How to Count All the Objects in the Universe - Philosophy Tube

Metaphysics! How would we count all the objects in the universe?

Twitter: @PhilosophyTube

Suggested Reading:
David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds,
Keith Hossack, “Plurals and Complexes,” in British Journal for Philosophy of Science
Cian Dorr, “What We Disagree About when We Disagree about Ontology,” in Fictionalism in Metaphysics
Peter van Inwagen, Chapter 2 of Material Beings
James Van Cleve, “The Moon and Sixpence: A Defence of Mereological Universalism,” in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics

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[comradekenobi]

Philosophy Tube, you missed one crucial option -- Monism, my current position, which states that every object is part of a bigger object, and that ultimately every perceivable object can be encapsulated into a single universal object. So the correct way to think of the ship is not as a unique, individual thing, but as a part of a thing that is a part of a thing (and so on and so forth) that is part of the universe as a singular object. So, essentially, the answer to the question, how many objects exist in the universe, is "1."

[IJustLoveStories]

I don't know if a video this old still gets responses, but I've got some ideas on this. There might be some fatal flaw I've yet to see, but throughout the video I felt like an option is missing, so here's my idea of an object: An object is the collection of things that we don't perceive separately. From an objective, non-perceptive standpoint, no reasonable distinctions can be drawn between things. Without perception, the only thing that exists is just the universe reacting to itself. Those reactions form patterns, but those can't be considered a separate thing from anything else unless there's a being there to perceive it as separate.

Within this idea, an object can also consist of a collection of other objects. For example, a mechanical pencil. We can split it up into all of it's parts, and we can recognize every part as a separate object. The spring is a different thing from the little stick of graphite, and both of those are different from the piece of plastic that makes the casing. However, put together, we also recognize it as a single object, the pencil. If it runs out of graphite, and we replace it, we don't consider it to be a different pencil, but we dó recognize that it is now made up of a different collection of things.

This is not to say that objects that aren't being observed don't exist. I'd rather say that, without an observer, it makes no sense to call it an object. It's rather a pattern of reactions. It's perception that makes it it's own object. When it is not being observed, I would rather say that what is there is a potential object. It's a pattern of reactions that have the potential to be recognized as an object. This may seem like a useless distinction, but what is recognized as an object is not necessarily universal. For example, the distinction between the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system might not be immediately obvious to a being that observes these things without the preconception that they're separate. It may not make immediate sense to consider them as separate objects.

This also comes with the implication that whenever a potential object is perceived wrongly, a different object is created. A child might think there is a monster under the bed, and in the perception of that child that monster exists. The child has seen, heard or felt it's presence. When the light is turned on, and it turns out that what the child saw was actually an unfortunately placed collection of toys, it confirms that what the child saw was separate from what the child sees now. Therefor, they are different objects. The only difference between the monster and the collection of toys is that the toys corresponds very closely to potential objects, while the monster did not.

And lastly, for the question of how many objects there are, in this idea, conceptual objects are objects too. Modernism is recognized as separate from objectivism, thus they are objects. This also means that each individual perceiving a potential object introduces a new object into the universe, even if no new potential objects are created.

There we go. Good chance I spent the last hour writing this out for nobody to ever read, but it felt good to play with my ideas for a bit.

[Mar]

Sorry but Marissa's calculation is wrong by an unimaginably large margin, (10^80)! is a vast lot bigger than 10^3240.

What she did was calculate the product 10^80 * 10^79 * 10^78 ... * 10^1 * 10^0 or product_{i=0}^{80}(10^i). this can indeed be transformed to 10^(sum_{i=1}^{80}(i)) which is equal to 10^(80*81/2)=10^3240.

But the factorial is not the aforementioned product to begin with. It's the product of every single integer from 1 to 10^80, therefore it has 10^80 factors, not 80 - which is 1.25*10^78 as many factors.

Exactly calculating the factorial of 10^80 with ordinary computers is impossible and in fact doesn't make a lot of sense anyways because the factorial is extremely sensitive to errors on its dependent variable, e.g. 10^80+1 factorial is already 80 orders of magnitude bigger than 10^80 factorial and 10^80 was only an estimate on the number of particles in the observable universe, it's not accurate to 80 digits, and thus introduces a colossal error on its factorial.

Anyways, a good approximation of 10^80 ! would be using a variant of Ramanujan's approximation and gives (10^80)! ~= sqrt(2*pi*10^80) * (10^80/e)^(10^80) * e^(1/(12*10^80) - 1/(360*10^240)) ~= 2.5066*10^40 * (3.6788*10^79)^(10^80), which still can't be calculated with an ordinary computer.

Wolfram Alpha helped with that and calculated (10^80)! ~= 10^(10^81.900726), which is tremendous.

[bokkibear]

I think "object" is a good example of what Wittgenstein was talking about when he referred to "language games"; it can have different meanings depending on what we intend to *do* with the concept. If we're confident that our usage of object won't break down in the current context, then the edge cases don't necessarily matter that much. In more extreme cases, especially ones where scientific accuracy is very important, the mereological nihilist seems to have the best shot at not getting into a linguistic tangle, but asking which perspective is "true" doesn't really resonate as asking which perspective is most appropriate for the question at hand.

With the Ship of Theseus, we need to acknowledge that our everyday "folk physics" of objects simply breaks down, and that it's basically just a useful approximation to nihilism (or universalism, if you insist). Universalism does make me a bit nervous in the Occam's Razor sense, though - it seems like it doesn't actually give us anything we don't get from nihilism, while being vastly more complex in terms of entities.

