Leonard Mlodinow - Why Is There Anything At All? (Part 2)
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- čas přidán 23. 05. 2018
- Why is there a world, a cosmos, something, anything instead of absolutely nothing at all? If nothing existed, there would be, well, 'nothing' to explain. To have anything existing demands some kind of explanation.
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This was a good, honest, and well reasoned explanation about why one should not expect a physicist to answer ultimate philosophical questions. Kudos to Leonard Mlodinow.
This is the best and clearest answer so far.
Maybe disapointing for some, but very wise and precise answer. Our strong capacity of abstraction creates interesting questions like this one, however doesn't mean it can be found or expressed in existence out of our minds.
Mlodinow is now a fav. Super thank u.
That was mighty interesting, I learned a lot. Humble and knowledgeable.
Excellent discussion showing exactly how far we have come to explain the burning question that has plagued mankind. The answer is, not far, which is neither good or bad it just is.
I think you’re an optimist… that’s ok
That was very honest. Most physicists I see answering this question won't even entertain the possibility that an answer beyond a mathematical framework has any reality or value. They just say, "Your version of 'nothing' is nonsense," or words to that effect.
Yes, well, there was a time when the concept of the beginning of time (as in a state of the universe fundamentally different in kind than its currently observed state) was deemed absurd by most scientists. That changed. You make it sound like any concept is absurd if we don't observe it, but the very nature of mathematics is unobservable; "2" is not a material entity, even if it is useful.
“Nothing is unstable “ only when you redefine nothing as something as opposed to “not any thing”. But when we understand nothing in the context of the question asked and the meaning of the word itself then the answer given is absurd.
May be the uncertainty principle is metaphysical. If the theist can make up any metaphysics they want, why can't I? At least my metaphysics follows the well established physics
True nothing is simply an idea though, not a possible state of reality. 'Nothing' cannot ever actually exist. Once you remove nothing as a possibility you are left with only one other possible state: something.
I'll grant you that a true nothing exists absences of all laws and all matter. Now tell what prevents something coming from nothing since there is no law governing the nothing.
There has never been nothing. Consciousness is primary, and exists outside time. To ask why there is something implies that there was a time when there was nothing, which is incorrect.
Vedic philosophy explains it in great detail.
@@TasteMyStinkholeAndLikeIt consciousness is an emergent property of a brain or at least as we know it. And empirically consciousness doesn't exist outside time. It acts in time. So how could you say conscious is primary?
Nothing is just that, NOTHING! It is not a space for a bubbling caldron of sub-atomic particles.
Question: “Why is there something rather than Nothing.” Answer: “There is something rather than nothing because nothing is not nothing.” Ah! (Facepalm)
He does not get the question at all: Why is there ANYTHING at all?!! (That includes energy and quantum fields etc.)
He is an absolute materialist. He cannot even grasp a basic metaphysical concept as a result (No- Thing)
I was thinking the same thing.
I think what he is basically saying is that nothing and everything are essentially the same... mathematically speaking. The challenge is trying to make sense of the paradox...
I really like the questions that were asked. I have always wondered why physicist's nothing had so much stuff in it. I liked the answer as well.
I love Leonard M because he never takes the easy way out. In this regard, he reminds me of Feynman. I am not going to say “ it is like springs and masses”. Questions that sound simple are usually very hard.
I find it the most plausible explanation so far. This is interesting. This nothing had (rather has) all the physical ingredients packed in it.
Excellent explanation, relatable and consistent. There must be some state that begins "our" beginning. Our sense of "nothing" with quantum fluctuations may be that state. Also, maybe the ultimate elementary "particle" or wavicle is something the size of a Plank length.
