I’m not good at mathing, but I do know one thing.. that hum in the speakers is because the power amps and mic are plugged into the same circuit as the lights.
I can write the number 7 on a piece of paper and then rub it out, does it mean it stopped existing? The mapping of the Mandelbrot's mathematical equation fractal set proof of the eternal(infinite) mind of YHWH. Anything and everything have been created. We just have not discovered it yet... Yip mathematics is alive!!!
This was a group of very intelligent, opinionated, and socially awkward individuals who nonetheless managed to have a stimulating and thought provoking conversation. Made me feel right at home.
This was a group of very intelligent, opinionated, and socially awkward individuals who nonetheless managed to have a stimulating and thought provoking conversation. Made me feel right at home.
@@zariawardrope1331 Socially awkward? A teensy bit of friction at one point but that's not bad for a discussion amongst 5 people lasting over an hour. For 99% of the time they communicated in a relaxed and confident manner. I bet most people wish they were as socially skilled to be honest.
It's nice to see a humble presenter for a change. This is one of the few presenters in theese WSF panel discussions that doesn't interrupt the panelists while they're speaking and it makes for much more interesting discussions. I wonder when the other egomanic presenters will realise this.
It was fantastic. They describe mathematics as a sort of tool we use in a dualistic world to help us progress our goals. Physics is another. But what tool we use will depend on our concepts and our goals. We use physical tools to build houses and we use our mental tools to add concepts to it by calling it 'house' as if it would finalized the product.
To me, Gödels theorem essentially states that it is impossible to have an isolated system. Any system can only be complete and true within the context of another system. This theorem is fundamentally consistent with features of quantum mechanics and special relativity. In quantum mechanics, the mechanism of observation tells us what is true about an electron or photon and in special relativity the measurement of energy is always in the context of another system. These are core features of our reality. The best part about this theorem, for anything to exist there must be an endless chain of systems that describe (prove/validate) it. Ultimately, there is no end to the feast of knowledge.
Gödel doesn't apply to computable mathematics like constructive mathematics under the realizability interpretation. Our universe is probably computable, a theory of everything is still possible.
Our purpose to life is to try to find God, in everything. So, there is your eternity. ...Additionally, i could talk to these thinkers all day. Thought it was all about "communication", therefore i began ciphering words....Now noone will talk to me..haha..We, made our language to control but it began controlling us. We memorize in patterns. It seems like everything is magnetism on various forms of matter. Now, how do i know all scientists care? Cause they're always asking ........"What's' the matter ?" Lol. Here's my problem..you guys are light years ahead of me, sooo did i really just see you ? Haha.. You have us thinking.
'The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.' - Kurt Gödel Ω The statement A ∧ B is true if A and B are both true; else it is false. ☑️ 101
At 22:40: "80 years later we still don't know what the hell Gödel proved."Thank you so much. I thought I was the only idiot. Makes me feel so much better.
Geo De Boy, isn’t the truth. Instead, we have to talk about Angry Housewives or the Bachelor. I think I might enjoy the company of people more if we could talk about meaningful things rather than how my day is going.
This is the kind of discussion that seldom reach any conclusion, and the few times this still happens, the conclusion is so simple that the discussion was needless anyway. But it is still interesting to follow the arguments in the discussion, even though they mostly dissolve in the mist.
Sajjad Mehal Agree...The best moderators are the ones that interject only when speakers start to repeat themselves or the question is now done...and only interject with a new subject... Often times you get tired of moderators that are either media whores or comedians... I do anyway.
1:05:15 is when this video gets to the point. Gregory keeps it real and destroys scientism with paradoxical language. This video demonstrates a deeply ingrained inconvenient truth onto which a STEM education is built on; it's incoherent.
The advantage of not being smart is that I'm always living in awe of such people. It's a world of wonder! How can people be so gifted?! How do they come up with such elegant ideas?!!!
Scares me at times that I'm capable of wrapping my head around most any subject almost instantly. From anything mechanical to quantum entanglement... carpentry to cooking, tattooing to astrophysics, etc. I get it all, along with serious headaches on occasion, usually while making yet another failed attempt to understand stupid. That is the one thing I just can't comprehend. Ignorance is natural and fully curable, but stupid seems to be forever! Never forget folks, there are 10 types of people in the world... those who get binary, and those who never will. 😆
What I love most is that after 1 hours and 20 minutes and 35 seconds we are no closer to answering the fundamental questions of why are we here and where are we from. Keep going guys.
Now that we've agreed on consciousness, what about free will? Excellent presentation. Funny, informative, insightful. We need more of these conversations.
Great discussion. I love how Minski is the only panel member who gets applause, despite the fact that he has repeatedly, confidently, and so consistently shot down the work and direction of other scientists for decades and repeatedly turned-out to be wrong. It’s fine to be wrong, especially while pushing boundaries, but his hubris has cost us decades of important research across thousands of great scientists. Worse yet, he still argued for his disproven approaches, and against validated and verified science such as the perceptron/neural networking; denying basic reality along the way in favor of his disproven beliefs.
Every mathematician was once a child. Piaget went on to study children to arrive at the "what is knowledge" question. I believe that is very important and has been forgotten in this discussion.
Knowledge is awareness of understanding. Understanding is comprehension. Comprehension is realization. Which I believe is something you realize by questioning something,that is wonder. It starts to breakdown to simple question words. What how when where why. Next could be logical realities yet to be discovered outside of our minds conscious ability
I found Mr Livio most inspiring,just like a fresh new air entering in my head.He has many interesting views which is simple to understand and very compelling.And although he's not native English speaker,I found he's accent most easy to listen clearly:).
I agree whole heartedly besides which he has a great sense of humour unlike the mathematician, Gregory Chaitin, who needs to loosen up a bit. At some point in the discussion I thought he was about to box our affable physicist in the nose. *😁
Wonder how many of you kept try to understand? I think most people don't dwell on what Gödel demonstrated because the implications are at odds with the current zeitgeist. However, I think this kind of conversation is about to flood the zeitgeist at every level. The modern contemporary monster is being de-monstrated by people like Gödel.
We have entered the age of Aquarius (or age of information). But with lots of information comes distraction, due to false Information 'sometimes' being blended into the truth
I've listened to thousands of hours of these videos on RUclips, this is perhaps the most interesting, comical, and mind blowing panels I've seen. The moderator is clearly positing questions from a point of ignorance so that anyone can follow along. The panel is the most diverse set of minds I've seen debate these questions. It doesn't feel rushed, and I came away not with a set of facts but a new perspective. Laughed a lot , cringed a lot too. Bravo.
You must like cringing-everyone was relaxed, expressive, and there were some funny lighthearted moments. While there was a moment or two of combativeness, that's only as should be expected because in a long discussion between individuals there are inevitably going to be a variety of ways of seeing things. This tiny amount of friction is a good thing, as it creates a more comprehensive and wide-ranging discussion-much more interesting than everything going along perfectly harmoniously the entire talk, because everyone has much the same point of view.
Where have they been hiding this gem of a talk??? Fabidabbidabulous! Mind-blowing and highly entertaining and enlightening. Just bought three more books! thank you all for you fine living work. May I please be your fly on your wall?
Minksy's smugness and dismissal of consciousness reminds me of an aged professor quite pleased with himself; we can find all the answers we need regarding consciousness in chapter 6 of his book (which he constantly plugged). Obviously his consciousness has dissected the rest of the world's consciousnesses into 26 'simple problems.' With this and the professorial wave of his hand he can dismiss the problem of consciousness even with its implications at the quantum level. Ridiculous. Perhaps his age and position have moved him to mediocrity with a big ego. One would have thought that Minsky, at the very least, would address language being the central problem. Language is measurement of the natural world; it is not the natural world. The word is not the thing. That is the basic limitation of all language. Mathematics is a superior language when it comes to measuring things in the natural world. But even math is finite and limited at describing the unlimited nature of the world, quantum reality, the universe, and beyond.
I love this one. The participants are so fun and funny-and brilliant, on topics I find highly important. Thank you, Sir Paul, for letting them run with it. I watch it again and again!
1:03:10 Schopenhauer's quote is "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills." The late Marvin Minsky seemed a little too pleased with himself for my taste.
Came here to say this (-schopenhauer) - especially on the consciousness part he seems far too confident about a topic outside of his core research, personally insulting even
I can write the number 7 on a piece of paper and then rub it out, does it mean it stopped existing? The mapping of the Mandelbrot's mathematical equation fractal set proof of the eternal(infinite) mind of YHWH. Anything and everything have been created. We just have not discovered it yet... Yip mathematics is alive!!!
The limit of understanding is when we could no longer tolerate the cruelty of others. Understanding is forgiving that if we cannot anymore forgive, understanding had reach its limit. Understanding is one of the intrinsic element that makes up the human mind that without it, Man cannot absorb knowledge. The power of understanding is the power of light.
My friend in highschool was on probation for 6 months and I was there when he smoked a few bowls for the first time in 7 months. He was waiving his arms around, running around with this big dopey smile on his face saying "I'm a jellyfish" over and over like it was the most profound thought he'd ever had.
@@au1317 it's the ability to go out of your own way that can help you truly understand the fundamental nature of stuff. Our Ego(self-identification) with our own ideas can sometimes be limiting.
Based on this panel, I would have to say the primary limit to understanding is dogmatic attitudes. Mario Livio seems to be the only one who maintains an open mind. The greatest scientific and philosophical breakthroughs have always been by individuals who were willing to challenge the existing dogmas of the time. Science likes to act like they are free of the mentality they criticize in traditional belief systems like theology, but they are anything but. I can understand how a scientist would be likely to question the existence of God, but when they adopt a firm atheist stance, they are doing the same thing theology does. They are adopting an unflinching belief and are refusing to entertain that they may be wrong. Nobody knows what, who, or how the universe came into existence. They cannot say what lies outside of the known universe. They only have theories, which are primitive, at best. A true scientist would never adopt an atheist stance, because they would know that there is not enough data to prove it either way. The only reasonable stance a scientist could take in regard to the existence of God would be agnosticism, based on the available information. Can I prove that God exists? No. Can science prove God does not exist? No. Meanwhile, many theoretical physicists have suggested that the universe may be a simulation and there is no way to prove otherwise. Well, that would surely imply somebody, be it God or some higher intelligence outside of our realm, did some form of creation. I'm not implying that is true or that it's false. I don't have enough data to make a conclusion. All I have is my own experience and perceptions to make a conclusion, and as noted in the discussion, perception is not only limited, but flawed an many ways. And science likes to act like it's a lot farther ahead than what it really is. It is in it's infancy. Hence, the limits of understanding. So to jump to a conclusion about what resides on the other side of the theoretical big bang or assuming consciousness is a product of random evolution is adopting a belief system, and that's the same as adopting a belief system of theology. Just because you believe something doesn't mean it's true. And science has a long history of proclaimed truths that turned out to be false. True science has no use for belief, yet look how many modern scientists force grand ideas about existence on the public, insisting that they believe them, in spite of the fact that they can't prove these ideas. Just my two cents and some change. ;) Anyway, this was a great panel. An hour and a half was just a tease. I could listen to these four debate for hours. Thanks for sharing. Cheers! :)
I agree with most of the sentiment of your argument. That said, you might ruffle more feathers than intended if you don't specify that you're discussing Explicit Positive Atheism (the belief that there is definitely no god(s)) rather than Implicit Negative Atheism (the lack of a belief in god(s)). But that's just a semantic nitpick. I totally agree that an overpowering worldview impedes the process of scientific discovery.
strangersound Maybe its explained best thusly... philosophers discuss ideas until it is possible for science to test the ideas and present empirical evidence one way or the other....as soon as the methodology of science is applied however...and there now is a demonstrable answer...well at that point the idea is no longer one of philisophical debate. So the reason scientists are more sure? Its because they don't discuss the idea...they test it until all debate on the matter is gone. In the case of gods and theology no such methods if testing have ever been suggested. That might be of course because of the non religious personal position of philosophers who are a hell of a lot more atheistic than the science community in general. Pretty startled to be honest at your comment. Have you not read any modern philosophy? Philosophy obviously now not fringe weirdos with crazy ideas. Not everyone that says a thing or asks a question is a philosopher.
strangersound - The question is not "is it true or not?"; thr question is "does it work?", "how far does it work!", "under what circumstances does it work?", "towards what goals does it work?", "what is the price of it working?". In other words, we are not geared for truth, we are geared for survival, success, expansion. We will never get to any final, exclusive, complete truth. All mathematics and science can do is create models. All models are provisional, a tool we use until a better model comes along.
