning. He also considered Reasoning to be a human substitute for lack of the fangs and claws (etc) of beasts.
It would be an amazing coincidence indeed if Reasoning turned out to be able to explain and understand everything that humans wonder about. Since that seems like a long shot, the conclusion of Nietzsche (not Kant) was that humans are still wild beasts as wild as the chaos, not order, of the universe and the wildness of it all can't be comprehended by the human because within Reasoning there is no tool to comprehend total chaos and wildness, which resist explanation by their very nature.
I cannot understand this aversion to the probabilistic nature of the laws of physics. Great talk by the great and fun guy
What this guy doesn't say about the uncertainty principle is that position and momentum are locked in a joint product 'h' aka plancks constant.
Have ordered the book....
Im proud to say that i am the like #420 which happened right after i heard "Maybe mathematics is the god which gave raise to everything here and that we are just a piece physicalized mathematics"
Everyone and everything (to the level of fundamental particles and whatever comes in the fundamental hierarchy to the very Nature and nature of Nature) is conscious in their own way.
Came to the Q&A for the end of the joke. Was not disappointed.
Is everyone the same as "me"..I'm two people ..the outer show where I'm sat silently poker faced & the inner where I'm having a running conversation with my self....
To 'Define' comes from the French 'De Fine': to end. We end further inquiry into the subject at hand by stating a definition, like a barrier let down on a dark forest path. We choose not to investigate further as the depth of each path is unending and we need a limited concept in order to be able to converse. The word 'Table' describes a couple of billion phisical objects in this world, none of which is equal to another of the sort (let alone the digital Tables). This is true for all words. They are rough approximations of a (rather ill-defined) concept we have in mind. Hence I feel we know nothing in absolute detail and our whole world view is perhaps best described with the probability-matrices used in Quantum Mechanics, the 'I' itself included. We can only know for certain by cutting corners. The only reason math seems to be excluded from this and has this inherent logic, may well be because it springs solely from our minds and has no basis in the world outside (no matter how well it seems to fit the outside; We the mathmaticians are also the fitters). Apparently (I am not an educated mathmatician) there exists a whole realm of non-euclidian maths which is completely self-consistent yet fits less well to the world in most circumstances. However, in some circumstances this math works better than euclidian maths. It is, so I find, the human mind.., or better: the 'I', that is addicted to the definement of the outside in order to protect its Self from danger. "I think ...", "I find ..."; these support the Self in its search for validation. I am doing it right here and I love the tingly eureka feeling I generate with it. To paraphrase both Decartes and Jesus: The only truth is "I"; and hence the only religion is Solipsism. I am God and so are You.
Interesting thoughts you share, they converge on my own thinking. A thinking I have started take more serious in recent years; don't be so cocky about what you believe yourself. I really like the statement _"We can only know for certain by cutting corners"._ Good, one, I take that to my heart.
According to wiktionary, the etymology of 'define' stems from Middle English 'definen'. Which in turn are from Old French 'definer/definir' from Latin 'definire/definio' meaning “I bound, limit, settle, define”, which steams from dē + fīniō, “set a limit, bound, end”. Not that this take away anything you wrote, but rather enhance it.
I thought some Corvids (ravens crows and magpies) as well as some cetaceans (I think just dolphins) also passed the mirror test?
And ants. Which more likely indicates that self-recognition and self-awareness are separate concepts.
I remember words of my grandma that "do not think about GOD too much, you will end up asking stupid questions" so maybe we really cannot fathom even the idea of what a GOD is but it is when all understanding seems to failed, belief came into play to give us a hand.
Was that James Burke in the audience asking a question?
The idea that the physical constants of nature are essentially random, and that we are just one of the tiny number of "lucky" universes that can support matter and life (anthropomorphic principle) is a huge untestable (nonscientific) assumption. That's fine for philosophers, but scientists should refrain from this kind of speculation.
They are essentially random until we discover otherwise. "We don't know" should be the default. Something doesn't exist until we discover it.
Dude its like...everything is...I mean it's waves bro
Where are the boundaries/dividing lines of the very small/very large? Where do these laws break down?
I believe it's at the atomic x subatomic levels. The world we see and interact with (knowingly) is that of the atomic scale upward. The mysterious world that requires complex, expensive machinery to interact directly with is that of the subatomic.
The electron shell of an atom, for example, works on the uncertainty principle in that we can only know either an electron's position or momentum, but never both. If you break an atom down further, into quarks and the like, then the uncertainty principle takes over completely. I'd say the make a pretty good line.