There's nothing wrong with saying "I'm a physicist, not a philosopher, so I don't know the answer to the philosophical question", but shouldn't be avoided as though it was never asked. We shouldn't try to pretend there is no question to be asked there. It is part of the complete answer to "Why is there anything at all?", which the interviewer understands. I liked his questions. I think the physicist explained the physics questions well, as far as I can tell.
it's amusing how many comments are here in the spirit of "He didn't even answer the question! He took 10 minutes to say I dont know".... because apprently people actually think they are going to click a YT video and get an answer to the meaning of life LOL just wow
Except that the title of the video promises to elucidate possible reasons for there being “anything at all” rather than nothing at all. This certainly seems to be “clickbait”, given the fact that the professor plays linguistic games in order to give the impression of providing a cogent answer, while actually saying next to nothing of a substantive nature. I very strongly doubt that many viewers actually expected a revelation of the “meaning of life”, as you so glibly suggest. Instead, people are rightfully frustrated by the sophistry presented to them.
@@blindlemon9 you missed the point blindlemon9. The point of the video was to let us (his viewers) know that we are absolute zeros. Nothingburgers. Losers. Failures. Now that I know, I feel so much better about
myself
I think Leonard is a better philosopher than he admits when he compared the question "why is there something rather than nothing" to "why does 1+1 = 2".
We are a particle and due to our ability through entanglement we are able to produce everything we can imagine and have experienced all this for the next particles that come into existence
it took 10 minutes to say "I don't know!"
exactly. he wa trying his best to avoid that answer
Hahaha....exactly!
Atleast he said that. Most people wouldn't.
Here is my take on what was said. I can imagine two sound waves as an example. When the waves destructively interfere we could say we have both nothing and we have 2 waves.
Quite opposite, he should have said "I don't know" right at the beginning but he was driven at the end by Robert to implying he doesn't know.
Booo. This is why I advocate that Philosophy of science should be required in university
Do you mean that it does not make sense to say a "boiling cauldron" is nothing?
He said at the end that physicist is ok with being limited by something fundamental, logic or math and not to care where that logic comes from. Simple answer: i don't know and don't care. cut.
@@yarngod He didn't say he didn't care - just that the question as framed by Kuhn wasn't answerable in terms of physics... or any other structure of thought we have come up with, even in principle. We can only answer questions where there is a possible response that would be an answer to the question.
I agree ive tried ad.nauseum to make these points to smart people ,probably with more mental horsepower than me but it is beyond them for some reason
Word. Scientism is ridiculously naive position.
Beautifully explained. Want to hear more from him.
Because we want something to be there.
I love the video lol
Leonard Mlodinow: "So, you are mostly nothingness yourself".
Robert Kuhn: "A lot of people tell me that".
I couldn't stop laughing.
W
I’m glad he said philosopher can answer how quantum fields came to be.
Isn't the real question one of cause and effect? The fact that there is "something" implies that there was some cause behind it and we simply do not know what that cause is.
At 2:39 he said we're mostly nothing. This means both nothing and something in fact do exist simultaneously, either one observable from one perspective: at human scale we see something, at subatomic scale we see nothing. Only problem is, at subatomic scale, we won't have eyes and brains to use to observe🙂
The surest proof that we actually have Nothing is to ask this question. We get Nothing for an answer every time.
Just because a question appears to make sense, within the structure of the language we invented, doesn't mean that it is answerable in terms of the universe. So whilst Mlodinow could not answer the question directly, he did explain why: because you can always ask of any theory "why that theory rather than some other", leading to an infinite regress. So the ball is back in the philosophy court to show how the question could be answered even in principle. Or: What is the domain of rational responses, that *could* be answers to this question.
I think Leonard misses the point of the question. He presupposes that the laws of physics and quantum fluctuation exist when there is "nothing". At least he was called on it. The point of the question "why is there anything" is a philosophical question and that all of existence was created by a power that transcends the physical laws we observe.
If the laws of physics existed at the beginning of the universe, the universe was NOT created from nothing
Nothing is not possible, for if there were nothing the question itself would not exist
Being and Nothing are like the two sides of the same coin; which means, if Nothing is not stable, then ultimately neither is Being. Think of it in analogy to the [hypothetical] idea of proton decay. One could at least conceptually imagine that the physical Universe (Being) might eventually decay into Absolute Nothingness, and in literally no time revert back into Being. In fact that might be as good a picture for the nature of the singularity that gave rise to the Big Bang as any. Philosophically, humanity has always struggled with the conundrum of how to find the mechanism that could transform a purely existential notion into the material world - the decay of the physical Universe into Nothing and vice versa could hint at a possible solution.
