Q&A - The mathematical universe with Max Tegmark
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- Опубліковано 27 тра 2024
- Was mathematics invented or discovered? Is everything mathematically predetermined? Is there no such thing as free will?
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Following his talk at the Ri in January 2014, Max Tegmark invited questions from the audience. This Q&A delves into the deep conundrums of consciousness, free will and physicality, exploring the idea that our universe is an entirely mathematical structure.
Why is mathematics so spectacularly successful at describing the cosmos?
In his Ri talk from January 30 2014, MIT physics professor Max Tegmark proposed a radical idea: that our physical world is not only described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics. He showed how this theory may provide answers to the nature of reality itself.
This event was filmed at the Royal Institution on January 30 2014.
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Absolutely love Tegmark's talks.
Interesting talk, but I'd also like to point out that the audience did a pretty good job of coming up with good questions based on what was said in the talk.
25:45 his answer is amazing
Math is a discovery. We only invented the symbols to describe it. F=MA could have been T=MA but that would be tucked up.
Tegmark is brilliant. One of his answers about how he made a u-turn from a feeling of insignificance relative to the vastness of cosmos, is almost Vedantic in its assertion. In Sanskrit there is a saying: "Yatha pinde, tatha Brahmande", meaning, "humans and universe are homologous." We are the sentient beings that perceive the universe. Universe has no meaning if there is no conscious life to perceive it. Universe is aware of itself through us. And, as Vedanta says, Atman = Brahman and our core is divine that is all-pervasive, universal consciousness. I hope Tegmark integrates his scientific brilliance with Vedantic wisdom.
Vedanta is not religion. Yes, it is old, but not silly. Silly is the mind that equates ancient wisdom traditions with theism & religion, an Abrahamic construct to begin with.
You simply don't get it, do you? Your muddled understanding cannot be cured in this YT comment section. Don't force fit a knowledge system/wisdom tradition into a narrow framework of "religion." But if you still don't get it, do yourself a favor. Instead of arrogantly displaying your ignorance here, devote some time to understand dharmic systems, its various "darshanas" presenting nature of reality from very different perspectives; be open minded and seek knowledge of intellectual traditions & spiritual traditions that guided Indic civilization millennia before the "Enlightenment" that gave rise to secular sciences in Europe. Anything less, you will continue to exist in your little well of ignorance and make these silly comments. Writing "Lol" is easy cop out... and the only cure is rigorous intellectual pursuit and knowledge acquisition. Goodbye!
My overwhelming urge was to ignore a stubborn ignoramus like you. Dogma, not truth, is your congenital malady. Please graduate from "cut & paste" intellectualism. Yes, I am a warrior, but you are an annoying coward who parrots ignorant gibberish on wisdom traditions by people like Michael Shermer & ilk. The problem is that while you cut & paste and parrot incoherent borrowed words on Indic knowledge systems, your puny intellect fails to grasp (or even try) the vast and profound & prolific knowledge production of Indic civilization. Your downfall is that you & your kind hop from website to website (mostly some western university or West-centric) in search of "information" to counter those who have lived experiences of a dharmic society and can enlighten you with true knowledge. You belong to a category of UA-cam prowlers who perennially rot in the intellectual & spiritual slums, depraved of nectar of higher knowledge that can cure your sordid depravity. Get off the YT and explore the world and its great ancient traditions. Only stubborn ignoramuses claim "I base my knowledge on truths...not woo" and then reject the vast knowledge systems that predate modern science by several millennia. Don't be a moron and limit yourself to some stupid atheism, scientism and get mired in dogma... learn some serious stuff before you permanently dilute & weaken the homo sapiens gene pool. I will leave you with this for your own benefit: Great wisdom cannot be straitjacketed by some narrow dogmatic framework, whether it is secular science or some "one book, one prophet, one God" exclusive belief system; just as the brilliant Benoit Mandelbrot broke away from the abstract mathematical group, French Bourbakis, who tried to restrict creativity in math under the guise of formalizing math, dogma you have espoused cannot restrict the Hindu knowledge systems under the Western construct called "Religion." So, to answer your question, just as Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Eugene Wigner, RW Emerson, HD Thoreau and countless other brilliant minds explored the ancient wisdom traditions for answers to nature of reality & questions on cosmogony and cosmology, Max Tegmark, an open-minded (unlike a close-minded nobody like you) scientist may one day seek answers in those traditions.