Professor Michio Kaku has stated quite plainly on multiple occasions that there are quite a few things that are unknowable by humans at our current state. Amongst one of these is the question whether God exists. It is unknowable, indeterminable because it is unfalsifiable. Reading the comments, I see that quite a number of people claimed that science, math, logic, reason all points to the scenario where God doesn't exist, and anyone who claim otherwise is unscientific, and without reason or logic.
One had even challenged his opponent to give scientific evidence that lucid dreaming or OBE's are real phenomena and that they exist. He closed his argument by implying that the inability to give such scientific evidence is equivalent to concluding that it does not exist, and whatever memories they refer to as OBE's or lucid dreaming are merely hallucinatory in nature.
To those of you who are aligned with this camp, it is infalsifiable to argue that OBE's doesn't exist. Those whom you challenge to provide scientific evidence that prove the existence of OBE's could not provide you any more than you can provide similar evidence to disproving its existence. The same goes for the God question.
Why do some people believe there will be a theory of everything? What if there will not be?
Because you wont get funded saying you have a research program researching nothing - unless your name is Lawrence Krauss.
Because everything interacts, therefor a single theory should be able to describe it.
Doesn't necessarily mean that theory is the best tool for every job.
because if the physical universe really did start at the Big Bang or a singularity or some other point source then everything follows from that and therefore should be reducible to a unified theory. The more we discover about the physical universe the more it strengthens that conjecture.
Adaptive neural networks are going to push us a long way towards understanding consciousness, but to get to self-awareness and AGI, we are going to have to figure out how pain is created in the mind imo, because pain i think likely helps towards becoming self-aware, its like were automatons then we hurt say our hand and that pain makes use inspect our hand and then every time we try to use that hand the pain sensation comes back and that triggers a realization, when i do this, i get this sensation, if this then that, oh that is my hand, wait a minute what am i? i could be talking nonsense but that is what i think so far. Similar to what Sautoy says in the animal behavior experiment with putting a marking on the animal and see if it recognizes itself as having that mark on themselves in the mirror.
So far i think consciousness is a combination of things, so perceptual data processed by the brain, the chatter between different parts of the brain, built up predictive circuits in the brain from observing the world and so then overlayed on our perception are these predictions/modeling/expectations of the world and then the most mysterious part, is how that then interacts with the brain stem to consciously operate the body, perhaps reversing the signals coming from our nerve impulses, because i saw a woman who damaged the connections between her brain and the brain stem by consuming vast amounts of salt in soy sauce, she was still conscious but no longer able to move her body consciously.
Clearly the body can operate without consciousness, look at insects for example or robots, there is this wasp that injects its eggs into spiders/cockroaches etc as well as paralyzing the spider, when it goes to bury the spider in a hole to incubate its young, it digs a hole, but meanwhile the scientist moves the spider from where the wasp left it, the wasp comes back, notices the spiders position has changed, so then it drags the spider near the hole again, then goes back to inspect the hole, to see if its clear, meanwhile again the scientist moves the spider, the wasp comes back and repeats the pattern, so this leads me to believe wasps have inbuilt simple rule sets to follow, like ants and probably all lower life forms.
See this kurzgesagt video on emergence czcams.com/video/16W7c0mb-rE/video.html , their bodies appear to operate with no conscious thoughts. I kind of feel even myself acted like an automaton until about the age of 16-20, driven entirely by subconscious motivations such as, the bacteria colonies in our guts send signals to the brain telling us to seek out food and what specific foods to eat(because each specific bacteria colony feeds on certain molecules), also before puberty had no interest in sex or understanding of what it really was, then once the sexual organs develop and produce hormones suddenly we become interested in sex and seeking it out, one of our biggest subconscious motivators, but then as i say somewhere between 16-20 years old i started getting existential crisis pondering what am i, i am alive, what is this reality etc i would say the subconscious is autonomous but somehow consciousness is able to turn on/activate specific autonomous circuits, like motor functions, movement. Would be nice if someone could add to what i have said or poke holes in my ideas, would be appreciated.
Anyways a fascinating Q&A, thanks for the video.
What exactly matters throughout all of future eternity and to whom does it exactly eternally matter to?
"God" alone? and/or "Me" too? and/or "Some other entity or entities"?
OR
"To no eternally consciously existent entity at all"?
Mattering is relative to personal perseption. No persons, no mattering. None of this "ultimate" nonsense.
