David Wallace - 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.



David Wallace is a Mellon Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.


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.

[GrimeHouseBeatz]

Where can I can a full interview w this guy? He actually makes sense unlike a lot of the dreamers you interview

[asecretturning]

Best interview I've seen on this channel by far, good to see the progress!

[alpha.wintermute]

Great conversation! An honest exploration for truth

[jeg]

it's one of those things that are so simple and easy to understand but unfathomable difficult to express or convey to another person.

[cozyslor]

What I got out of this video is that Helium clearly is the most abundant element in the Universe.

[Marcin_S_Przybylek]

It always puzzles me, how these great minds avoid answering fundamental questions. It is also puzzling, that althought they talk and wave their hands using their minds, they so often say that mind doesn't matter or is an illusion :).

[downhillphilm.]

I love how they are having this deep intellectual conversation....in a BAR. Lol

[Paul-knez]

I absolutely love these topics, with only one critism: The more I watch, the stooopider I feel!

[thboris]

Let me trow something out.

For something to exist means that it has relation to something else both physically or abstractly, if there even is fundamental difference between the two. The most primal relation is that of it being part of existence, or to not being part of non existence.

Non existence is fundamentally impossible in that sense, everything that has description, relation, even in the sense that is described as non existing already has "quality" hence is part of existence.

Existence is all possible relations between all possible informations. It is everything.

The act of Relating is primal function of awareness, consciousness. And is only and only property of consciousness. Nothing else has that property. To be in the state if relation means to be in the observed state.

[wayneasiam]

Gotta love Robert Kuhn's channel Closer to TRUTH. Diverse subjects and deep topics. Every single video, Robert knocks it out of the park. I would say that physics and philosophy have always tried to open the eyes of humanity. Yet we as a species stumble and only grasp at what is now immediate to us, because of this we still are closer to being drooling idiots rather than dedicated to true enlightenment. We ourselves are the only way out and at the same time the reason why we don't take it.

[anthonycraig]

He is so polite. His Wellll! Means so much.
Probably one of my best clips on Closer to truth.

[MagnificoGiganticus]

My approximation of reality is superior to yours.

[jeff-xmfg]

If consciousness is an illusion that we all create, what purpose does that illusion serve? If that episode has been done already, give me a heads up because that's the one I want to watch.

[Ermanariks_til_Aujm]

Why can't you just define keywords and stick by it to see to which extent you can rationally explain the universe and its observations? Like:
Exist: An Object with a Location
Object: What has shape
Location: A distance between two Objects
Of course you can go deeper, but don't go to much into a spiral of mereology and nowhere.

Right now he's just being vague and swinging to any exits he sees through this vagueness to maintain his legitimacy.
If you can't define your terms you can't go anywhere. Even if your definitions are wrong, you need to have them and stick by it until proven unsound.
I do agree with other points more or less.

[davidcasagrande]

There are only 2 options . Existence and non existence. If there is only 1 Quark in all of eternity, then there is existence. The question here should be, What is Real and what is not Real. Existence as we know it is not real . Everything we see and know comes and goes like a puff of smoke, and when it is all gone the only thing thats left, the only thing thats real, is that which lasts for all eternity. Thats Eternity itself He should put me on the show

[ryancganim]

I love getting high on schrooms and listen to this channel

[anxious_robot]

People are kinda too obsessed with science. Obviously there's some kind of god like what the heck else would create something out of nothing? Just admit there's god and you're done with it...god could even be the matrix overlords, but something created this and us. I like science, tho, too...but you have to balance it or something...i dunno

[spacesciencelab]

One thing is for sure, reductionism will never find rock bottom due to the fractal nature of the universe. As the philosopher Alan Watts said "it's turtles all the way down. Robert says that an infinite regress doesn't make sense, why should it. In the words of Neil deGrasse Tyson, the universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

[peterrichards]

This whole discussion is on its 'own level'. Nothing 'exists' without the human conscious to experience it. Upon that, science tells us that our brains are constrained by our prevailing, limited evolutionary state. A 'higher-order' evolutionary state would have entirely different, more complex capabilities. For the same reason we experience things that our ancestors millions of years ago couldn't, there must be things which an additionally-evolved species would experience that we couldn't.
The entire problem is that when you ask a scientist 'what exists?', they'll always attempt to answer it in a physical manner, instead of being willing to conceptualize things outside of their 'box'.

[hershchat]

What does it mean to exist and what does it mean to know it exists?
What does it mean that something is known, vs. that it is knowable?
Knowable things can stay unknown.
Unknowable things can be known to exist.
Existent things can at once be knowable and unknowable.
… with a little imagination you can assign examples to each of the above non obvious categories.

The fundamental divide in the universe can be said to be between the knower, the knowledge, and the known. The knower never really fully knows the known: information cannot ever be perfectly transferred. What the knower knows is the knowledge, and never directly the known. And then there is the question about who knows the knower? In a photo from 1946, I know that there is a photographer, but I cannot know the photographer. A photo proves an existence I cannot have knowledge of. In that sense, and it is substantial point, we cannot know the “knower” directly.

In lay man’s imagination, you can construct a circular squad of observers, but in strict sense, you cannot. The Gödel incompleteness theorem gets in the way.

Whence the discussion. It isn’t as trite as one first thinks it to be.