The answers scientists give make you want to revisit Plato's Forms. (I guess Roger Penrose is a fan of that return.)
Spirit IS what is true. Dismissing spirit will merely keep you in this dream of time and space, and birth and death, for a while longer. Eventually, seeking outside yourself will become so dissatisfying that you’ll turn within - to Spirit - for answers. And there your journey of awakening begins.
Exactly. Our world is spiritual- not physical. These guys will keep going around the mountain in a loop forever until they awaken
Philosopher: Why is there anything at all?
Scientist: What is the alternative?
Philosopher: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Scientist: Define nothing.
Philospher: (silence)
Exactly. The idea of a true nothing is merely an idea, a very poorly defined one, not an actual possible state.
That which appears as nothing (space/ether - erroneously considered an empty 'vacuum' by physicists for a very long time), has now eventually been proven by them not to be empty but alive.
As the Eastern Mystics has been telling us for centuries.
@@dukepalatinemmxx2098 Damn those Eastern Mystics were smart. Well at least the ones that thought that its not empty. The other 99% were scammers.
Robert, if we're going to be serious about the Leibniz question, we have to make it tractable.
We should also take Quine's view and see Metaphysics as a rigorous foundation for our Physics.
Let's adopt a philosophically idealistic approach and define Everything as: "All that I can Experience AND all that I cannot Experience". Let's define Nothing as the and-associative negation of Everything. Nothing thus becomes identical to Everything. Leibniz now becomes: Why is there Something rather than Everything?
There's a filtration process that injects Shannon information and Chaitin-Kolmogorov complexity into the metaphysical foundation of Something.
This does several things: It answers Wigner's Question, it allows for the Subsetting of Objectivity within Idealism, it provides for the emergence of Dynamism from within a Static Universe and it provides a native quantum-ness to physics.
Mlodinow: "nothing is not stable". Can anything make less sense?
He means that if you work within the structure of quantum field theory, nothing (in the sense of no matter) is not a stable state, because the uncertainty principle.
@@roqsteady5290 Yeah but hes missing the point, he is focusing on the matter. When you ask why is there anything at all it also includes the quantum states, space-time and the universe itself. Why do they exist at all? The question really transcends both science, religion and philosophy. It cannot be answered using anything we know so far, it cant even be answered with the "intelligent creator" idea because you can then ask why does he exist at all.
@@whatever7338 I think he made himself clear by stating that he was describing nothing from a mathematical perspective... Matter on a quantum scale does not "exist" in some permanent state of "being" as we like to think of it. Thus, he made the remark that the host and himself are technically nothing... As is the case with all matter on a quantum scale... It amounts to nothing. Another crazy way to answer the question (although counterintuitive) is:
Q: Why does anything exist at all?
A: It doesn't.
Where is part 1?
We don’t mean nothing as we know it, we mean why do these rules exist, such as “what compels the electron to move?”
Space is the riverbank and we are in the river of something different than space. Was the river a frozen solid state before time and we are in the run off of the something different? Let's start there.
Everyone keeps saying "it takes so long to say 'I don't know'". Well what were you expecting? Literally no one has an answer to this question. It may be that we can never know the answer. That's all there is to it.
The scientist is clear enough: because of the principle of incertainty (Heisenberg) the supposed zero, or vacuum or nothing is an illusion. If you understand the situation, then the question is not a good question. The primum movens, the possibility, is always present because there is not total absence.
Mankind just needs to come up with an explanation to make sense of life rather than the uncomfortable alternative of not knowing. It's as simple as that. If you are in Beverly Hills, CA sometime I'd love to take you to lunch to discuss future funding to advance your model.
One of the two hardest concepts to digest to me are inflation theory and Heisemberg's uncertainty principle. This guy related both concepts to a fundamental physics answer to the very fundamental question about "why is there anything at all". Gosh! It's gonna make my mind boil for a while...