Dear Royal Institution,I wish you would tell us the dates when these lectures occurred. Just write the dates in the title. Please
We do try to put the times in the description, but we sometimes forget. We're sorry. We'll try to do better. We've now added the date for this talk and Q&A - 13 October 2016.
That backdrop always reminds me of Q*Bert.
I am a little surprised that Marcus du Sautoy did not mention Kant.
Could our entire universe just be one pixel of a multiverse television display?
Maybe instead of the 3 primary colors of a pixel here on earth, the light from a pixel on that display is produced from the overall light emission of our universe at various points from the start of the big bang. If time was from the perspective of another not in our universe. I would imagine that each other pixel would be another universe at a different point from it's own unique big bang..
Could some more intelligent life form have created that multi universe TV, without even knowing that they had created us in the process?
WHAT WAS THE THIRD PART TO THE HEISENBERG JOKE?!
Edit: Owp 22:26
Edit: NOOOOOO! 22:29
Edit: YESSSSSS! 22:36
Right on kid! 22:40
Edit: It was as corny as I expected.
"I think, therefore I am". "BUT, is it 'I' who even actually exists to be able to think"?
(Utilizing modern science):
Modern science claims that from an expanding singularity everything in existence came into existence in this universe, including the forces of nature that it operates by, and including you and me with our supposed consciousness, memories and thoughts.
BUT, does everything in existence actually exist per se, OR does only the singularity exist in the form of all things, including you and me with our supposed consciousness, memories and thoughts? I exist and yet I don't exist depending upon perspective. Do "I" exist in a state of superposition of existing and not existing? Or, how could I ever cease to exist if I never existed at all in the first place? And if this singularity, that has a consciousness as evidenced by the consciousness "I" am experiencing, wants to eternally exist throughout all of future eternity in the form of me, who am I to stop it from doing so if "I" don't even exist at all in the first place? Or, does the superpositioned "existence" state of me annihilate the superpositioned "non-existence" state of me, or visa versa?
Or so "I" currently think, if it is even "I" who is doing the thinking. Do "I" even exist?
If you think you exist, then you do exist. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to ask the question.
@@PongoXBongo You missed the point in it's entirety.
Delightful talk - the kind which can prevent the covid spread in the mind.
Interesting to see religious people ask the same questions that have been asked of dawkins a million or so times. Are they trying him out?
Shangori or maybe Dawkins’ answers can’t be assumed to be definitive ;)
It would be nice to get a more intelligent answer than Dawkins's answers. Not difficult but nice.
"It is a significant fact that there is not another page on the internet that considers what the most simple science theory of reality is - which is strange given Occam's Razor (principle of simplicity) is fundamental to science. Thus it is naive to claim science does not work (the logical positivist / social construct view of postmodern science) without having considered this most simple solution. i.e. What we do know is that science founded on discrete and separate 'particles' does not work!" - Geoff Haselhurst
"History abundantly shows that people's views of the universe are bound up with their views of themselves and of their society. The debate in cosmology has implications far beyond the realm of science, for it is a question of how truth is known. How these questions are answered will shape not only the history of science, but the history of humanity." (Eric Lerner, 1992)
spaceandmotion
Alpha0 can perform a task that we have no idea of how. But is it conscious?
Also what about Alzheimer's patients who lose consciousness.
Does anyone know of any good books or videos about the capacity of what humans can know? Basically if you compare us to ants, you could never teach an ant calculus. It’s brain has no mechanism to understand it. I wonder what is out there that our brains cannot even fathom. It’s hArd to imagine that we can understand anything we wanted. I also wonder do chimps feel like we do, basically that we can solve any problem if we have enough time and enough effort is applied to solving it. The things a chimp cannot understand it probably doesn’t even wonder about like how computer processors work or quantum physics etc. Does anyone know of any other videos on this topic? Thanks.
We will now everything on April 4th 2445 when consciousness will collapse down to a singularity and know nothing.
I thought the thumbnail was for some Harry Potter thing.
He's obviously Professor Quirrell before getting possessed by Voldemort
Mathematicians tell about things we cannot know. Unfortunately, these things turn out to be stuff you could care less to know.
Please, don't destroy a good joke which has an ounce of truth in it. :)
The phrase is "could not care less". Otherwise, your not saying what you are trying to imply. If you cannot care less, is to imply that you don't care are all, because It is not possible to care less than you currently do.
