Max Tegmark - What Exists?

Lots of things exist. But what is so absolutely fundamental in that it cannot be further reduced into anything more fundamental, but other things that exist can be reduced to it? The challenge is to discern the minimum number of basic categories that can explain the entirety of existence.

Max Tegmark is Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a BS in Physics and a BA in Economics from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. He also earned a MA and PhD in physics from University of California, Berkeley.

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[traildoggy]

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-- Philip K. Dick

[yopenzo]

I always thought that we Italians were the ones who gesture more when we speak, but after I saw Mr. Tegmark I changed my mind.

[Meditation]

I really enjoy and appreciate Max Tegmark! Just listening to him and his explanations is worth listening! 😀💗

[ianmcmillan]

I would like to see the equation that describes consciousness 😊

[anthonydevers]

Can there be things that do not exist?

[percentSNAFU]

Makes me think of the old proverb "if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?". Well, if it exists, and we all exist, and all matter exists, then indeed it would create sound waves when it falls...BUT...if no being with the ability to process sound waves into the sensory perception of 'sound' is in sensory range of the tree falling, then no, it does not make a 'sound', it only creates the waves that can be interpreted as sound but nobody is there to process it, so it isn't actually 'sound'

[kimsahl]

Everything exist! - show me something that don't, you can't. This is an property of the subject existence.

[apparentbeing]

When you zoom in enough, you notice that there is only emptiness, so materialism is an illusion like a rainbow

[squareheadc]

The thesis discussed at the end here, "if it isn't mathematical, it doesn't exist" is a fundamental, all-encompassing, and radical statement that deserves some further consideration IMO. If, as Tegmark believes, everything in the universe is mathematical (even abstract or conceptual "things" as was put forward in this discussion), then something that is not mathematical in nature does not exist (by that definition). Fair enough I guess. And it is commendable to make one's theory so open to being disproven. An additional consequence of the thesis is that any candidate law of nature, say, that is found not to have thorough mathematical underpinning, although possibly useful as an approximative tool, does not fully capture the truth.

I am not saying that I agree with the thesis of the mathematical universe (I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to be the judge of that), but it has interesting logical implications if true.

[-by-_Publishing_LLC]

(6:55) *MT: **_"If it ain't mathematical, it doesn't exist."_* ... Big fan of Tegmark, but I don't believe mathematics is the ultimate bellwether for "Existence." Instead, *logical conceivability* is what separates that which _can_ exist from that which _cannot_ exist. For anything to exist it must first be deemed logically conceivable. ... This is the basis for the 1st Law of Existence.

After logical conceivability has been established, then mathematics can chime in to describe it (or facilitate it). In other words, mathematics serves more as an after-the-fact assembly language for "logically conceivable things."

For those of you that doubt my words, simply name something that exists that's not logically conceivable and you'll be golden.

[Ermanariks_til_Aujm]

Good, he didn't define existence. We're now even further away.

[mickeybrumfield]

It seems everything exists. Perhaps a better, more enlightening question would be what doesn't exist. The one thing we can be absolutely sure of that doesn't exist would be nothingness. You can not have nothingness in our reality.

[goldog]

And the debate goes on Discovery or Invention 🤔

[sujok-acupuncture]

Whenever Max Tegmark speaks. Its going to stirr us. I have to acknowledge that he is a greatttt scientific person...

[wilpertz]

Science and mathematics can explain everything - except for the mind that is using science and mathematics ~wil

- don’t steal my quote! (April -15 2024)

[edwardlawrence]

Words are abstract objects! Abstractions are invented by humans. They are a secondary class of objects. Discussion of abstraction is an example of philosophical idealism.

[buckanderson]

Everything exists. Some only in imagination but thoughts exist too and according to science no information can truly be lost even thoughts.

[tonymarshharveytron]

Hello.
Mathematics has its place, but not at the expense of Logic.

The whole description of how thu universe began is wrong. We keep getting headlines of " the Big Bang is over ", only to have a complete video explaining how the universe began in a Big Bang, and everything that the JWST finds is so many years after the Big Bang.

Why not do a video that looks at a logical alternative to the big bang and cosmic inflation, such as that which is being proposed by ' Tony Norman Marsh, called the ' Two Monopole Particle Universe ', which has been offered on previouse comments of your videos.

It is the misconception that the universe is expanding that has led to many of the problems in cosmology. I contend that the universe is not expanding: It has no age because it has always existed much as it is now: It will exist forever much as it is now: There was no Big Bang or cosmic inflation: The CMBR is not the afterglow of the big bang, but a point where electromagnetic radiation reaches saturation, and Redshift is not due to the expansion of the universe, but is due to the loss of speed and energy of electromagnetic radiation over distance and time it has travelled.

There has just been published an hypothesis called ' The Two Monopole Particle Universe ' by ' Tony Norman Marsh ', which fully explains all of this Logically. If you type in Tony Norman Marsh into Google, details will be shown.

This hypothesis can also explain Dark Matter, Dark Energy, Antimatter, and two forces of gravity, amongst other things.

If you can provide an email address, I can send you a copy of the manuscript. Kind regards,

Tony Marsh.

[mitk]

What I understood: if something cannot be described mathematically, it doesn't exist. For example: people don't have conscience, because there is no mathematical formula(s) for it. Actually yes... this could be referred to some people...

[Ramkumar-ujfo]

Public : Take a hint and watch everything by max Tegmark. Greatest alive. Good I am not stalking this guy 😊 this Bertrand Principia and Godel and all.was not good. The universe is math is the right answer and not why math is effective etc. I liked that Wolphram that universe is cellular automata. I had same problem with fraction and infinite before Max solved it in curiosity retreat