As Nuit said, she was about ready to fall asleep and then saw MC Escher's hands in the thumbnail opening photo of the video. This is the same thing that got my attention moments ago, as my artwork has been featured in NASA websites over the years, and I later spoke about it on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation many times, [which I will plug here now that you can go back to these discussions as they're all archived at NPR, and I list the over dozen and a have times that I called in to speak to Neal Conan and his guests, each address is listed in my Facebook album - Mark Seibold speaks many times on NPR's Talk of the Nation.] I used to place my hands in the technical astronomy art as producing my art. I too I'm also left-handed as Escsher was.
At 57:50: "by consciousness you don't mean a single thing" Early in our language acquisition process we first learn words that refer to concrete objects and only later words that refer to abstract concepts. This biases us to have the sense that even abstract nouns refer to actual somethings. Thus when something like 'process' is referred to, many have the sense that the word is referring to an actual something and not to the mere product of a mental synthesis, what an abstraction is. Now, a little pondering reveals that consciousness is obviously a process and therefore an abstract entity. Every thought is a process, every thought abstract, encouraging to know there is a perfect correspondence between neural processes and thoughts. Consciousness is the name of the process in which the self concept is modulated by the thoughts that impinge upon it. I believe that is the central thesis in Professor Antonio Damasio's oeuvre. I think he's got it.
This was, as always, another extraordinary exhibition from our friends at world science festival. I would like to offer an idea. The last question presented was if there was another civilization reaching out, what would we say or talk with them about? While inevitably good ideas for responses were given, might I add that a discussion of love could prove valuable. Love, kindness, strength, honor, dedication, selflessness, passion, courage: these are all things that you and me and all of us share as humans/earthlings, these are things that bring us to our discoveries, these are the things that let intelligent discussions like the one we shared in here happen, these are the things that separate us from savages, these are the things that I believe would be of great importance to our fellow travelers of the stars. For without these altruistic values perhaps all of our other pursuits and intellectual exploits would present us as a threat rather than an ally. Sometimes the best example of the proverbial olive branch comes in the form of a slice of our world famous humble pie. Here have a bite..... Mmmmmm how delicious.
The discussion turned out to be mostly about mathematics. It had been more interesting if they had discussed if there are principles and structures in physics so fundamental that they cannot be explained with something more fundamental and cannot be refined further, and how deep one have to go to reach those prrinciples-
Two points. A formula that describes a physical relationship is like a map of the terrain. It is a description of a thing, and not at all the thing itself. Second, not all mathematics represents physical things.
59:36. (And elsewhere) They are all making an assumption that there is a separate self. Better study Anatta. The principle of Non-self as used in Buddhism.
To have my universe to make sense, i have this equation for myself. Isolation+no own family+ no friends+no learning new knownledge+go and buy stuff when i need it to survive. OR Live out in nature, make my own foods, and never eat animals, just fruits vegetables beans and such. And never bother anybody else, preferably never speak with anyone because its allways missunderstanding or impossible to find truths that matches all people.
The only thing for me to do in this life or in any other life it to stay by myself totally isolated from everyone appart from going to the shop and buy foods. Also i have to not listen to anyone, not even myself. Its odd that the universe is made so to lead a perfect life for me i have to be like this, but i love it, im very adoptable. (MY OWN TRUTH ABOUT ME AND MY LIFE) I will remain alone for eternity, i will never have a wife, never have kids, and never have friends. You might find it sad, but it is MY truth, and i will keep it. If i remember this life, i will continue stay alone. If god makes me not remember that i wanna stay alone he cant be a good god for me. I live the most perfect life for myself, i enjoy everyday as max as i can. I feel blessed by myself, and i keep blessing myself. And hope for a world that isnt evil. God doesnt accept that i stay alone rest of eternity if i have to. I hear him and his angel everyday of my life now since 2 years ago. And he is mean to me.
Wonderful. I am a fan of Mr. Chaitin, and his modesty. I have a question, which seems to me like a rather mysterious "paradox". How does one reconcile the fact that "most finite length binary sequences are incompressible" with the fact that, "for any fixed finite length binary sequence, if one considers the collection of all binary sequences of length n ( also, or, of length n or less ), the fraction of those sequences which will contain the given sequence, will tend to 1 as n tends to infinity". Since some binary sequences, e.g., a string of a hundred consecutive 1's, are evidently highly compressible, shouldn't it be possible to devise a compression scheme based on the idea of sequentially gluing a bunch of "files" together, where some files are highly compressed (descriptions of how to "unfold", decompress, or generate the actual sequence, e.g. are short algorithms for generating the sequence), with a short premable indicating such, while others are "uncompressed chunks" (possibly with a short preamble to indicate they are such) ? Certainly it seems intuitively probable that, the larger the file, the more likely it is that it will contain highly compressible subsequences, or sub-fragments. It seems to me, that, in practice, most files (that we actually encounter) over 2 megabytes in size, say, will turn out to be compressible, while, in theory, this should not be the case. Is seems to me that (perhaps?) the "most files are incompressible" argument somehow breaks down, because it rests on supposing we have one fixed algorithm with which we should consider the task of compressing all finite strings, of length n (or, n or less), for some n, while in practice, we will never actually encounter the problem of "finding the parking lot jammed", simply because we will only ever require the compression of a tiny fraction of the possible strings. ???
I like Minsky's discussion about "conscienceness" being a wastebasket for 26 different meanings. It would be meaningful to have discussions use different words for each distinct meaning. Unfortunately, it might be difficult to have such discussions as it would mean that we would have to carry along a dictionary to each such discussion. Having a common word for 26 meanings means that once you understand one of them, then you might infer the other ones. I think that because of the difficulty that exists when translating conversations from one language to another. Worse, most translators focus on translating meanings of expressions, rather than trying too hard to preserve the wording of the translation.
When Marvin Minsky talks about consciousness and qualia I ask always myself: does he just pretend to be ignorant or is he really ignorant. Every person who wakes up in he morning from a dreamless sleep knows what it is like to be conscious.
54:38 - I don't disagree with Minsky here, but when I think about consciousness, as a problem of physics, I'm thinking about the obvious thing: the fact that I am "aware" of my own existence. I am "here" - I have an inner subjective experience. Computers do not, and I don't think they ever will. You can't just wave that away as "irrelevant" because it can't be demonstrated to a third party (i.e., I can't "prove" to you I'm not just a really fancy robot). This is a real phenomenon that exists, and I am more directly cognizant of my own self-awareness than I am of any information that comes to me through my senses.
@@guapamole724 I understand how they work all the way down to the level of semiconductor physics, and there is just nothing there to allow for experiencing. It's a mechanism. Anything you could do with a computer you could, in theory, do with water and pipes and pumps and valves, or for that matter with a carefully crafted arrangement of dominoes tipping one another over. No one would think those would be conscious, because they see and understand what's happening. But let it be electrons in a tiny microchip that they can't see and understand, and suddenly they're willing to imbue it with magic. It's still just a machine that does dumb tiny steps. If you want me to buy that it somehow becomes conscious, you're going to have to tell me PRECISELY HOW in a convincing way, and I'm more or less convinced no one will be able to do that. That said, you have a point, though a pedantic one. I can't prove to you that I'M conscious and experience, and you can't prove to me that you are and do. I'm generally willing to accept that you do, because I KNOW that I do, and you seem like the same kind of critter as me, more or less. Since these things involve no "external objective effects," you really can't prove of disprove anything about them. We're going to argue about this forever, because we WILL become better and better able to program computers to imitate conscious behavior. And there's no way to prove wrong someone who claims they ARE conscious. But they won't be. Not unless we completely change how we make them and start making them more along the lines of living things than mere machines.
@@KipIngram "there is just nothing there to allow for experiencing. It's a mechanism." Yeah, it is. Maybe consciousness is a mechanism, or emerges from a mechanism, or some variation of that. Isn't the human form just a bunch of little stuff moving around mechanistically? And yet we are conscious (or at least I am, and I assume that you are for the same reason you gave). I'm simply pointing out that your certainty is misplaced. However, I see how one could argue that your assumption is the most pragmatic practice, and I might buy that argument.
@@guapamole724 I guess anything is possible, but I just don't see how. Ultimately physical stuff is described by equations. Some folks don't even want to allow quantum effects to have anything to do with it, and in that case it really IS purely mechanistic - just a bunch of math equations grinding out a stream of numbers. I just see no way to get from there to "happiness," or "pain," or "awareness." It just feels like it's missing something. We can ALWAYS say "Well, we don't know everything, so their could be a way, if we pile on enough complexity." And MAYBE that's true. But I'm unconvinced - I just feel like something fundamental is missing from that idea. I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong or insist that you agree with me. I just doubt that you'll be able to change my mind either. I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about it.
@@KipIngram What reason do you have to disbelieve that consciousness could emerge from mechanistic, physical processes? We know consciousness exists. We observe the physical world and describe it with equations. These two "worlds" (conscious and physical) seem to be the only observable "worlds" in reality. They also seem to be intricately connected, and observations would suggest at times that one of the worlds emerges from the other. Why couldn't this be a feature of the universe? Do you have any good reason to discount this possibility, or is your conclusion only based on that feeling/intuition you keep referring to? At the end of the day, the foundational principles of reality aren't going to carry further explanation, and as such they will not be satisfactory to our minds. It is what it is, despite how weird it can seem.
The title "The Limits of Understanding" postulates that 1) there exists something which we have not yet understood and 2) that in our efforts to understand that there are limitations. I find that both the above postulates inherent in the title are untenable for the following reasons. 1) To think that something exists in absolute terms is irrational, because our very perception of the existence of that something is questionable, analogous to the now familiar perception of the world by a fish swimming in a bowl of water. 2) The second part of the postulate that there are limitations to our understanding could, at best, be an extrapolation in time of the "fact" that we have not yet understood what exists out there. The statement inherent in this part of the postulate is that we will never fully understand what is out there to understand. If what is out therre to understand is only a mathematical construct (which is mot likely), the veracity of which has not yet been verified through other means of peception, then that can be called a limitation. But, a mere mathematical construct could be understood fully through mathematical tools, because it is those very tools which created the construct, and what was constructed with one set of tools can be unravelled with perhaps the same set of tools.