@@dankuchar6821 Exactly! People who say "I could care less" are not paying attention to what their words _actually_ mean 🙄
God is good, God is fair. To some He gave brains, yet others He gave hair.
I am not at all surprised that scientists approached by a person who has memories of "heaven" do not want to tackle the issue. To tell someone to their face that they have had a vivid hallucination which is inherently meaningless when that person views it as very significant is a very unkind thing to do. And in the end, you know that person has already considered the possibility themselves and discarded it for naked emotional "reasons" and nothing else. They have abandoned reason, and no amount of reason can convince such a person to trust reason over their gut instinct.
It's a Catch-22 situation. If you reject reason, not even a mountain of reasons why it would be better if you accepted it can possibly work. You have replaced reason with the 'default mode' of human understanding where you rely upon emotional trained (mostly unconsciously and unintentionally trained but trained nonetheless) responses and made the only means of convincing you to be emotional manipulation. To anyone who values reason as a means of understanding the world, to emotionally manipulate someone into a believe is a disgusting, abusive, repugnant thing to do to someone. Even if you COULD find someone who in a weak moment uses some tactic of emotional manipulation to convince you to accept reason - you would immediately realize that they were being a flaming hypocrite and reject reason once again!
Scientists look for the real explanation, if you didn't want to know how the magic trick works then don't ask someone who knows.
A scientist wouldn’t assume it’s a hallucination ;)
0:32 *brought to you by Mitsubishi Motors*
I AM PROFESSOR SNAPE. . . AND I HAVE DUMBLEDOORS WAND, I AM NOT JOKING. IT HAS ITS VERY OWN BOX AND EVERYTHING, THE ELDER WAND.
Why should there be "laws of Nature" ??
There are no inherent laws in nature. They are simply a way for science to describe nature as we understand it. Hypothesis > Theory > Law
Does anyone know how the mind comes out of the brain?
I don't believe that consciousness can be reproduced by an equation. This is quite different to representing some aspect of consciousness with an equation. While we can use math to represent the real world, we would never make the mistake of claiming that math IS the real world. However mathematicians like Marcus seem to suggest otherwise when they make statements about reducing consciousness to an equation. I wonder if he is aware of this distinction.
That was not the claim made. The claim made is that they have found a crude measure of the level of awareness. This is important research because it implies, for the first time, it might be possible to tell if people in coma are aware or not. Think about this in terms how we quantify, i.e put numbers to, how happy or satisfied people are. Does that reduce happiness to a number? No, but it is a tool to guide us in making our lives better.
He does say that different people are aware in different ways, he gives the example of his wife. Would that make such a measurement unreliable ? ... It's early days, and the research is fascinating and very much needed.
Consciousness is a physical phenomenon like any other. It is not inherently special or non-understandable.
@@PongoXBongo Are you suggesting that all physical phenomenon are understandable ?
And if so, then what would this mechanism of understanding be? Because to comprehend something, you have to be outside it... (See Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorem)
@@JenniferLions/videos No, merely that they are potentially understandable until proven otherwise (don't know if you don't try).
Measurement equipment is outside it, other people are outside it. The only one/thing that isn't outside it is you. Literally everything else is outside and can be utilized to study and understand it. And that external data carries a lot more weight than your anecdotal self-explanation.
There's no mystery about the effectiveness of mathematics.
Actually it's quite simple: you can design mathematical models in a way they fit to your object. It's an invention game.
Then you can get surprised how well mathematics fit to your object and say your object is mathematical in some essential way, and get all platonic. But that's an a-posteriory reaction to what you had to do first.
And when the model doesn't fit something about the object... then blame the model as incomplete.
The problem with platonism is you have to assume there's a model that reflects all properties of the whole system, which contradicts a few things.
Idealism is circular reasoning.
why a theory of everything? who knows what everything is in the first place. i should very much like to know because i have made a bet.
Because everything from energy to mass in any form interacts, thus should be possible for a theory that can comprehensively explain how.
Theory of everything is a name they give to the attempt to unify the biggest gap in contemporary natural science: the division between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.
But maybe I missed the joke...
Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science calling chimps monkeys? Not exactly overfilling Dawkins' shoes, are we?
Wait hang on what was that guy talking about the person being brain dead for two weeks?! I thought doctors usually call it after 8 minutes because of brain damage? So 1: how were they able to "bring him back" after two whole weeks? And 2: how was anything in this man able to function if irreversible brain damage happens after 8 minutes?