Hallo Larry, where have you been?
It's an easy way out to say "that's for philosophers to ask about" (8:20)! It seems to me that one must explain how mathematics, which is not nothing, is so fundamental to reality and why, and especially how, physics emerges from mathematics.
Kuhn looked glazed for for a moment...😂
Empty space is full of stuff we have not evolved far enough to perceive.
I think the interviewer is asking "Why there is Existence ? " The answer is that the existence is infinite and that is why it exists . If existence were finite then it should be surrounded by nothingness . Imagine a 2d plane in the shape of the sphere . It should still have to sides , but if the outermost part is in contact with nothingness then it means it does not exist , so then if one side does not exist then the other side cannot exist too . This tells us that for existence to be , there should exist no nothingness , and then nothingness exists only in the mind of the human but it cannot be perceived as nothingness is nothing , so there is nothing to perceive there . Even the space is something if it curves . So the question is here that maybe space is just a material and maybe there are other materials too , but nevertheless the existence is infinite and the complecity of it goes far beyond of our current understanding of the existence through physics or mathematics . We are just scatching the surface with physics . Infinite HOW°s make a WHY. Flamur Bedrolli
But even the purest vacuum isn’t ‘nothing’. It is a vacuum!
The truth is there is both something and nothing; it’s just that nothing, by necessity, doesn’t exist.
We don't know, the answer is we don't know!
That’s the great question? It was stable before and then something “triggered” the singularity
If something has always existed then how can something always be?
There is not anything or nothing; there is everything conceivable and perceivable.
This question could be wrong because you are asking, causation for that which does not exist .
Something is the default contingent state. Nothing is then just as implausible as something.
This doesnt really get to the answer. This is just the surface math, not the reason why its this way which is the original question, which cant really be answered because that goes back to questioning if there is a God that caused it or if it was caused by chance. Those questions are inevitable eventually and then we go back to the main question.
I was hoping he would answer the question, but he basically said that "nothing" has causative properties, which are "something," so he wasn't able to answer the question...or should I say that, really, he said nothing.
He said that in Kuhn's framing of the question it was unanswerable, because you are always going to end up with "why is it like that and not some other way". A very sensible response, in fact. Just because the question exists and seems to make sense, doesn't mean it has an answer.
It is only on account of the fact there is no such thing as "Nothing" that there is life. In respect of an "Absolute Nothing" where nothing possibly can occur, not even a vibration, not even a void there is no room for a universe, would be very stable indeed.
Empty space is not nothing.
I am not nearly well educated on matters such as these, but it does empower one to ask "stupid" questions. Here's mine for today:
I seem to recall that, at one time, it was thought that the universe is cyclical in nature... Expanding ( a lot! ) but then contracting back to its pre- big bang condition. It appears that this notion has fallen by the wayside ( perhaps correctly... remember, I said this was a stupid question! ), but it would perhaps suggest that the base state of the universe is not "nothing" but is intrinsically
"something". This might also bypass the apparent emergence of all of the physics we observe to exist now, with no particular reason to exist pre-big bang. They were there already.
Comments? Remember...be nice! I'm no physicist or philosopher... Just someone trying to think things through.
Thanks.
Zen Koan: It is the sound of one hand clapping. He is just describing the mechanisms of quantum energies he cannot explain why all these fields exist. It transcends reasoning and it is weird.
Anyone else watching this on the toilet 🙋♂️
This guy doesn't seem to understand the question. He is using known laws of physics to explain why the universe exists. The point of the question was "why is there anything at all", including the quantum fluctuations and other phenomenon that may have preceded the universe. Also including the space in which anything can happen.
There wasn't a time that "no-thing-ness exists" in the sense that we understood that concept. There was always something rather than "no-thing".
Now, why there is something rather than nothing ? I am not sure if whether that question could ever be answer or not, or whether that question is an absurd one or not.
Maybe I am too dumb to grasps all those seemingly complex stuff. I never knew that "space" could've been created. I thought that "space" was always there. I perhaps had foolishly thought that "energy" of some kind was always there---popping in and out of existence.