I think I'm on Minsky's side. I see how he might have rubbed Goldstein the wrong way, but the fact remains that it can be amazingly useful to increase your specificity when talking about a difficult concept. He admonishes against using the general word "consciousness", rather than talking about it in more specific ways. He can't change English. He can't go over the many possible referents of the word in ten minutes. I don't think he's saying consciousness has 26 parts so much as he is saying that he came up with 26 things you might mean while talking about it, and saying 'consciousness', 'consciousness', 'it', 'it' puts you in danger of using inconsistent definitions of the word while under the false impression that you're talking about one consistent thing. Hence the difficulties of 'consciousness'. It's like concepts 'space' and 'time' vs the concept of 'space-time'. Individually they are much easier to understand, even though they are part of a larger thing which may be more real. Do not be rigid in your language. Anyway, I came to figure out more about Godel's incommensurability. Still don't know what to make of it
1:17:09 It also is important to realize that the Earth and reality itself being divided into distinct objects with clear boundaries and unique identifying features fundamentally shaped our perception, and so is much more base than the derived perception. EDIT: At the end, their answers seemed to be alluding to what I hold to be the true limit: the ability to perceive or reason with that which has no bearing on our immediate survival, as Mario joked about when talking of mathematicians being proud of how their theories have no application ( 43:48 ). This is reflected in history as we see the civilizations that had individuals with excess time grew technologically much more rapidly than others, a function of their being able to ponder things outside of the next meal, stocking for winter, etc..
@@menyasavut3959 "God'll" was intended as a joke, in that it's a play on the name "Godel". That is, it's pronounced the same, while appearing to say he was a God in the world of Science.
@@menyasavut3959 P.S. The 2 little dots over the 'o' makes it look like the 'o' has a pair of eyes-just concerned it might freak people out a bit having this letter staring back at them.😉
Thanks a lot! It was a very interesting speech. I really appreciated Dr. Mario Livio's critique about "concepts" and how their creation shapes and changes the degree and development of knowledge. I also appreciated Dr. Marvin Minsky's critique about "defining consciousness" as an act that in fact hide our lack of understanding of what consciousness really is, that is to say: consciousness is what it is. We can know what consciousness is through consciousness itself by the act of observing itself, that is through meditation. Every word and argument are within consciousness, inner to it, they cannot define it, just as a puppet cannot define its puppeteer or a product its producer. Any consciousness definition is consciousness itself product so that it can't be realistic, authentic, true. A vase cannot define its potter but only give clues and hints about. There's no word to know what consciousness is, but it is possible by direct perception trough a self-observing process, trough meditation. However things may be deeper than that.
The beginning was so sad. One of the most brilliant people in the world basically starved himself to death because he couldn’t control his mind. It reminds me of a relative who became ultra paranoid in the first months of the pandemic. Mental health is tragically underreported and untreated in this country. Fortunately, it seems like that is starting to change, thanks to all the people who care.
Indeed. But "because he couldn't control his mind" doesn't make sense... there is no variety of separation that exists that you are suggesting here. His brain in his context created his result. And until we are truly tested, our fears never truly arise. I hope your relative is moving in a healthy direction.
Then I finally made peace with myself. I was right. Mathematics doesn’t often make sense. And I always had bitter discussions with my teachers at high school.
I'm still trying to figure how a circle can have no numerical value yet still have value. I'd negate that the circle simply was placed to provide a threshold. Maybe they should have used a z instead. It's two lateral arms do point in either direction.
53:30 is probably the most deceptively important idea in all of philosophy; common language is massively overloaded and metaphorical. 'consciousness' or 'life' or 'existence' in the common sense of these words don't mean anything specific enough to reason about them with rigor. Someone is going to always come along and disagree with some minor aspect of the definition you are using because as common concepts, its easy to be ideologically invested in a particular definition that some other party to the argument does not agree with. Do you mean simply being awake? Do you mean having the capacity to be identified as being awake? Do you mean something about some other cognitive capacity? Which? the devil is in the details, and nobody agrees what they are philosophically. They want 'definition' for something that is most certainly not definite at all.
Rebecca Goldstein's statement concerning what mathematics applies to such things as consciousness NAILED IT! While some of the ideas from Quantum Mechanics may in some way be eventually applies to any "rules" for consciousness and related things, the rest of physics (which is designed to measure and predict how physical structures exist and how they interact) has no application whatsoever. Does consciousness have speed, mass, or any other such physics-applicable component to its functions? No. The fact that consciousness exists implies that our universe has "dimensions" (measurable things using some kind of rules and ways to show some applications of these rules) other than the physical structures that physics applies to. While some sort of math may eventually be useful here, what is being measured in regards to consciousness and how it evolves and interacts with the universe will require a new way of thinking about the universe and the things it contains. And there may be other things in our universe that physics does not apply to, also, that we haven't even found out about yet. Our universe seems to be built for such endless knowledge and how to find out about it...
The question is not "is it true or not?"; the question is "does it work?", "how far does it work!", "under what circumstances does it work?", "towards what goals does it work?", "what is the price of it working?". In other words, we are not geared for truth, we are geared for survival, success, expansion. We will never get to any final, exclusive, complete truth. All mathematics and science can do is create models. All models are provisional, a tool we use until a better model comes along.
The "better" is a function of our desires combined with a background resistance, an ineffable flux, that keeps all our wishes from becoming instantly manifest. The world is infinite in all directions. We must choose and abstract and guess and try and learn and improve and stay alive and not go crazy and not get into fights...
We project the regularities of the past onto the future. But this is straightforward extrapolation based on ceteris paribus. This is mathematics. A pretence. An "as if". But nothing guarantees that the future will resemble the past. That the ineffable flux will stay steady. Besides that, our desires change. So, with changing desires in a changing world, we will have to keep on coming up with new and better models, tools, to have those desires satisfied. We live in a universe of "if then". This the Pragmatic Theory of Truth rather than the Correspondence Theory of Truth or the Coherence Theory of Truth. Keep thinking! Keep searching! Keep trying! Nothing is written in stone. You are free and the world is spacious and flexible, infinite.
I envision Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem this way: You have an infinite white plain that is all possible mathematics and logic types. On it you paint over spaces with different colors , each color representing a subset of mathematics that you hope is self-consistent -- you can create axioms and theories within it that do not need any information from any color of alternate mathematics outside its borders (topology and geometry, for example, being one color, say, yellow). Within that color, you paint over a smaller subset of another color, say, red, representing a further subset of the yellow set (plane geometry, for example). What Gödel said is that the colors cannot be solid and any color, if you study the area very closely, has the color under it "leaking through" at points, requiring some information from the larger boundary colored area that it is a part of and no matter how hard your try, there will always be some places where the white underlayer shows through, requiring you to use mathematics proved outside of that color, no matter how wide you expand the colored regions to take into account more and more types of mathematics that you originally thought had nothing to do with your original subset (the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem shows a little of this). This means that no part of mathematics is separate from the other parts of mathematics, or, in a way, that you cannot paint over a region and say that a proof that is valid in some other exterior region DOES NOT APPLY to your defined region. All proofs ANYWHERE apply EVERYWHERE to some point in any mathematical topic that you choose, so some things need proofs from areas nobody has ever reached yet, if such proofs exist (and there may be a proof out there that shows your proposal is false, but you just don't know it yet)...
It’s interesting that the talk was mostly about the tangible aspect of understanding. The evolution or emergence of understanding didn’t start yesterday, it started with the Super Nova amongst the space we inhabit. We humans can only now conceptualize the processes to witch we have arrived at this point in our history. Can you imagine at that single moment in our earthly history when the quantized makeup of particles realized that decaying into something beyond what they are, is actual the continuation of what they truly are. I think that the simplicity of when and at what point in history of molecular understanding is the turning point, the moment when that first molecule decided that it was more gratifying to go up rather than down, or light was somehow more gratifying than darkness. It’s more gratifying to go beyond our understanding and thus in turn leaders us to belief. The belief that any and will be possible. Have a nice life.
Goldstein knows what she is talking about. So do the others, although Minsky's arguments re consciousness are just speculation that reinforce his beliefs.
this is false, she is making the exact mistake he points out. His point is that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of several systems working in concert - simply looking at the aggregate doesn't make sense and can't make sense. If you want to understand the digestive system you never talk about "digestion" you look at the composite parts and how they work together. Simply saying "consciousness" obfuscates the true complexity of the system and therefore creates a barrier to understanding.
Also... I did study Godel Incomplereness in university (I did a Masters Degree in Mathematical Logic, some 30 years or so ago), and, as I recall, and yet understand, that the Incompleteness result, taken in the context of his proof of the semantic completeness of first order logic ( if a statement is true in every (set theoretic) model is a theory, it will be logically deducible from that theory), says, essentially, that, no finitely specifiable (first order) theory can "pin down" the natural numbers. And, the "Upwards Loenheim-Skolem Theorem" showed that if a first order theory had an infinite model, then it also had a model of each infinite cardinality. So, it seemed the "problem" (of first order logical theories not being able to "capture" the mathematical entity which was the natural numbers) was basically that the notion of "finiteness" could not be specified in the syntax, I.e. there was no way of e pressing the fact that every natural number is obtainable from zero by finitely many applications of the successor function. So, I was wondering, (I am simply "sharing my curiosity" here) about the possibility of a formal logic system that (besides the "usual stuff") also allows for the expression of basic algorithms, as well as a "predicate symbol" for such, which is (for any model) to be (semantically ) interpreted as "halts"? (Sorry for being lazy, I haven't even done a Google search for possible papers on the subject. - Too eager to attempt to exploit RUclips comments as a way to "share my thoughts" )
The edge of understanding is so contained in place and time to what we learn now....tomorrow stays untouchable as long as time keeps expanding...science may give a meaning on how things are working, but never breaks it infinite knowledge Holy Quran: “you have only been given a little bit of knowledge “
I love how you can get four extremely intelligent scientists all in the same forum to talk about math that the discussion invariably gets sucked into the black hole topic of consciousness. This was a very enjoyable discussion.
Good but I'd have enjoyed just hearing Goldstein and Livio, the two participants who behaved civilly, without the strident, rude, and often smug interruptions from their co-panelists. Was glad to see Paul Nurse as moderator -- a saving grace.
Interesting discussion. When they start digging in to the topic of consciousness you can observe what would be considered egoic reaction. Particularly, two of the individuals appear to be experiencing noticeable emotional duress at the presented opposition to their present mental position. -peace
A plausible response to Chaitin is that he might be looking at the problem in the wrong direction, from axioms to theorems, vs. theorems to axioms. The power of formal mathematics is that given a field of stuff to be explained, you can abstract away a lot and then reduce the remaining structure to a set of much more condensed axioms. In a s sense, the axioms distill the essence of all the complexity seen in the system being modeled (physical or mathematical). Viewed that way, there is little practical mystery associated with Godel's theorem -- it effectively refers to things you don't care about. If you did, those concerns would be in the system being modeled, you would have a richer set of axioms to capture those additional notions, and then Godel's theorem would refer to yet more distant things you do not care about. There is an ever-receding horizon of things any given set of axioms won't handle, but if the axioms were never chosen to handle those things, maybe that's nothing to lie awake worrying about. The implausible effectiveness of mathematics then boils down to noticing that the universe seems to be very parsimonious -- it doesn't use 445,944,222 rules when 3 (or 30) will suffice. It's not so much that mathematics can explain the patterns we see, but that such simple mathematics (maybe not to us, but simple in the grand scheme of things) can explain so much.
Surely the changing of state of the barber from someone who does shave himself to someone who does not, and vice versa, takes one Planck unit of time since information propagation is limited to the speed of light. Given this the barber must oscillate very quickly between being someone who does and does not shave himself.