Well there are always some "miracle" moments, which are actually lapses in our knowledge and we proclaim people dead when there is still a very small sliver of chance they make it.
Maybe they confused "brain dead" with "comatose"?
I came here only for the joke, where is it? :D
22:25
There is still the problem of abstract mathematics being able to cause something physical to happen.. Abstract mathematics has no causal power..
"Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? " -- Stephen Hawking
I was going to comment on the biggest error, in my view, but maybe his audience reads his clothing choices the opposite way I do.
I realize that policemen should be scared of stopping physicists' cars...
The Q&A was a bit hard to listen to because of all the nasty clicks & pops.
Any question that is nonsensical is unanswerable. Done.
I much prefer Richard Dawkins to this guy. Dawkins spoke in clear sentences and perfect scientific method.
dauphins are self aware .
*dolphins
It's strictly uncorrect to test monkeys with mirror or other things from our level of consciousness, which itself is a matter of natural selection. We did it (somehow), they not.
To really test monkeys consciousness... we have to be monkeys !!!
...
Ri, more mathematicians, please, with their local, less or more, abstract problems, they so cool. "Everything" leave to Art and Philosophy.
Don;t really agree with your second remark except inasmuch as mathematics is the language of the simple.
It is only of very limited value in describing more complex and more abstract phenomena,
It cannot, for example handle the notion of a flower. For that, the natural languages are more useful.
See my "The Intricacy Generator: Pushing Chemistry and Geometry Uphill", which includes discussion of all the issues (and more) covered by du Sautoy.
Mirrors is a test to see what primates finds interesting.
You forgot the dolphins amusement too!
dr jung archetype of the crystal visible invisible geometrtic universe ottffssent~! consciousness frequency time travel interesting natural science like that hexagon on Saturn or pentagon hexagon trines of chemistry ok sextiles [*8] number theory 0~9. chicken hen endocrinology the orphic egg~! yeap fine tuned crystal as archetype dr jung. mineral watt's the rub with rubidium professor three times known age of universe wow energizer bunny~! rock of ages def leopard he he he he~!
1:12 Not a good example. When I have lucid dreams, I often feel more aware than whilst waking life. Consciousness obviously exist when we sleep. What he said only makes sense if consciousness left the brain during sleep.
27:35 The questioner is making false equivocation logical fallacy in conflating consciousness and perception
The talk prior to this was interesting, kinda dissapointed he didn't touch upon the subject of solipsism and epistemology but It's true what he said no scientist can know everything
Absolutely!
Cobbers. It is simply in your own head, and is actually a classic argument from ignorance/incredulity.
Do you have the slightest idea what you are talking about when you use the terms "higher dimensions"? What does it mean? What reason do you have for supposing this. BTW, faith simply doesn't cut it.
Do you have anything remotely evidentiary and scientific to suppose an out of body experience is anything more than an internal delusion/illusion? I have yet to see anything even remotely credible or persuasive whatsoever. It appears to very largely be simply anecdotal testimony and stories. And of course anyone with the slightest interest in reality knows that that is insufficient.
Hanniffy Dinn Why would you even bother with backing your statements up with credible sources, when your whole argument is based on an ad hominem? Besides that, you're missing the point: you might be able to understand the concept of higher dimensions (which I doubt, nobody really does), but you say nothing about how that relates to our mind residing in there.
And on the concept of lucid dreaming, the definition of it is something in the sense of 'dreaming while conscious', right? So the argument the speaker makes on researching the brain while sleeping, in a state of low consciousness, is perfectly fine. Lucid dreaming is the exception, not the rule.
Anyways, I agree with you guys that the mind is something way more complex than what can be caught by natural sciences, but the way you put it is dogmatic rather than constructive.
Patrik Banek So what makes us remember most of our waking conscious time, but forget most of our sleeping conscious hours? You're ignoring the fact that there seems to be a difference.
+marcohaze
When you're into altered states as much as I am, it is the other way around. I can not tell you what I ate or did yesterday but I can write a 30 page seminar on my dream experiences in last week. That being said, dreams are mechanisms for defragmentation. Our brains aren't built to naturally store all of them since they don't hold information valuable for waking life.
We can not sense dark matter so we will never solve it. Like a blind person from birth trying to describe light.
We can't see most of the light and other types of energy that exists in this universe, but we will have a pretty good idea what they are.
We also have pretty great dark matter detectors, they just haven't found anything yet, maybe because it doesn't actually exist and is merely an error in our physics.