I foolishly have it that both "space" & energy are one & the same. Meaning that "space" itself contains pure energy. We all have that mass & "space" are one & the same....right ? Right....and we are all well aware that every single mass that exists contains energy...right ? Therefore then, is it unreasonable to say that they are all one & the same thing ?
So what about this thing we called time? Well, I thought that time, which was invented by us, became necessary because of how we perceived the world around us. I thought that maths, which time is an integral part of, was used as a concept of measurement in order to understand, and hence able to relate to other stuff.
But what do I know....I just don't think that energy and "space" had a beginning, or created nor can ever be destroyed. I foolishly have it that "space" & energy are infinite. I have it that all mass is a product of energy, and I have it that all mass occupies "space".
The physics POV answer is wrong. His answer said, quantum theory tells us "nothing" is not stable. But if there were NOTHING, that includes quantum theory. If there were NOTHING, quantum "laws" wouldn't exist and apply, they wouldn't affect the nothingness that is. His version of nothing is not the same as my version of NOTHING. When i think of nothing, i think N O T H I N G, not even empty space. Empty space is something, i want to know why anything, even empty space, exists at all, rather than NOTHING existing.
Why didnt he just say, we have no idea?
This answer already assumes that there is something in order for fluctuations to occur. Misses the mark or maybe he didn't actually understand the question.
I'm not buying this physicists explanation. The question is deeper than that.
There has never been nothing. Consciousness is primary, and exists outside time, and is not subject to cause and effect. To ask why there is something implies that there was a time when there was nothing, which is incorrect.
Vedic philosophy explains it in great detail
Why is there "Something" that needs to be explained by Quantum Theory?!
nothingness isn't stable? wouldn't nothingness be the ultimate stability?
Why is there quantum fields?
So basically he's saying that everything amounts to nothing and nothing amounts to everything. I guess a simplified (but counterintuitive) way to answer the question would be:
Q: why is there anything at all?
A: there isn't....
Did he even hear the question? He is answering “why is there anything and not nothing in space” That wasn’t the question. He has no idea if his quantum field theory exists outside of the universe. He has no idea if his quantum field theory existed prior to the universe.
Why is there even a universe for your quantum field theory to exist in? He explained why nothing can’t exist in our universe. He didn’t explain why we even have a universe.
Simple. The reason anything at all exists is so that someone can ask, Why is there anything at all?
…because it’s imagined. No need to get into who or what or how it’s imagined…just that it’s imagined.
What he just said is that physics presupposes that the equation is balanced. It does. So he observes there is stuff now, therefore we *assume* there was stuff before. That points to the limit of the assumption, not to if there was stuff. He brought that out clearly.
One size does not fit all in the search for truth. Science cannot give you all truths. Force a square peg in a round hole & next time you attempt to fit it back in the square hole, something needed is missing.
Leonard’s ”nothing”... Full of mathematics and physical laws..... Is THE MIND OF GOD.
A mathematical definition of nothing doesn't supersede information from nothing
Best answer: we are made of nothingness.
Still can't answer the question. Answer this. Why does the fabrick of space itself exist. It is not true that it must.
There seems to be confusion in the comments that a philosophical nothingness is necessarily prerequisite to the existence of the universe. It might be that the closest to true nothing that ever was could only be vacuum. As he stated "nothing is unstable", maybe quantum foam is the furthest nothing there is to nothing. We can ask why, why, why, but demanding more nothing unless it is warranted is not reasonable in itself.
If there is an unknown humans must attempt to make it known. However if they have actually done that is a complete unknown. At least he's honest that he's not addressing this philosophically. His nothing is something and so not nothing. My nothing is emptiness and complete. We need a lot more of nothing and a lot less of something IMO.
In the beginning, there was nothing. Which exploded.
"I'm not interested in spirituality, I'm interested in what's true." I'm all for truth myself, but it seems a tad naive to completely disregard a sect of understanding humans have been using for literally thousands of years
Not if as in this case it is incapable of providing an answer. Much of philosophy is trapped within the thought patterns that arise from the structure of our language (one of Wittgenstein's best insights IMOP).