Interesting point (ignore this other guy). Maybe one problem is that in the moment the barber ceases to be a barber he would either cease to be himself which is discomforting or cease to be able to cut hair (since he's no longer a barber). The real paradox that the barber one is about is "Take the set of all sets that don't contain themselves. Does this set contain itself?" . I don't think there's a way to apply your analogy to this version, so the paradox still holds (this is a word salad but that's because language sucks not because of the ignorance of millennials btw)
I love how you can get four extremely intelligent scientists all in the same forum to talk about math that the discussion invariably gets sucked into the black hole topic of consciousness. This was a very enjoyable discussion.
Minsky seems a little smug here about consciousness being explainable in a piecemeal fashion. I wish he would have articulated--for any of the "26 or whatever" phenomena he alludes to--the exact mechanism by which atoms become smart. That, to me, is the question. How does a collection of atoms experience sensation, emotion, and become aware of their own existence. I'd seriously love to know the answer to this! Every attempt to explain this ever-present and essential phenomenon has come up way short. To me, that is. Maybe some can elucidate?
Simply Consciousness is complete awareness. We, on an individual level, are not complete cognitive. Because our senses are faulty and awareness limited any system created with faulty measures is, in essence, faulty and incomplete. This is the problem with mathematics system which was talked about in the problem with Empirical Mathematics. in the beginning. You can not fully explain anything with language or mathematics when both do not express factors that exist beyond capabilities. The paradox is, is the mathematics limited or like a child using an improper tool are we use it wrong? As an artist, I am taught to not only accept what is there but also to acknowledge the negative space. Consciousness is similar the principle. Much like we are comprised of the collective DNA of our predecessors, but we are a very individual manifestation of a set of active DNA sets. I thought something like that would be explained considering all the elements of this theory were there in this presentation.
Minsky is pretty pedantic here. Why 26, why not 12 or any other random arbitrary number, is anyone's guess. But incompleteness suggests that the answer may not lead us to any real Platonic sense of what consciousness is because we're trying to use the same phenomenon that the brain is using to examine the brain. We're using our own instrument to measure itself, and that is extremely philosophically problematic if you're trying to come up with a pure model for consciousness and understanding that is somehow "Above" the boundaries of itself. You can't use a ladder to climb to greater heights if you *ARE* the ladder.
Meta-cognition such as self awareness is slower than just simply acting on impulse. The vast majority of life forms don't have the luxury to devote so many synaptic connections to such a process as self awareness. Furthermore, emotion is the most effective way to process information. In AI, this process is referred to as "reinforcement learning." The term "sensation" mostly pertains to physical interaction. The term emotion tends to be used in the absence of an immediate physical interaction. Sensations are useful for quicker responses. Emotions are useful for longer interactions and deeper thoughts. Sensations are more superficial.
Iris Bunky he is talking about emergent properties. Imagine a group of dots that emit light. Each one emits a bit of light. However, acting together they light up the word EXIT. I think Minsky is correct. In a way, the hard problem, the feel of what it is like, is inconsequential, an epiphenonom. Psychologists do not bother with it as it serves no function.
A great topicand a wonderful panel.Many questions and many different equations.I have watched this many times with great humor those different points of view.
Consciousness comes from outside the body.... your body is only the antennae. Were all playing our own beautiful unique songs. Dont become lost down here in duality, there are many more levels of the "separation" game. You are not your body, it's your avatar. This is not your home, it's an illusion. Remember who you are and awaken from this dream. Wishing all of you an abundance of Love and peace on your journeys
To Gregory: If there is an absolute truth about reality, it is meaningless. Which is contradictory to being the truth, because total objective reality would only consist of meaningless data that takes shape according to the nature of observer or renderer. Thus, the patterns we see due to mathematics, due to language and perception, due to our imaging techniques of big and small things, they share patterns because they reflect our renderer, ourselves and how we operate. It has no obligation to be correlated to the objective reality, but this renderer point of view makes its existence meaningless. For there is to be something, it has to be rendered by someone. Otherwise it is pure data. We generate reality, which is simulation of reality through our senses, thanks to our language or the languages our brains use in different operations or functions. In this sense, language both gives life to understanding and limits it, just like the reality and the bubble we call universe itself, which is an idea, a construct of us, just our view of whatever is out there. So, to know something, to experience something, is to have bias. Language and bias are intimately similar in their nature and behavior. If you do not have bias, a point of view, there is no meaning; if you have bias, there is limit to meaning. By this logic, the objective reality should have nothing to do with meaning and sense.
Engineers know that any problem that appear as very complex is actually a combination of many simple problems. For example, when a software seems to behave erratically in some random time, the solution often is caused by a few subtle mistakes, some of which are benign as is but contribute to hide the root cause. Consciousness is a word with many distinct meanings... about 26 according to one of the panelist. Once we take time to define each clearly which meaning we want to explain, the solution is much more easy to find. Interesting questions discussed by Baroness Susan Greenfield is: when does consciousness appear in human. After birth? When the egg is fertilized? The answer she gave is very elegant. She said that consciousness is not a binary number, it is not just "All there" or "completely absent". It is more like a dimmer than a ON?OFF switch (even though dimmers are made with TRIACS which are really just ON?OFF switch with capacity to turn ON at sub-millisecond precision). Consciousness can only exist when a large collection of neuron exist, so, an embryo with only the neural tube is clearly unable to think or be conscious. A jelly fish with a few hundreds neurons is only conscious of day light and gradient of nutrients. The mammals with their frontal cortex are more conscious then other species without this advanced structure. It is still possible that Octopus with their distributed computing model, birds and other animals developed nonetheless some form of consciousness. Adult humans in good health presumably rank very high on the scale. Unfortunately, when diseases, strokes or accident damage the brain, they may not be the same person anymore since "my memory is me, if it get erased I die" as said the robot Number 5 in the second movie Short Circuit.
the problem of knowledge is that every time we turn over a layer of knowledge the next layer does not make things easier or clearer as there lies in the new layer more shit to handle and one wishes that he had never peeled off that layer and be satiisfied with what we know already....
what the hell are them people talking about...mathematics will still exist even if there were no humans on this planet....imagine earth like it is now with all the anaimals birds ocean s and forests but with no humans on it...maths will still be there...one and one is two even if the entire universe did not exist...stuff does not exist but existence has stuff in it and mathematics is the stuff thats consciously observed in existence....its our existence that makes one plus one is two and it can not be otherwise unless we dont exist to observe and give realisation to mathematics....mathematics is simplicities mascarading as complexities i an infinite maze of formulas and theorems....
if creation was a recipe of sorts then mathematics is the main ingredient of the reality we live in....that on the other hand does not exclude the possibilities of the existence of other realities that we can not even come close to comprehending when we can not even comprehend the one we are existing in....the existence of our reality is confirmation of th e existence of an infinite number of other realities or universes....he who can create this will not be satidfied with this but will have an infnite apatite for creation of realities...hence realities is awork in progress creation that is on a perpetual exponential creation binge that is going on now and has been going on way back into infinite time past present and future....there has never been a starting time and there will never be an end of time when all is done and there will be no more to be created....its not about teh multi verse but about the multi reality....mathematics is an infinite formula of how things are what they are and how things can be when precieved to be inconcievable....mathematics is the heart beat of the reality
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I’m not good at mathing, but I do know one thing..
that hum in the speakers is because the power amps and mic are plugged into the same circuit as the lights.
dont u love how science people understand collapsing dimensions but cant get a decent sound for the talks.
I want it to stop but it’s also kinda fun hearing every time someone gets a text message
There's a hum? i can't hear it. life with hearing loss.
I can’t watch because of it, 8min in.... killing my ears. Wish I could have heard this discussion.
priceless... hahaha!
FINALLY!! A moderator who let the scientists talk and the discussion evolve naturally. Brilliant discussion by some brilliant people. Thank you
It doesn't matter what documentary I fall asleep to on RUclips, when I wake up, this is on.
I can’t watch ScienceAsylum without the auto play invariably playing one of these discussions.
fr
lol so true
I just woke up in this rabbit hole. Lol
I can write the number 7 on a piece of paper and then rub it out, does it mean it stopped existing? The mapping of the Mandelbrot's mathematical equation fractal set proof of the eternal(infinite) mind of YHWH. Anything and everything have been created. We just have not discovered it yet... Yip mathematics is alive!!!
This was a group of very intelligent, opinionated, and socially awkward individuals who nonetheless managed to have a stimulating and thought provoking conversation. Made me feel right at home.
Maybe there is such a thing as supersymmetry after all :)
This was a group of very intelligent, opinionated, and socially awkward individuals who nonetheless managed to have a stimulating and thought provoking conversation. Made me feel right at home.
@@zariawardrope1331 Socially awkward? A teensy bit of friction at one point but that's not bad for a discussion amongst 5 people lasting over an hour. For 99% of the time they communicated in a relaxed and confident manner. I bet most people wish they were as socially skilled to be honest.
Socially awkward? Really?
Why you describing them as socially awkward?
Too short. Every single of them deserves at least 2h just alone. Finally some actual discussion. Great. Enjoyed.
Mario is my favourite science illustrator. He is able to come to conclusion from multiple and divergent questions. Congratulations for this video.
It's nice to see a humble presenter for a change. This is one of the few presenters in theese WSF panel discussions that doesn't interrupt the panelists while they're speaking and it makes for much more interesting discussions. I wonder when the other egomanic presenters will realise this.
LOLOLOLLLOLOLLLLLOLOLOLOL....
Hi yo
One of best discussion on any science topic that I ever saw. it was relevant and also entertaining. kudos to all the panelists and big thumbs up
E
It was fantastic. They describe mathematics as a sort of tool we use in a dualistic world to help us progress our goals. Physics is another. But what tool we use will depend on our concepts and our goals. We use physical tools to build houses and we use our mental tools to add concepts to it by calling it 'house' as if it would finalized the product.
Fascinating Indeed
To me, Gödels theorem essentially states that it is impossible to have an isolated system. Any system can only be complete and true within the context of another system. This theorem is fundamentally consistent with features of quantum mechanics and special relativity. In quantum mechanics, the mechanism of observation tells us what is true about an electron or photon and in special relativity the measurement of energy is always in the context of another system. These are core features of our reality.
The best part about this theorem, for anything to exist there must be an endless chain of systems that describe (prove/validate) it. Ultimately, there is no end to the feast of knowledge.
Gödel doesn't apply to computable mathematics like constructive mathematics under the realizability interpretation.
Our universe is probably computable, a theory of everything is still possible.
AFAIK, you can have complete systems inside other system, but it doesn't relieve you of contradictions.
Well said!!!!
Not a theory from within the system.....an out of the box
Our purpose to life is to try to find God, in everything. So, there is your eternity. ...Additionally, i could talk to these thinkers all day. Thought it was all about "communication", therefore i began ciphering words....Now noone will talk to me..haha..We, made our language to control but it began controlling us. We memorize in patterns. It seems like everything is magnetism on various forms of matter. Now, how do i know all scientists care? Cause they're always asking ........"What's' the matter ?" Lol. Here's my problem..you guys are light years ahead of me, sooo did i really just see you ? Haha.. You have us thinking.
'The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.'
- Kurt Gödel Ω
The statement A ∧ B is true if A and B are both true; else it is false. ☑️ 101
What's even more amazing is that animals don't seem to be hindered by the boundaries of languages .
At 22:40: "80 years later we still don't know what the hell Gödel proved."Thank you so much. I thought I was the only idiot. Makes me feel so much better.