"Universe has no meaning if there is no conscious life to perceive it." -- Yes. Meaning is subjective to (assigned by) the observer. But that's kind of obvious and doesn't help with anything. If anything it makes the existential dread even worse because it shows that on the universal scale there is no meaning. It's always tied to an observer who is infinitesimal and ultimately insignificant compared to the infinite.
Claims about all-pervasive universal consciousness seem unsubstantiated and very unconvincing to me. This is the sort of claim that religions make so that people don't go crazy thinking about this stuff. Opiate for the masses... ;-)
That is a great answer. It may be the only way of knowing difference between an actual conscious AI and one that was just programmed to act precisely as a conscious agent but actually is not conscious. We wouldnt know right now even if a supercomputer told us it was conscious or sentient.
25:19 did the question perhaps mean that its not the numbers put to describe the constants that is important but, the relation between them is.
Is the Universe mathematical?, or are we just using mathematics to map out and describe the Universe. How would you know either way?
If the Universe is finite and expanding. Firstly, what is it expanding into, but more importantly, why has it not already fully expanded if time is simply a construct of our brain (ref Carlo Ravelli)?
Love me some max
Could someone please tell me the name of the book mentioned at 3:30? I can't make the name and was unable to find it...
+Jan Kebrle We *think* it's Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul, by Giulio Tononi
+The Royal Institution Thank you very much :-)
2:30 But the Hard Problem is probably very solvable if considered from a computer's point of view. A computer has a processor made of small circuits that take in input, and throw out another input. They can pass, amplify, or block signals - much in the same way our brain cells do too.
But brain cells are far more complex: they dont just connect one end to another as a computer can - but they can connect to thousands of other cells at a time. Its not just electrical signals in the brain - also hormonal signals...
Add to that: its not a rigid system. The brain can cut connections, strengthen them, and rewire itself. Certain sections of the brain may even be repurposed for something else in certain cases; such as documented with blind / deaf people.
If you examine your conciousness and your senses, its very much like some modeling software.
Are you aware of the chair you sit on? Your clothes? The movement of your toes? A lot of information is filtered out from all your senses.
Have a look at any of the tv shows where they explain tricks of the mind. That face shape you see in the clouds, or that pattern you see when you look at something from a certain angle... The things you see are send through a sort of pattern recognision, allowing you to get a much better grip on whats going on.
If you get car sick - thats due to a difference of information in your balancing organs and your eye sight. But its the brain that gets confused, thinks you ate something poisonous and makes you throw up.
My point is: what we call conciousness is a model running in our brain that is able to manipulate the information received after all filters, originally from our senses, or as side effects of the filters.
That computer and coding, is all in the neural network of our brain. With such a complex system; how can you not accept consciousness rises from all those layers of complexity?
Matter to hardware, to software, to the model within that is you.
That's just small thinking. What will blow your mind is that the human brain is not separate from everything else. It's food re-configured.
Imagine every brain in history as food configuring and re-configuring. Now realize that food is matter just like everything else. That every brain in history and today is configured and re-configured local matter on our planet. Now imagine that one atom in the left hemisphere of your brain came from a different *galaxy* than from your right hemisphere. That your brain is not just food or local earth matter reconfigured, but the stuff of galaxies reconfigured.
I dare say -- individual human consciousness is small. An individual consciousness could probably be described mathematically in less than 100 years from now. I double-dare say, a consciousness similar to Max's interacting with yours and mine through a thousand-dozen complex contraptions similar to what comprises today's internet could probably be described mathematically 500 years from now as well.
Our local planet is hardware -- everything that is happening, from the macro to the micro in every human and non-human brain that exists today or in history or even in pre-history is software. Now imagine that software as a simple "hello world" program. As everything in the universe is hardware, and everything that is happening, has happened or will happen is software. In this backdrop, imagine just how small human consciousness is.
Food reconfigured... I prefer to think of my brain as made of star dust :P
That we are food isnt rlly that an amazing fact to me... We grow from 1 cell to the many we are after 9 months - fed on food - it takes about another 2 decades to grow to an adult - also on food...