Space and whatever else their is are different properties wer just in it. We have to stop looking at everything through one lens. Space and matter arent from the same cloth and should not be studied through the same creation process and when we do that the doors will swing wide open.
This is an invitation to see a theory on the nature of time! In this theory we have an emergent uncertain future continuously coming into existence relative to the spontaneous absorption and emission of photon energy. Within such a process the wave particle duality of light and matter in the form of electrons is forming a blank canvas that we can interact with forming the possible into the actual! The future is unfolding with each photon electron coupling or dipole moment relative to the atoms of the periodic table and the individual wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. As part of a universal process of energy exchange that forms the ever changing world of our everyday life the ‘past’ has gone forever. At the smallest scale of this process the ‘past’ is represented by anti-matter annihilation with the symmetry between matter and anti-matter representing the symmetry between the future and the past as the future unfolds photon by photon. In such a theory the mathematics of quantum mechanics represents the physics of ‘time’ with the classical physics of Newton representing processes over a period of time, as in Newton’s differential equations. In my videos I explain how this process is relative to temperature and the phase changes of matter.
When you look at the cosmos it is all built like a recursive chain reaction. Newton's law says for every action you have reaction. So assuming no action their is no reaction. This action reaction pairs once started cannot be stopped even a extreme low perturbation or action can instantly create reaction. They always turn out zero approximately. But chain events keep them at fixed ratio never to catch up to. This is 4 -Π to Phi. This ratio keeps the expansion. Phi is the visible and 4 - Phi is the invisible or reaction. Time is the war of the difference and though the lapses are 4-Π it shows up in different forms like energy force matter and anti matter. Geometry keeps the building. The levels of flat universes are 3 .1 .04 .001 .. digits of Phi where energy gets trapped by time. This universes are never terminated like an irrational numbers. Each universe expand in fixed rate of ratio and corresponding anti matter and anti dark universes crested in a proportional left out.
Phi factorial are the ripples Phi!!!!.
It is just geometry just don't ask what is geometry.
You've put the cart before the horse. All the laws of physics you're familiar with and invoking now did not exist then. Action vs reaction is entirely constrained to space-time, not something you find a lot of before the universe came into existence.
Better question. Why is there space and time ? Bypass the quantum mechanics 'weirdness'.
"Why the quantum physics, thats something phoesicists need to think about." lol
Ah; The Matchke Patchke Principle. The Secret to Existence.
If it’s not nothing, stop calling it that. Why is that so hard?
The FIRST Effect!
Every effect, has a cause!
Every cause... an effect!
Every cause... IS... an effect!
The effect... of a prior... effect!
Tracing back... through all the Was-es,
that were ever Is-es...
To the was that... WASN'T... before it was!
The was, that went from... a Naught... to an Is... to a Was...
in less than...
0.000,000,000,001ths of a Second!
The FIRST Effect!
A BANG... so BIG... it Boggles the Brain!
And then... Fantastically-Fast...
An INFLATION...
Of, that very first, IS...
That wasn't an is, but a whizzing IS-ing...
This IS...
The is... we have here...
IS...
The sum... of all the is-es... 'come was-es...
back to...
the...
Wasn't that wasn't!
The FIRST Effect!
The One... for which...
we can attribute... No Other Cause;
Than a... may or may not be... Imagined Nothing...
or a...
may or may not be... Imagined...
God!
By, Geoffrey Marshall Regent
The sentence "nothing is unstable" is logically incoherent.
its a trick question
Why is there anything and I mean anything. Scientist will say well you have this and this and they did this. Why is there “this and this” anything.
They have to go into philosophy to answer his question without being kicked out of his field. Man put on you philosopher shoes for a minute and answer the damn question.
"Why is there something rather than nothing"... "Because nothing is very unstable"
That answer is just as nonsensical as saying
"Why is there someone rather than no one?" .... "Because no one is very gregarious"