Marcus cannot know how to answer the cannot know questions.
There are an infinite number of questions to ask. A number greater than any assignable quantity or countable number (symbol ∞).
But here are a only a finite amount of word combinations that can be articulated in a finite amount of time. Which is a superset of proper sentences. Which is a superset of sentences with meaning for a particular person in a defined finite set of people. Itself a superset of questions with meaning. And of that, only the subset of questions relevant to the talk would be significant.
I've reduced your infinity by a lot... They're still a lot, don't worry.
"I've reduced your infinity by a lot..." lol
as if infinity is "a lot" more ;) ...
- but "knowledge" is not necessarily defined as "to comprehend", and Marcus does know how to, and can answer questions, according to his understanding of the topic.
How do you measure whether an answer is correct ?
Many of the finite topics are up for discussion and even debate before we "know" What the right answer is, and especially Why. (including but obviously not exclusively to - the cannot know question)
Maybe we need to collectively understand what we cannot know and then together (almost like a group-consciousness) we will know what we cannot know.
The disconnect comes in trying to quantify All conscious phenomena as part of One Finite Solution, and in the meantime the real important things are missed out on because our focus is on the limitation rather than the collective understanding.
it was meant as a joke. going from infinite to finite. the idea still stands that they are not infinite.
The rest i have no idea what is about.
knowledge and understanding are intimately related, are you arguing they're not?
some answers can be shown to be objectively wrong, some can be shown right at least relative to something. Measure is a misleading word, there needs not be a scale for that.
I never implied that having a finite set of questions means all answers are easy or even possible.
The collective mind thing seems like an unreasonable conjecture. We don't even know how that would work, let alone validate it's reasoning. We can't even validate our own sometimes.
But hey, maybe i didn't understand what you were laughing at or arguing about in the first place, just my impressions.
God is mathematics. Hmmm...interesting. To say it the other way around...mathematics is god...doesn't jive. Why? Because mathematics...is information. It comes...from somewhere. Until the secular world accepts, their own rules and laws about information, they will never believe, in a Designer. Why? Why is it so hard to believe there is a Designer who designed information? They themselves observe this fact, yet tend to deny it, when faced with the 'God', issue. I am now hearing that Dawkins, himself, is entertaining the idea...that 'aliens' of a superior intelligence may have created the Universe. Well...why can't that be correct? And why can't that 'alien' be God? Information comes from somewhere. Design comes from somewhere. And yes...the age old question of where did God come from...is one we cannot answer. Even with this logic. Yet...God explains.. that, "I am what I am". Therein lies a clue. The insinuation is...God is proclaiming...He has always been. Why is that so hard to believe? We don't know those answers...but what we do know, for our physical unviverse...all things that exist, contain information. To have information...there must be some entity, that 'programmed', that information. There is no escaping that reality. And now...there are atheists entertaining the idea of superior intelligence, or 'aliens', without acknowledging that that 'alien', very well could be....God.
Boring. After the fantastic David Tong, this video was so mundane.
Then why did you watch it, let alone comment?
dauphins are self aware .
I would hope the eldest sons of the King of France would be self-aware.
*dolphins
dauphins are self aware .
Most, if not all organisms must, in principle, have some degree of consciousness (self-awareness). Even if only as the locus of its sensory and effector interactions with the external world.
This, of course, includes such creatures as bacteria and plants. Here's why:
From our understanding of biological evolution by natural selection it becomes quite clear that provision of a navigational feature that involves some degree of self awareness is required for an organism to interact optimally with its environment. It is a measure of its fitness for the prevailing environment and subject to selection pressure accordingly.
In the case of our own species, the co-evolution of language with an exceptionally high level if innervation of our hands and vocal apparatus has led to a situation such that we are not only self-aware but aware of being self-aware.
This issue is discussed at length in chapters 23 and 27 of my latest book "The Intricacy Generator: Pushing Chemistry and Geometry Uphill", now available from Amazon, etc.
To conflate consciousness with insulating from the environment is to overlook the possibility that insulating might be one of several necessary condition for consciousness to arise. And please stop spam every comment you make with your advertisement. If you want to share your alternative ideas, just say it, don't try sell it. The fact that you refer to your own opinions to evidence what you claim is also interesting, or should I say somewhat funny?
And why not, after all French Royalty were still human?
@@windshear33 Your wry observation of a typo led me to new knowledge. Thx
@@Cognosium "In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is nowhere a very wide mental gap."
- Bertrand Russell