Why does math exist? | Stephen Wolfram and Lex Fridman

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GUEST BIO:
Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[jasonjacobson]

I feel so lucky to live in this amazing time! Such incredible ideas in my pocket!🤯😂

[aaronscottmatthews]

to see the ideas begin to emerge during the first couple minutes is wonderful

[jerickodoggo]

3:47 From what I understand Wolfram is saying is: All that we know/experience is what there is. If there is computation such as basic mathematics, its apart of our consciousness's imagination, due to OUR interpretation of the universe. (from out point as humans) Well, maybe, a way to step out of this (a very small way) is to study other consciousnesses. Such as animals. Of course there isn't a whole lot to gain studying a goat. But if you can study something with a mental prowess that rivals that of a human. You can get a pretty interesting insight...Take a magpie, with its superior memory. Or even a chimp who has better short-term memory than most human adults. We really question what our own capabilities are... our intellect is top on this world. But there are animals who have better memory, better reactions, better problem solving. Better mental capacities in a lot of ways. Take an octopus who would lay eggs and may wait years just starving to death until the conditions in nature are perfect for the eggs. Risking all harm and death until they, who once hatch leave the mother nothing else to do but die in peace. That mental prowess is rarely witnessed in humans.

A goat has a very small brain. It is know as one of the more stupid mammals of this earth as according to us humans. I myself made the connotation, saying little is learned from studying them. Yet a newborn goat is brought into the world with its food source being that of a pasture(after its rearing is finished). A pasture has many different plant species. Many of them are toxic. Some would easily kill a goat if it ate to much. Some even if it ate little. So tell me, how does a newborn goat, or any goat know exactly which plants are toxic and which are not. It knows which plants have more nutrients in general and will favor them. How is it that they know this? Instincts?
Okay but put a human in a pasture and tell them this is all their source of food. That human dies quicker than a goat. What is intelligence worth, where instincts and heartiness easily compensate and then some. Goats have won a very very niche branch of this world's game. We humans are stuck on this intelligence path and we are burning in the late game... smh...

[juanf.gonzalez]

Thank you so much, Lex and Stephen. This is what traditional tv failed to offer us.

[fabkury]

Stephen Wolfram is easily one of the greatest scientific minds alive. I am personally thankful for his work. His wise thinking helps me clarify my own thinking.

[AdamChalmers]

I've only watched the fist 7 min and will need to finish it later, but my first thought is that 'stuff' does have relationships to other 'stuff' and math is the language we created to describe relationships.

[neweins]

These are the questions whose answer I'm always searching for. Nice work Lex sir!

[Zeuts]

Fantastic interview, but I have the distinct impression that Lex isn't understanding what Wolfram is saying half the time--like when he says it seems like you should be able to "step outside the Ruliad." This indicates to me that he isn't correctly modeling this idea that "formal definition" and "actuality" are indistinguishable. I.E. If you can imagine something, it means it can be formally defined through some set of rules that construct it, because imagination itself is a form of computation. From there, we simply recognize that all of our experiences of the universe amount to imagination, which is why none of us can say that we aren't living in a simulation. Our reality boils down to the things we can perceive, whether externally or internally. That perception is a feature of the formal system, because the perception itself is a computational process that is embedded within the structure. It need not be "instantiated" anywhere for that relationship to exist. This instant you are experiencing right now could be sitting on a hard drive stored away in some alien's basement, and the next instant could be stored on another hard drive in some other universe. And it wouldn't actually matter if it was stored anywhere, just like both of those hard drives could store portions of the sequence of integers, but that sequence itself exists independent of any particular substrate that models it. It simply exists in the space of possibilities that emerge from formally definable rules--i.e. the Ruliad. We only perceive anything because portions of the Ruliad have the intrinsic property of self-reflectivity--just as some cosmologists have said: We are a way for the universe to reflect upon itself.

[kostar]

Math exist in our minds and in our reality. So powerful yet eternally elusive.

[akivaprivate]

I suggest to the esteemed interviewer and interviewee to read GODEL, ESCHER, BACH
The meaning of the + sign stems from the fact that there is an isomorphism between its mathematical meaning and reality as we understand it.

[robhoppe]

I'm probably wrong, but I think there's a much simpler explanation for the invention of math. I think humans started to realize that there were plenty of recurring patterns in nature and also in human interaction. Therefore, humans needed a system of language that defines and records these recurring patterns. Hence, the creation of math. Of course, since it's inception humans have gotten really creative with math and have experimented with it and pushed it to learn all that it can do and it's limits, at the end of the day it started as a system of language to define and record recurring patterns.

[TheUpgrade]

been rewatching 1:30 to 3:20 over and over and i get glimpses

[guillaumecharrier]

There is the logical aspect and the quantitative aspect. Logic exists because people found that they needed a reliable framework with explanatory and elucidatory power when taking for object the universe as we experience it. Quantities exist because not everything is one, at least on the surface.

[mknow]

Mathematics is a language. Mathematicians understand the language and use it to describe phenomena. It is a condensed language; so for example the word 'plus' in english translates to + in maths.

[Luvurenemy]

Settle this in the Octagon….Wolfram v Fridman…Let’ssss Go!

[ahsinoe]

Mr.Wolfram needs a course in logic and declamation--he obfuscates when it isn't necessary.

[AleXXtreme]

Why do people keep answering questions like what is math in one short comment? Can't you clearly see that brilliant minds are struggling with it?

[vegahimsa]

If there were no determinism (plus, zero, one, axioms) at all, then we certainly wouldn't exist to wonder about it.

[vincentcaliendo]

Tried to watch this during lunch, my brain hurt.

[hemanthkotagiri]

0:16 - The moment I heard that statement, Godel's Incompleteness Theorems came to my mind. Am I the only one? Is there anyone that I can discuss this?