What he proved depends on your assumptions. Which is the point of the proof ultimately.
The wonderful thing about these brilliant people is their senses of humor.
I can't imagine a greater group to have a drink with.
The wonderful thing about these brilliant people is their senses of humor.
I can't imagine a greater group to have a drink with.
Yes!
I love this panel!
Intelligence is so absent in today's conversations!
Geo De Boy, isn’t the truth. Instead, we have to talk about Angry Housewives or the Bachelor. I think I might enjoy the company of people more if we could talk about meaningful things rather than how my day is going.
I agree. But I also think the storytelling of science was great.
I don't think the drink
Livio is so good in this, impressive how he brought everyone together
The best IMO
Hmmm yes his presentation was superb 🧐🖕🏾
Your thumbnail is gorgeous
I agree. He is a humble, natural leader and team builder. You can hear that in the way he includes others in his thoughts.
@@ladyfame1430 Should see the nail on his big toe!😝
This is the kind of discussion that seldom reach any conclusion, and the few times this still happens, the conclusion is so simple that the discussion was needless anyway. But it is still interesting to follow the arguments in the discussion, even though they mostly dissolve in the mist.
Hello, congratulations to the moderator, Paul Nurse, for actually letting the speakers talk :-) ✔
Sajjad Mehal Agree...The best moderators are the ones that interject only when speakers start to repeat themselves or the question is now done...and only interject with a new subject... Often times you get tired of moderators that are either media whores or comedians... I do anyway.
Seconded.
Amen! This is why I'm so done with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
ha ha ha ha .. this cracked me up..
@@jrsiv1957 the
1:05:15 is when this video gets to the point. Gregory keeps it real and destroys scientism with paradoxical language.
This video demonstrates a deeply ingrained inconvenient truth onto which a STEM education is built on; it's incoherent.
The advantage of not being smart is that I'm always living in awe of such people. It's a world of wonder! How can people be so gifted?! How do they come up with such elegant ideas?!!!
Scares me at times that I'm capable of wrapping my head around most any subject almost instantly. From anything mechanical to quantum entanglement... carpentry to cooking, tattooing to astrophysics, etc. I get it all, along with serious headaches on occasion, usually while making yet another failed attempt to understand stupid. That is the one thing I just can't comprehend. Ignorance is natural and fully curable, but stupid seems to be forever!
Never forget folks, there are 10 types of people in the world... those who get binary, and those who never will. 😆
You *got*
to be kidding
2+2=5
What I love most is that after 1 hours and 20 minutes and 35 seconds we are no closer to answering the fundamental questions of why are we here and where are we from. Keep going guys.
god says different !
I didn't care much for the tension around 1h into the video, but I really enjoyed the talk, thank you, I watch one of these every night
bsdpowa I’m also watching as many of these as possible since discovering the series last month. It’s totally intriguing 👍
Now that we've agreed on consciousness, what about free will? Excellent presentation. Funny, informative, insightful. We need more of these conversations.
Incredibly interesting discussion. Thank you for making this content available.
Great discussion. I love how Minski is the only panel member who gets applause, despite the fact that he has repeatedly, confidently, and so consistently shot down the work and direction of other scientists for decades and repeatedly turned-out to be wrong. It’s fine to be wrong, especially while pushing boundaries, but his hubris has cost us decades of important research across thousands of great scientists. Worse yet, he still argued for his disproven approaches, and against validated and verified science such as the perceptron/neural networking; denying basic reality along the way in favor of his disproven beliefs.
Every mathematician was once a child. Piaget went on to study children to arrive at the "what is knowledge" question. I believe that is very important and has been forgotten in this discussion.
Paulo Abelha not sure what you mean, could you elaborate?
Knowledge is awareness of understanding. Understanding is comprehension. Comprehension is realization. Which I believe is something you realize by questioning something,that is wonder. It starts to breakdown to simple question words. What how when where why. Next could be logical realities yet to be discovered outside of our minds conscious ability
I found Mr Livio most inspiring,just like a fresh new air entering in my head.He has many interesting views which is simple to understand and very compelling.And although he's not native English speaker,I found he's accent most easy to listen clearly:).
He’s a very clear thinker / speaker ; also has a diplomatic spirit
I agree whole heartedly besides which he has a great sense of humour unlike the mathematician, Gregory Chaitin, who needs to loosen up a bit. At some point in the discussion I thought he was about to box our affable physicist in the nose. *😁
exact copy of a korean's comment 6 years earlier , brilliant (?)
lol @ the few of us in the world who would watch a video like this by choice.
Neuromancer - LOL. Aren't we lucky?
@@virvisquevir3320 Yes, we are lucky :)
meanwhile friends of mine watch PewDiePie and Ksi
and make strange faces when i tell them about 3hr long intense debates like these
600k views...
I know this is 3yrs late, but nerds rule. 😁
Wonder how many of you kept try to understand?
I think most people don't dwell on what Gödel demonstrated because the implications are at odds with the current zeitgeist.
However, I think this kind of conversation is about to flood the zeitgeist at every level.
The modern contemporary monster is being de-monstrated by people like Gödel.
Five years ago we reached out limit of understanding and entered an era of willful misunderstanding.
That deserves a pouse for thought. You may be right.
Some people on this chat are from years ago.
@@Zenga01 some people on chat are from.yeses ago..
We have entered the age of Aquarius (or age of information). But with lots of information comes distraction, due to false Information 'sometimes' being blended into the truth
@@user-xv1gr1of8t The water is truly being poured upon us.
I've listened to thousands of hours of these videos on RUclips, this is perhaps the most interesting, comical, and mind blowing panels I've seen. The moderator is clearly positing questions from a point of ignorance so that anyone can follow along. The panel is the most diverse set of minds I've seen debate these questions. It doesn't feel rushed, and I came away not with a set of facts but a new perspective. Laughed a lot , cringed a lot too. Bravo.
You must like cringing-everyone was relaxed, expressive, and there were some funny lighthearted moments. While there was a moment or two of combativeness, that's only as should be expected because in a long discussion between individuals there are inevitably going to be a variety of ways of seeing things. This tiny amount of friction is a good thing, as it creates a more comprehensive and wide-ranging discussion-much more interesting than everything going along perfectly harmoniously the entire talk, because everyone has much the same point of view.
Mario Livio is such a treat. very intellectual, very funny too
One of the more intelligent one
Where have they been hiding this gem of a talk??? Fabidabbidabulous! Mind-blowing and highly entertaining and enlightening. Just bought three more books! thank you all for you fine living work. May I please be your fly on your wall?
Minksy's smugness and dismissal of consciousness reminds me of an aged professor quite pleased with himself; we can find all the answers we need regarding consciousness in chapter 6 of his book (which he constantly plugged). Obviously his consciousness has dissected the rest of the world's consciousnesses into 26 'simple problems.' With this and the professorial wave of his hand he can dismiss the problem of consciousness even with its implications at the quantum level. Ridiculous. Perhaps his age and position have moved him to mediocrity with a big ego. One would have thought that Minsky, at the very least, would address language being the central problem. Language is measurement of the natural world; it is not the natural world. The word is not the thing. That is the basic limitation of all language. Mathematics is a superior language when it comes to measuring things in the natural world. But even math is finite and limited at describing the unlimited nature of the world, quantum reality, the universe, and beyond.
I love this one. The participants are so fun and funny-and brilliant, on topics I find highly important. Thank you, Sir Paul, for letting them run with it. I watch it again and again!
1:03:10 Schopenhauer's quote is "Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills."
The late Marvin Minsky seemed a little too pleased with himself for my taste.
Came here to say this (-schopenhauer) - especially on the consciousness part he seems far too confident about a topic outside of his core research, personally insulting even
Yes, very much so. Minsky just hid behind objectivism.
Just saw this. For the sake of moving the discussion along, I'm really glad Mario Livio was sitting next to him to intermediate
Hello, congratulations to the moderator, Paul Nurse, for actually letting the speakers talk :-) ✔
This has to be best ever world science festival
Consciousness is not a thing, consciousness is a stream. I am having the experience that I am now having. Even if it's a dream while I'm asleep.
Yes, consciousness is no-thing-ness. Now all you have to do is drop the "I" idea.
I can write the number 7 on a piece of paper and then rub it out, does it mean it stopped existing? The mapping of the Mandelbrot's mathematical equation fractal set proof of the eternal(infinite) mind of YHWH. Anything and everything have been created. We just have not discovered it yet... Yip mathematics is alive!!!
Marvin Minsky
Explains Everything 34:11~ 40:53 , 44:24~46:28 , 53:30~ 1:03:40 , 1:18:55~1:20:00 , 1:29:45~1:31:11
Awesome video,the humor is thrown in too made it that much better
Professor DraffBot “Well, Pluto is not a planet anymore, so now this is not a problem anymore either.”
The limit of understanding is when we could no longer tolerate the cruelty of others. Understanding is forgiving that if we cannot anymore forgive, understanding had reach its limit. Understanding is one of the intrinsic element that makes up the human mind that without it, Man cannot absorb knowledge. The power of understanding is the power of light.
moderator: “if you were a jellyfish”
theoretical astrophysicist: “sometimes i think i am...”
The only sane guy among them
@@balancedout6501 And "sane", in the context of your use of the word meaning exactly what?
This comment made my night: )
My friend in highschool was on probation for 6 months and I was there when he smoked a few bowls for the first time in 7 months. He was waiving his arms around, running around with this big dopey smile on his face saying "I'm a jellyfish" over and over like it was the most profound thought he'd ever had.
@@au1317 it's the ability to go out of your own way that can help you truly understand the fundamental nature of stuff. Our Ego(self-identification) with our own ideas can sometimes be limiting.
A limit of understanding is that we don't have a formal technique of discovering the key question. It is the gift of serendipitous genius.
Based on this panel, I would have to say the primary limit to understanding is dogmatic attitudes. Mario Livio seems to be the only one who maintains an open mind. The greatest scientific and philosophical breakthroughs have always been by individuals who were willing to challenge the existing dogmas of the time. Science likes to act like they are free of the mentality they criticize in traditional belief systems like theology, but they are anything but. I can understand how a scientist would be likely to question the existence of God, but when they adopt a firm atheist stance, they are doing the same thing theology does. They are adopting an unflinching belief and are refusing to entertain that they may be wrong. Nobody knows what, who, or how the universe came into existence. They cannot say what lies outside of the known universe. They only have theories, which are primitive, at best. A true scientist would never adopt an atheist stance, because they would know that there is not enough data to prove it either way. The only reasonable stance a scientist could take in regard to the existence of God would be agnosticism, based on the available information.
Can I prove that God exists? No. Can science prove God does not exist? No.
Meanwhile, many theoretical physicists have suggested that the universe may be a simulation and there is no way to prove otherwise. Well, that would surely imply somebody, be it God or some higher intelligence outside of our realm, did some form of creation.
I'm not implying that is true or that it's false. I don't have enough data to make a conclusion. All I have is my own experience and perceptions to make a conclusion, and as noted in the discussion, perception is not only limited, but flawed an many ways. And science likes to act like it's a lot farther ahead than what it really is. It is in it's infancy. Hence, the limits of understanding. So to jump to a conclusion about what resides on the other side of the theoretical big bang or assuming consciousness is a product of random evolution is adopting a belief system, and that's the same as adopting a belief system of theology.