No instead... generations of stars exploded and spilled their guts into space - and some of that star dust made its way into my body.
+HexerPsy
Good. Computers are dumb; but they actually do three things: Count (which gives us all of arithmetic) They can compare two numbers or quantities; and they can pseudo-randomize (like maybe where the next alien is going to appear on the screen). But even just using these simple functions, they can be made to appear intelligent to us. Wonderful when you think about it...
Adam Mangler
Hmmm actually i think you are thinking on a too high of a level.
The randomization of numbers is a computer program - of which are 2 versions. The first version can be result and will give you the same string of random numbers. Its based on a formula.
The second is based on the a clock - which makes the random component the moment when the clock is checked for its seeding number - as it goes into the formula and produces a random number.
Computers at their basic level are transistors. Its much like a switch: it either passes the signal, or it blocks the signal.
Making a system of multiple transistors gives you abilities to add, count, and so on.
Neurocells are a more complex and can even change their function, based on input from other cells and the presence of hormones and other chemicals.
Adding to that, the connections in a silicone chip are fixed - braincells can 'rewire' themselves to surprising extends.
So, yes its amazing - but at the basic level we are dumb too. A cell on its own as as useless as a single transistor.
When you add more, arrange them complexly - then you get interesting systems.
Computers simply do as they are programmed - our brains simply perform as they are wired and bathed in chemicals at that time. The difference in complexity between the brain and a PC chip is still insanely large.
Still - there are some computer projects running that try to model brains. So far, a few prototypes are being build and tested that theoretically have the complexity of mouse brains. Its still a long way from functioning at that level though.
(407) Can someone please write down title of book mentioned at 3rd minute just before C Koch?! Thanks!
It's "Phi" by Giulio Tononi.
@@TheRoyalInstitution Thanks.
Max, how can eye knows itself without any object to see? Who is the knower of things that can be known?
A Universal Quantum Mechanism, all of an infinite information spectrum, is a functional formulation = Mathematics.
Free will means the input does't determine the output.
Given quantum physics is a root, probablistic, then this seem like a "fudge factor" has been smuggled in through the back door. Every anomaly can be explained away by chance or infinity. So really, how can one then conclude that the Universe is mathematical? Surely, we are just describing the Universe, with mathematics?
For life to evolve on any given planet. It needs a single cell. The cell needs to somehow come out of the dead volcanic planet. Hard problem.
It seems that mathematical equations are made to fit observable data. In this sense, surely the math follows the universe, rather than the other way round.
What do you mean by follow then?
@@kurtkrienke2956 maps, a physics model is a map of the universe.
@@tensevo I don't think Tegmark argued against this. His point as I understood it is that mathematics as an expression of understanding might be sufficient to understand the entirity of observable reality, and in certain cases even beyond that. You could also say that the idea is that other sciences are able to be broken down into maths entirely.
@@kurtkrienke2956 how is that different from saying, maths can describe everything, but then, words can also describe everything.
@@tensevo the difference is in the predicitve power of math equations. So this language of mathematics has other properties than just the descriptive.
Math is Universal,,,,,,South Park,,,,
What's the man on the left doing there?
Existing as part of our mathematical universe
The guy at 24.09 should be taken seriously as I can detect a Scottish accent and they have a reputation of being a very knowledgeable people. I think Max Tegmark will go over the guys question again after the lecture.
one divide by zero is infinity
How about a mathematical equation for love, attraction, and guarantee for a long term relationship?
Those human feelings are explained with a knowledge of evolutionary biology.
Biology is explained with chemistry, which can be explained with physics, which is explained through Maths!
American scientists (and the lecturer is a typical example) very like to support some mystery in their studies. This is the result of so-called Physical Mathematics, which very popular now among the majority of theorists working in quantum physics, particle physics, gravity and cosmology (in the beginning of 20th century this discipline was called Jewish Science). The classical European physics school is against such an approach. Science must be based on pure mathematics, pure physics and mathematical physics, not Physical Mathematics. In the future, I think this pseudoscientific approach known as Physical Mathematics will dye.
Watching and listening this lecture and answers, I think, I have wasted time... I am sorry.
Everything being governed by mathematics is 100% proof of a creator and mathematics is the universal language of intelligence, also if mankind ever come in contact with Alien intelligence, we will communicate using mathematics.