Just because you believe something doesn't mean it's true. And science has a long history of proclaimed truths that turned out to be false. True science has no use for belief, yet look how many modern scientists force grand ideas about existence on the public, insisting that they believe them, in spite of the fact that they can't prove these ideas. Just my two cents and some change. ;)
Anyway, this was a great panel. An hour and a half was just a tease. I could listen to these four debate for hours. Thanks for sharing. Cheers! :)
I agree with most of the sentiment of your argument. That said, you might ruffle more feathers than intended if you don't specify that you're discussing Explicit Positive Atheism (the belief that there is definitely no god(s)) rather than Implicit Negative Atheism (the lack of a belief in god(s)). But that's just a semantic nitpick. I totally agree that an overpowering worldview impedes the process of scientific discovery.
strangersound Maybe its explained best thusly... philosophers discuss ideas until it is possible for science to test the ideas and present empirical evidence one way or the other....as soon as the methodology of science is applied however...and there now is a demonstrable answer...well at that point the idea is no longer one of philisophical debate.
So the reason scientists are more sure? Its because they don't discuss the idea...they test it until all debate on the matter is gone.
In the case of gods and theology no such methods if testing have ever been suggested.
That might be of course because of the non religious personal position of philosophers who are a hell of a lot more atheistic than the science community in general.
Pretty startled to be honest at your comment. Have you not read any modern philosophy? Philosophy obviously now not fringe weirdos with crazy ideas.
Not everyone that says a thing or asks a question is a philosopher.
strangersound - The question is not "is it true or not?"; thr question is "does it work?", "how far does it work!", "under what circumstances does it work?", "towards what goals does it work?", "what is the price of it working?". In other words, we are not geared for truth, we are geared for survival, success, expansion. We will never get to any final, exclusive, complete truth. All mathematics and science can do is create models. All models are provisional, a tool we use until a better model comes along.
This conversation is opening up the borders of my thinking...I am very satisfied with that...
i was going to sleep but M.C. Escher "hands drawing" on the thumbnail got me
As Nuit said, she was about ready to fall asleep and then saw MC Escher's hands in the thumbnail opening photo of the video.
This is the same thing that got my attention moments ago, as my artwork has been featured in NASA websites over the years, and I later spoke about it on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation many times, [which I will plug here now that you can go back to these discussions as they're all archived at NPR, and I list the over dozen and a have times that I called in to speak to Neal Conan and his guests, each address is listed in my Facebook album - Mark Seibold speaks many times on NPR's Talk of the Nation.] I used to place my hands in the technical astronomy art as producing my art.
I too I'm also left-handed as Escsher was.
@nuit marry me?
At 57:50: "by consciousness you don't mean a single thing"
Early in our language acquisition process we first learn words that refer to concrete objects and only later words that refer to abstract concepts.
This biases us to have the sense that even abstract nouns refer to actual somethings.
Thus when something like 'process' is referred to, many have the sense that the word is referring to an actual something and not to the mere product of a mental synthesis, what an abstraction is.
Now, a little pondering reveals that consciousness is obviously a process and therefore an abstract entity.
Every thought is a process, every thought abstract, encouraging to know there is a perfect correspondence between neural processes and thoughts.
Consciousness is the name of the process in which the self concept is modulated by the thoughts that impinge upon it.
I believe that is the central thesis in Professor Antonio Damasio's oeuvre. I think he's got it.
Marvin Minsky was a real legend.
This was, as always, another extraordinary exhibition from our friends at world science festival. I would like to offer an idea. The last question presented was if there was another civilization reaching out, what would we say or talk with them about? While inevitably good ideas for responses were given, might I add that a discussion of love could prove valuable. Love, kindness, strength, honor, dedication, selflessness, passion, courage: these are all things that you and me and all of us share as humans/earthlings, these are things that bring us to our discoveries, these are the things that let intelligent discussions like the one we shared in here happen, these are the things that separate us from savages, these are the things that I believe would be of great importance to our fellow travelers of the stars. For without these altruistic values perhaps all of our other pursuits and intellectual exploits would present us as a threat rather than an ally. Sometimes the best example of the proverbial olive branch comes in the form of a slice of our world famous humble pie. Here have a bite..... Mmmmmm how delicious.
"If a man talks, alone, in the middle of the forest. Is he still wrong?" LOL
If he is married, yes.
@@chakreshsingh if he is dog then no
Don't laugh, it may be the most profound statement ever made!
Yes!
Yes 😂.., but that there was the birth of What me worry?
The discussion turned out to be mostly about mathematics. It had been more interesting if they had discussed if there are principles and structures in physics so fundamental that they cannot be explained with something more fundamental and cannot be refined further, and how deep one have to go to reach those prrinciples-
this is one of the best and most entertaining discussions from WSF I"ve seen
Totally agree! Quite sublime, educational & enjoyable all at once...
Two points. A formula that describes a physical relationship is like a map of the terrain. It is a description of a thing, and not at all the thing itself. Second, not all mathematics represents physical things.
An excellent & fundamental point, yes!
Best panel I have listened to. Thank you so much of the opportunity to learn.
Bravo, the best program I have seen on WSF.
59:36. (And elsewhere) They are all making an assumption that there is a separate self.
Better study Anatta. The principle of Non-self as used in Buddhism.
To have my universe to make sense, i have this equation for myself. Isolation+no own family+ no friends+no learning new knownledge+go and buy stuff when i need it to survive. OR Live out in nature, make my own foods, and never eat animals, just fruits vegetables beans and such. And never bother anybody else, preferably never speak with anyone because its allways missunderstanding or impossible to find truths that matches all people.
PLEASE MAKE SUBTITLES AVAILABLE
Yes hard to hear...
I WRITE IN ALL CAPS CAUSE IM A MORON AND A DICK SO I SHOUT
@@Rob81k With an 'a' at the end of 'Brian', methinks probably not a dick.
The only thing for me to do in this life or in any other life it to stay by myself totally isolated from everyone appart from going to the shop and buy foods. Also i have to not listen to anyone, not even myself. Its odd that the universe is made so to lead a perfect life for me i have to be like this, but i love it, im very adoptable. (MY OWN TRUTH ABOUT ME AND MY LIFE) I will remain alone for eternity, i will never have a wife, never have kids, and never have friends. You might find it sad, but it is MY truth, and i will keep it. If i remember this life, i will continue stay alone. If god makes me not remember that i wanna stay alone he cant be a good god for me. I live the most perfect life for myself, i enjoy everyday as max as i can. I feel blessed by myself, and i keep blessing myself. And hope for a world that isnt evil. God doesnt accept that i stay alone rest of eternity if i have to. I hear him and his angel everyday of my life now since 2 years ago. And he is mean to me.
Wow, didn't think I would watch the whole thing, but I did. Interesting points.
Wonderful. I am a fan of Mr. Chaitin, and his modesty.
I have a question, which seems to me like a rather mysterious "paradox".
How does one reconcile the fact that "most finite length binary sequences are incompressible" with the fact that, "for any fixed finite length binary sequence, if one considers the collection of all binary sequences of length n ( also, or, of length n or less ), the fraction of those sequences which will contain the given sequence, will tend to 1 as n tends to infinity".
Since some binary sequences, e.g., a string of a hundred consecutive 1's, are evidently highly compressible, shouldn't it be possible to devise a compression scheme based on the idea of sequentially gluing a bunch of "files" together, where some files are highly compressed (descriptions of how to "unfold", decompress, or generate the actual sequence, e.g. are short algorithms for generating the sequence), with a short premable indicating such, while others are "uncompressed chunks" (possibly with a short preamble to indicate they are such) ?
Certainly it seems intuitively probable that, the larger the file, the more likely it is that it will contain highly compressible subsequences, or sub-fragments.
It seems to me, that, in practice, most files (that we actually encounter) over 2 megabytes in size, say, will turn out to be compressible, while, in theory, this should not be the case.
Is seems to me that (perhaps?) the
"most files are incompressible" argument somehow breaks down, because it rests on supposing we have one fixed algorithm with which we should consider the task of compressing all finite strings, of length n (or, n or less), for some n, while in practice, we will never actually encounter the problem of "finding the parking lot jammed", simply because we will only ever require the compression of a tiny fraction of the possible strings. ???
I like Minsky's discussion about "conscienceness" being a wastebasket for 26 different meanings. It would be meaningful to have discussions use different words for each distinct meaning. Unfortunately, it might be difficult to have such discussions as it would mean that we would have to carry along a dictionary to each such discussion. Having a common word for 26 meanings means that once you understand one of them, then you might infer the other ones. I think that because of the difficulty that exists when translating conversations from one language to another. Worse, most translators focus on translating meanings of expressions, rather than trying too hard to preserve the wording of the translation.
When Marvin Minsky talks about consciousness and qualia I ask always myself: does he just pretend to be ignorant or is he really ignorant. Every person who wakes up in he morning from a dreamless sleep knows what it is like to be conscious.
I love this stuff. This is RUclips at it's best!
54:38 - I don't disagree with Minsky here, but when I think about consciousness, as a problem of physics, I'm thinking about the obvious thing: the fact that I am "aware" of my own existence. I am "here" - I have an inner subjective experience. Computers do not, and I don't think they ever will. You can't just wave that away as "irrelevant" because it can't be demonstrated to a third party (i.e., I can't "prove" to you I'm not just a really fancy robot). This is a real phenomenon that exists, and I am more directly cognizant of my own self-awareness than I am of any information that comes to me through my senses.
how do you know computers don't experience?
@@guapamole724 I understand how they work all the way down to the level of semiconductor physics, and there is just nothing there to allow for experiencing. It's a mechanism. Anything you could do with a computer you could, in theory, do with water and pipes and pumps and valves, or for that matter with a carefully crafted arrangement of dominoes tipping one another over. No one would think those would be conscious, because they see and understand what's happening. But let it be electrons in a tiny microchip that they can't see and understand, and suddenly they're willing to imbue it with magic. It's still just a machine that does dumb tiny steps. If you want me to buy that it somehow becomes conscious, you're going to have to tell me PRECISELY HOW in a convincing way, and I'm more or less convinced no one will be able to do that.
That said, you have a point, though a pedantic one. I can't prove to you that I'M conscious and experience, and you can't prove to me that you are and do. I'm generally willing to accept that you do, because I KNOW that I do, and you seem like the same kind of critter as me, more or less. Since these things involve no "external objective effects," you really can't prove of disprove anything about them.
We're going to argue about this forever, because we WILL become better and better able to program computers to imitate conscious behavior. And there's no way to prove wrong someone who claims they ARE conscious. But they won't be. Not unless we completely change how we make them and start making them more along the lines of living things than mere machines.
@@KipIngram "there is just nothing there to allow for experiencing. It's a mechanism." Yeah, it is. Maybe consciousness is a mechanism, or emerges from a mechanism, or some variation of that. Isn't the human form just a bunch of little stuff moving around mechanistically? And yet we are conscious (or at least I am, and I assume that you are for the same reason you gave). I'm simply pointing out that your certainty is misplaced. However, I see how one could argue that your assumption is the most pragmatic practice, and I might buy that argument.
@@guapamole724 I guess anything is possible, but I just don't see how. Ultimately physical stuff is described by equations. Some folks don't even want to allow quantum effects to have anything to do with it, and in that case it really IS purely mechanistic - just a bunch of math equations grinding out a stream of numbers. I just see no way to get from there to "happiness," or "pain," or "awareness." It just feels like it's missing something.
We can ALWAYS say "Well, we don't know everything, so their could be a way, if we pile on enough complexity." And MAYBE that's true. But I'm unconvinced - I just feel like something fundamental is missing from that idea. I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong or insist that you agree with me. I just doubt that you'll be able to change my mind either. I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about it.
@@KipIngram What reason do you have to disbelieve that consciousness could emerge from mechanistic, physical processes?
We know consciousness exists. We observe the physical world and describe it with equations. These two "worlds" (conscious and physical) seem to be the only observable "worlds" in reality. They also seem to be intricately connected, and observations would suggest at times that one of the worlds emerges from the other. Why couldn't this be a feature of the universe? Do you have any good reason to discount this possibility, or is your conclusion only based on that feeling/intuition you keep referring to?
At the end of the day, the foundational principles of reality aren't going to carry further explanation, and as such they will not be satisfactory to our minds. It is what it is, despite how weird it can seem.
The title "The Limits of Understanding" postulates that 1) there exists something which we have not yet understood and 2) that in our efforts to understand that there are limitations.
I find that both the above postulates inherent in the title are untenable for the following reasons. 1) To think that something exists in absolute terms is irrational, because our very perception of the existence of that something is questionable, analogous to the now familiar perception of the world by a fish swimming in a bowl of water. 2) The second part of the postulate that there are limitations to our understanding could, at best, be an extrapolation in time of the "fact" that we have not yet understood what exists out there. The statement inherent in this part of the postulate is that we will never fully understand what is out there to understand. If what is out therre to understand is only a mathematical construct (which is mot likely), the veracity of which has not yet been verified through other means of peception, then that can be called a limitation. But, a mere mathematical construct could be understood fully through mathematical tools, because it is those very tools which created the construct, and what was constructed with one set of tools can be unravelled with perhaps the same set of tools.
I think I'm on Minsky's side. I see how he might have rubbed Goldstein the wrong way, but the fact remains that it can be amazingly useful to increase your specificity when talking about a difficult concept. He admonishes against using the general word "consciousness", rather than talking about it in more specific ways. He can't change English. He can't go over the many possible referents of the word in ten minutes. I don't think he's saying consciousness has 26 parts so much as he is saying that he came up with 26 things you might mean while talking about it, and saying 'consciousness', 'consciousness', 'it', 'it' puts you in danger of using inconsistent definitions of the word while under the false impression that you're talking about one consistent thing. Hence the difficulties of 'consciousness'. It's like concepts 'space' and 'time' vs the concept of 'space-time'. Individually they are much easier to understand, even though they are part of a larger thing which may be more real. Do not be rigid in your language.
Anyway, I came to figure out more about Godel's incommensurability. Still don't know what to make of it
'The more I think about language, the more it amazes me that people ever understand each other at all.'- Kurt Gödel
They don’t.
Language stands in the way of understanding. - Me, myself and I
1:17:09 It also is important to realize that the Earth and reality itself being divided into distinct objects with clear boundaries and unique identifying features fundamentally shaped our perception, and so is much more base than the derived perception.
EDIT: At the end, their answers seemed to be alluding to what I hold to be the true limit: the ability to perceive or reason with that which has no bearing on our immediate survival, as Mario joked about when talking of mathematicians being proud of how their theories have no application ( 43:48 ). This is reflected in history as we see the civilizations that had individuals with excess time grew technologically much more rapidly than others, a function of their being able to ponder things outside of the next meal, stocking for winter, etc..
Kindly provide captions for this video, because my limit to understanding is disabled
"my limit to understanding is disabled" So if I understand correctly,you have no limits to understanding!
Great show !
LEO is complete confused in all directions in any time !
I never noticed a problem with autofocus, you have always been sharp !
Thank you for introducing me to Kurt Godel :)
ze name is "Gödel"
@@menyasavut3959 God'll do.
@@darrylschultz6479 not for me
@@menyasavut3959 "God'll" was intended as a joke, in that it's a play on the name "Godel". That is, it's pronounced the same, while appearing to say he was a God in the world of Science.
@@menyasavut3959 P.S. The 2 little dots over the 'o' makes it look like the 'o' has a pair of eyes-just concerned it might freak people out a bit having this letter staring back at them.😉
The conclusion of this discussion is unknowable.
Thanks a lot! It was a very interesting speech. I really appreciated Dr. Mario Livio's critique about "concepts" and how their creation shapes and changes the degree and development of knowledge. I also appreciated Dr. Marvin Minsky's critique about "defining consciousness" as an act that in fact hide our lack of understanding of what consciousness really is, that is to say: consciousness is what it is.
We can know what consciousness is through consciousness itself by the act of observing itself, that is through meditation.
Every word and argument are within consciousness, inner to it, they cannot define it, just as a puppet cannot define its puppeteer or a product its producer. Any consciousness definition is consciousness itself product so that it can't be realistic, authentic, true. A vase cannot define its potter but only give clues and hints about.
There's no word to know what consciousness is, but it is possible by direct perception trough a self-observing process, trough meditation.
However things may be deeper than that.
Prof. Mario Livio (second from right) was quite on track when I observed all rest deviating.
absloutly waht a deep man
yes, he is the one who has logical mind.
He wrote one of my favorite books ever: “The Golden Ratio”. I’m not even a math person but I have read it several times. Brilliant man.
Haha
The beginning was so sad. One of the most brilliant people in the world basically starved himself to death because he couldn’t control his mind. It reminds me of a relative who became ultra paranoid in the first months of the pandemic. Mental health is tragically underreported and untreated in this country. Fortunately, it seems like that is starting to change, thanks to all the people who care.
Indeed. But "because he couldn't control his mind" doesn't make sense... there is no variety of separation that exists that you are suggesting here. His brain in his context created his result. And until we are truly tested, our fears never truly arise. I hope your relative is moving in a healthy direction.
Then I finally made peace with myself. I was right. Mathematics doesn’t often make sense. And I always had bitter discussions with my teachers at high school.
I'm still trying to figure how a circle can have no numerical value yet still have value. I'd negate that the circle simply was placed to provide a threshold. Maybe they should have used a z instead. It's two lateral arms do point in either direction.
53:30 is probably the most deceptively important idea in all of philosophy; common language is massively overloaded and metaphorical. 'consciousness' or 'life' or 'existence' in the common sense of these words don't mean anything specific enough to reason about them with rigor. Someone is going to always come along and disagree with some minor aspect of the definition you are using because as common concepts, its easy to be ideologically invested in a particular definition that some other party to the argument does not agree with.
Do you mean simply being awake? Do you mean having the capacity to be identified as being awake? Do you mean something about some other cognitive capacity? Which? the devil is in the details, and nobody agrees what they are philosophically. They want 'definition' for something that is most certainly not definite at all.
Anyone else hear that buzzing sound, or is it just my headphones?
Ya h um
Damn it! I didnt hear it till i saw this comment.. now its drilling my ears..
Yep. Likely a ground loop in the venue between main PA and the wireless mics.
florescent lights have a voice ,buzzz
@@PhillipsEventManagement yep, definitely sounds like ground buzz.
Rebecca Goldstein's statement concerning what mathematics applies to such things as consciousness NAILED IT! While some of the ideas from Quantum Mechanics may in some way be eventually applies to any "rules" for consciousness and related things, the rest of physics (which is designed to measure and predict how physical structures exist and how they interact) has no application whatsoever. Does consciousness have speed, mass, or any other such physics-applicable component to its functions? No. The fact that consciousness exists implies that our universe has "dimensions" (measurable things using some kind of rules and ways to show some applications of these rules) other than the physical structures that physics applies to. While some sort of math may eventually be useful here, what is being measured in regards to consciousness and how it evolves and interacts with the universe will require a new way of thinking about the universe and the things it contains. And there may be other things in our universe that physics does not apply to, also, that we haven't even found out about yet. Our universe seems to be built for such endless knowledge and how to find out about it...
Scientists: Math is everywhere and yet not enough.
God: Tru Dat
Exactly 😐
So, math is nothing!
@@peterdevalk7929 uhhhh half a tank is not nothing!!!!
The question is not "is it true or not?"; the question is "does it work?", "how far does it work!", "under what circumstances does it work?", "towards what goals does it work?", "what is the price of it working?". In other words, we are not geared for truth, we are geared for survival, success, expansion. We will never get to any final, exclusive, complete truth. All mathematics and science can do is create models. All models are provisional, a tool we use until a better model comes along.
The "better" is a function of our desires combined with a background resistance, an ineffable flux, that keeps all our wishes from becoming instantly manifest. The world is infinite in all directions. We must choose and abstract and guess and try and learn and improve and stay alive and not go crazy and not get into fights...
We project the regularities of the past onto the future. But this is straightforward extrapolation based on ceteris paribus. This is mathematics. A pretence. An "as if". But nothing guarantees that the future will resemble the past. That the ineffable flux will stay steady. Besides that, our desires change. So, with changing desires in a changing world, we will have to keep on coming up with new and better models, tools, to have those desires satisfied. We live in a universe of "if then". This the Pragmatic Theory of Truth rather than the Correspondence Theory of Truth or the Coherence Theory of Truth. Keep thinking! Keep searching! Keep trying! Nothing is written in stone. You are free and the world is spacious and flexible, infinite.
There will always be more that we don’t know about the universe than what we know.
I envision Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem this way: You have an infinite white plain that is all possible mathematics and logic types. On it you paint over spaces with different colors , each color representing a subset of mathematics that you hope is self-consistent -- you can create axioms and theories within it that do not need any information from any color of alternate mathematics outside its borders (topology and geometry, for example, being one color, say, yellow). Within that color, you paint over a smaller subset of another color, say, red, representing a further subset of the yellow set (plane geometry, for example). What Gödel said is that the colors cannot be solid and any color, if you study the area very closely, has the color under it "leaking through" at points, requiring some information from the larger boundary colored area that it is a part of and no matter how hard your try, there will always be some places where the white underlayer shows through, requiring you to use mathematics proved outside of that color, no matter how wide you expand the colored regions to take into account more and more types of mathematics that you originally thought had nothing to do with your original subset (the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem shows a little of this). This means that no part of mathematics is separate from the other parts of mathematics, or, in a way, that you cannot paint over a region and say that a proof that is valid in some other exterior region DOES NOT APPLY to your defined region. All proofs ANYWHERE apply EVERYWHERE to some point in any mathematical topic that you choose, so some things need proofs from areas nobody has ever reached yet, if such proofs exist (and there may be a proof out there that shows your proposal is false, but you just don't know it yet)...
The major limit to understanding is our insatiable desire for understanding.
how does that impose a limit?
It’s interesting that the talk was mostly about the tangible aspect of understanding. The evolution or emergence of understanding didn’t start yesterday, it started with the Super Nova amongst the space we inhabit. We humans can only now conceptualize the processes to witch we have arrived at this point in our history. Can you imagine at that single moment in our earthly history when the quantized makeup of particles realized that decaying into something beyond what they are, is actual the continuation of what they truly are. I think that the simplicity of when and at what point in history of molecular understanding is the turning point, the moment when that first molecule decided that it was more gratifying to go up rather than down, or light was somehow more gratifying than darkness. It’s more gratifying to go beyond our understanding and thus in turn leaders us to belief. The belief that any and will be possible. Have a nice life.
Goldstein knows what she is talking about. So do the others, although Minsky's arguments re consciousness are just speculation that reinforce his beliefs.
this is false, she is making the exact mistake he points out. His point is that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of several systems working in concert - simply looking at the aggregate doesn't make sense and can't make sense. If you want to understand the digestive system you never talk about "digestion" you look at the composite parts and how they work together. Simply saying "consciousness" obfuscates the true complexity of the system and therefore creates a barrier to understanding.
@@Red1Green2Blue3 Wrong.
@@alexsimonelis164 no u
Also... I did study Godel Incomplereness in university (I did a Masters Degree in Mathematical Logic, some 30 years or so ago), and, as I recall, and yet understand, that the Incompleteness result, taken in the context of his proof of the semantic completeness of first order logic ( if a statement is true in every (set theoretic) model is a theory, it will be logically deducible from that theory), says, essentially, that, no finitely specifiable (first order) theory can "pin down" the natural numbers. And, the "Upwards Loenheim-Skolem Theorem" showed that if a first order theory had an infinite model, then it also had a model of each infinite cardinality.
So, it seemed the "problem" (of first order logical theories not being able to "capture" the mathematical entity which was the natural numbers) was basically that the notion of "finiteness" could not be specified in the syntax, I.e. there was no way of e pressing the fact that every natural number is obtainable from zero by finitely many applications of the successor function.
So, I was wondering, (I am simply "sharing my curiosity" here) about the possibility of a formal logic system that (besides the "usual stuff") also allows for the expression of basic algorithms, as well as a "predicate symbol" for such, which is (for any model) to be (semantically ) interpreted as "halts"?
(Sorry for being lazy, I haven't even done a Google search for possible papers on the subject. - Too eager to attempt to exploit RUclips comments as a way to "share my thoughts" )
Man, Chaitin really has a chip on his shoulder, doesn't he? You can tell that he and Minsky are the "agreessive assertive" type.
3:45 to skip the buzzing intro. Audio is cleaned up after that for a few minutes then 60hz hum. Pretty shabby quality. Clean the contact, ground it.
I loved that 'if a man talks in the middle of a forest, and there is no woman around , is he still wrong ?'
Woman shouts YES!!!
The edge of understanding is so contained in place and time to what we learn now....tomorrow stays untouchable as long as time keeps expanding...science may give a meaning on how things are working, but never breaks it infinite knowledge
Holy Quran: “you have only been given a little bit of knowledge “
Evolution: "Random walks through software-space." Wow.
I love how you can get four extremely intelligent scientists all in the same forum to talk about math that the discussion invariably gets sucked into the black hole topic of consciousness. This was a very enjoyable discussion.
Good but I'd have enjoyed just hearing Goldstein and Livio, the two participants who behaved civilly, without the strident, rude, and often smug interruptions from their co-panelists. Was glad to see Paul Nurse as moderator -- a saving grace.
Interesting discussion. When they start digging in to the topic of consciousness you can observe what would be considered egoic reaction. Particularly, two of the individuals appear to be experiencing noticeable emotional duress at the presented opposition to their present mental position.
-peace
Minor, brief and commonplace.
A plausible response to Chaitin is that he might be looking at the problem in the wrong direction, from axioms to theorems, vs. theorems to axioms.
The power of formal mathematics is that given a field of stuff to be explained, you can abstract away a lot and then reduce the remaining structure to a set of much more condensed axioms. In a s sense, the axioms distill the essence of all the complexity seen in the system being modeled (physical or mathematical). Viewed that way, there is little practical mystery associated with Godel's theorem -- it effectively refers to things you don't care about. If you did, those concerns would be in the system being modeled, you would have a richer set of axioms to capture those additional notions, and then Godel's theorem would refer to yet more distant things you do not care about. There is an ever-receding horizon of things any given set of axioms won't handle, but if the axioms were never chosen to handle those things, maybe that's nothing to lie awake worrying about.
The implausible effectiveness of mathematics then boils down to noticing that the universe seems to be very parsimonious -- it doesn't use 445,944,222 rules when 3 (or 30) will suffice. It's not so much that mathematics can explain the patterns we see, but that such simple mathematics (maybe not to us, but simple in the grand scheme of things) can explain so much.
Surely the changing of state of the barber from someone who does shave himself to someone who does not, and vice versa, takes one Planck unit of time since information propagation is limited to the speed of light. Given this the barber must oscillate very quickly between being someone who does and does not shave himself.
Interesting point (ignore this other guy). Maybe one problem is that in the moment the barber ceases to be a barber he would either cease to be himself which is discomforting or cease to be able to cut hair (since he's no longer a barber). The real paradox that the barber one is about is "Take the set of all sets that don't contain themselves. Does this set contain itself?" . I don't think there's a way to apply your analogy to this version, so the paradox still holds (this is a word salad but that's because language sucks not because of the ignorance of millennials btw)
I love how you can get four extremely intelligent scientists all in the same forum to talk about math that the discussion invariably gets sucked into the black hole topic of consciousness. This was a very enjoyable discussion.
You could be sued for this in the future theoretically...
Minsky seems a little smug here about consciousness being explainable in a piecemeal fashion. I wish he would have articulated--for any of the "26 or whatever" phenomena he alludes to--the exact mechanism by which atoms become smart. That, to me, is the question. How does a collection of atoms experience sensation, emotion, and become aware of their own existence. I'd seriously love to know the answer to this! Every attempt to explain this ever-present and essential phenomenon has come up way short. To me, that is. Maybe some can elucidate?
That's (one of) the fundamental question(s) of cognitive science. It's an open question for sure
Simply Consciousness is complete awareness. We, on an individual level, are not complete cognitive. Because our senses are faulty and awareness limited any system created with faulty measures is, in essence, faulty and incomplete. This is the problem with mathematics system which was talked about in the problem with Empirical Mathematics. in the beginning.
You can not fully explain anything with language or mathematics when both do not express factors that exist beyond capabilities. The paradox is, is the mathematics limited or like a child using an improper tool are we use it wrong?
As an artist, I am taught to not only accept what is there but also to acknowledge the negative space. Consciousness is similar the principle. Much like we are comprised of the collective DNA of our predecessors, but we are a very individual manifestation of a set of active DNA sets.
I thought something like that would be explained considering all the elements of this theory were there in this presentation.
Minsky is pretty pedantic here. Why 26, why not 12 or any other random arbitrary number, is anyone's guess. But incompleteness suggests that the answer may not lead us to any real Platonic sense of what consciousness is because we're trying to use the same phenomenon that the brain is using to examine the brain.
We're using our own instrument to measure itself, and that is extremely philosophically problematic if you're trying to come up with a pure model for consciousness and understanding that is somehow "Above" the boundaries of itself. You can't use a ladder to climb to greater heights if you *ARE* the ladder.
Meta-cognition such as self awareness is slower than just simply acting on impulse. The vast majority of life forms don't have the luxury to devote so many synaptic connections to such a process as self awareness. Furthermore, emotion is the most effective way to process information. In AI, this process is referred to as "reinforcement learning." The term "sensation" mostly pertains to physical interaction. The term emotion tends to be used in the absence of an immediate physical interaction. Sensations are useful for quicker responses. Emotions are useful for longer interactions and deeper thoughts. Sensations are more superficial.
Iris Bunky he is talking about emergent properties. Imagine a group of dots that emit light. Each one emits a bit of light. However, acting together they light up the word EXIT. I think Minsky is correct. In a way, the hard problem, the feel of what it is like, is inconsequential, an epiphenonom. Psychologists do not bother with it as it serves no function.
A great topicand a wonderful panel.Many questions and many different equations.I have watched this many times with great humor those different points of view.
I think consciousness can be described as a continuous spectrum that arises from underlying neuronal networks.
This statement explains just nothing.
Consciousness comes from outside the body.... your body is only the antennae. Were all playing our own beautiful unique songs. Dont become lost down here in duality, there are many more levels of the "separation" game. You are not your body, it's your avatar. This is not your home, it's an illusion. Remember who you are and awaken from this dream.
Wishing all of you an abundance of Love and peace on your journeys
To Gregory: If there is an absolute truth about reality, it is meaningless. Which is contradictory to being the truth, because total objective reality would only consist of meaningless data that takes shape according to the nature of observer or renderer. Thus, the patterns we see due to mathematics, due to language and perception, due to our imaging techniques of big and small things, they share patterns because they reflect our renderer, ourselves and how we operate. It has no obligation to be correlated to the objective reality, but this renderer point of view makes its existence meaningless.
For there is to be something, it has to be rendered by someone. Otherwise it is pure data. We generate reality, which is simulation of reality through our senses, thanks to our language or the languages our brains use in different operations or functions. In this sense, language both gives life to understanding and limits it, just like the reality and the bubble we call universe itself, which is an idea, a construct of us, just our view of whatever is out there. So, to know something, to experience something, is to have bias. Language and bias are intimately similar in their nature and behavior. If you do not have bias, a point of view, there is no meaning; if you have bias, there is limit to meaning.
By this logic, the objective reality should have nothing to do with meaning and sense.
Engineers know that any problem that appear as very complex is actually a combination of many simple problems. For example, when a software seems to behave erratically in some random time, the solution often is caused by a few subtle mistakes, some of which are benign as is but contribute to hide the root cause.
Consciousness is a word with many distinct meanings... about 26 according to one of the panelist. Once we take time to define each clearly which meaning we want to explain, the solution is much more easy to find.
Interesting questions discussed by Baroness Susan Greenfield is: when does consciousness appear in human. After birth? When the egg is fertilized?
The answer she gave is very elegant. She said that consciousness is not a binary number, it is not just "All there" or "completely absent". It is more like a dimmer than a ON?OFF switch (even though dimmers are made with TRIACS which are really just ON?OFF switch with capacity to turn ON at sub-millisecond precision).
Consciousness can only exist when a large collection of neuron exist, so, an embryo with only the neural tube is clearly unable to think or be conscious. A jelly fish with a few hundreds neurons is only conscious of day light and gradient of nutrients.
The mammals with their frontal cortex are more conscious then other species without this advanced structure. It is still possible that Octopus with their distributed computing model, birds and other animals developed nonetheless some form of consciousness.
Adult humans in good health presumably rank very high on the scale. Unfortunately, when diseases, strokes or accident damage the brain, they may not be the same person anymore since "my memory is me, if it get erased I die" as said the robot Number 5 in the second movie Short Circuit.
the problem of knowledge is that every time we turn over a layer of knowledge the next layer does not make things easier or clearer as there lies in the new layer more shit to handle and one wishes that he had never peeled off that layer and be satiisfied with what we know already....
what the hell are them people talking about...mathematics will still exist even if there were no humans on this planet....imagine earth like it is now with all the anaimals birds ocean s and forests but with no humans on it...maths will still be there...one and one is two even if the entire universe did not exist...stuff does not exist but existence has stuff in it and mathematics is the stuff thats consciously observed in existence....its our existence that makes one plus one is two and it can not be otherwise unless we dont exist to observe and give realisation to mathematics....mathematics is simplicities mascarading as complexities i an infinite maze of formulas and theorems....
if creation was a recipe of sorts then mathematics is the main ingredient of the reality we live in....that on the other hand does not exclude the possibilities of the existence of other realities that we can not even come close to comprehending when we can not even comprehend the one we are existing in....the existence of our reality is confirmation of th e existence of an infinite number of other realities or universes....he who can create this will not be satidfied with this but will have an infnite apatite for creation of realities...hence realities is awork in progress creation that is on a perpetual exponential creation binge that is going on now and has been going on way back into infinite time past present and future....there has never been a starting time and there will never be an end of time when all is done and there will be no more to be created....its not about teh multi verse but about the multi reality....mathematics is an infinite formula of how things are what they are and how things can be when precieved to be inconcievable....mathematics is the heart beat of the reality