[Pinocchio]

I like to think of the whole universe including our experiences as one multidimensional object.

[Rowan_A_Boat]

Can we not also take an Egoistic approach?
I would say that objects are only objects insofar as I personally have a use for them.
A camera is one object when assembled & many when disassembled, with the distinction being that I can use the pieces separately, only when they are not made into a camera.

This line of thinking would assume that "objects" are a human construct, & therefore is falsifiable by proving that they aren't.
It may seem a little arbitrary, but that's not really a bad thing, since that's the entire point.

I think I covered my bases, but I'm sure I forgot something...

[grandsome]

An object is an idea, when something in reality is approximated enough to the general convention (language) that thing is an object. An object is just something we agree about.

[ludophile]

I don't know much on the subject, but I think making a distinction between "physical objects" and "ideas" would be useful. When we are talking about cats or tables, we are talking more about mental patterns than physical objects. And since we do not apprehend the world directly, but through this lense of concepts, through pattern recognition, problems like "puzzles of identity" appear.
I was thinking about this question during physic courses. Classical mechanics illustrate very well this problem. It is certainly the most intuitive physical model, and it works, but it has a lot of ambiguous concepts like "solid object" and "fluid", or "object" and "system".

[margothutton]

Funny story: I first learned about nihilism at college (university.  I'm American, shuddup.) but by that point I'd been studying Latin far longer.  So when I read "nihilism, " I instantly recognized the Latin root, and quickly made a fool of myself by pronouncing it the Classical Latin way: ni-HILL-ism.  Good times.
Also, I'm sure you're feeling better by the time this video releases, so instead of wishing you a quick recovery, I wish you a high-five for bulling though the cold.  Way to be.
Also, I vote imagination.

[TheMonk]

If each group of objects is itself an object then the total number of combinations goes up significantly.  For 3 simples the total number of combinations is 10: [1, 1-2, 1-2-3, 12-3, 1-23, 1-3, 13-2, 2, 2-3, 3].  Those 3 extras (12-3, 13-2 and 1-23) are distinct from 1-2-3, as each is a pair of objects where one object is simple and the other complex.

I started working through the set of all combinations of objects - both simple and complex - with 4 simples but lost track around 40.  I'm fairly sure that the total is 49, but not certain.  I'm sure there's a formula that will give me the answer, but it's certainly way more than N! combinations

[Sam_on_YouTube]

Even counting the fundamental particles alone is not so simple as that. Whether 2 electrons are two objects or a single 2- electron entity depends on how detailed you really want to be.

I wrote a paper in college exploring the mereology of liquid helium. Here's the puzzle: Bosons are particles like light that can be the same place same time. Fermions are particles like protons and neurons that can't. Helium is made up of 4 fermions but set extreme low temperatures they behave as a single composite boson. But how can the atoms be in the same place at the same time when their constituent parts cannot?

After a lot of discussion with my Quantum 2 professor, it turns out the answer is that they can't. It is a highly useful approximation. A sufficiently detailed analysis would reveal the true nature of tightly bound fermions interacting as such but that answer is fundamentally useless so the practical answer is that they compose a single boson.

Further, a sufficiently detailed analysis of ANY two objects, quantum mechanically, require them to be treated as single objects. Often, physicists use Quantum Field Theory in which there are simply a handful of fields permeating the universe that have many different excitations corresponding to all the objects in the universe. And these fields as well are simply low-energy manifestations of a single more fundamental field (though that is not confirmed and physics has yet to unite gravity with the other force fields among other unsolved problems). But even ignoring quantum field theory (which is the single best confirmed scientific theory in history) people talking about this concept often use the idea of a "universal wave function" to describe the most perfect but utterly impractical description of anything in the universe.

The conclusion I reached was what I called mereological perspectivism. What constitutes an object? It depends on why you are asking.

And as for your list of all objects in the universe... compete rubbish. You can't form any such list without making inconsistent assumptions and if you do that, no logical conclusion stemming from it would be sound anyway.

[marcosgutierrez]

I'm surprised he didn't mention the fact that this is referred to as "The Problem of the Many, " in which the philosopher Peter Unger compared this identification vagueness to the individual water droplets within a cloud. Some pretty interesting stuff.

[oddjob]

for more on the Adams view, I recommend Oolon Culoophid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Just Who is This God Pesron really enjoy your channel keep up the good work

[roxanneayahs]

Great video Olly! You really know your stuff, I always enjoy watching! Thank you

[CorwinKelly]

Very cool video! I loved the argument for determining that the answer must be either always or never. My vote for the next episode is what is imagination.

[Kram]

I feel like the imprecision in the question "how many things are there?" is precisely the notion of "thing". It seems to me that you might well get several answers, depending on what counts as "thing", and that that is not at all a problem. It's actually a dependent question, and so the answer must also be dependent.
Thus I would say neither the Nihilists nor the Universalists are wrong here. Given their notions of "thing", they are each correct.


As for Theseus' ship, it kinda applies to us too: We constantly shed skin and hair. Breathe. Eat. Poop and pee. Get damaged and repair the damage. It's a distinct possibility that not a single atom you had at birth is still part of you.
I like to think what makes you you is more like a wave than a particle. Like, you are, in effect, a very complex standing wave (or perhaps a Soliton) made up of a lot of particles. Which ones? How many? The precise identity and number doesn't matter. - Matter can basically flow through you. But as long as your body functions / is "sufficiently healthy" (this is definitely a vague statement - roughly I mean, it's still fending off decomposing. It still is alive), all that matter is going to be forced to vibrate and move according to that standing wave.
You are not your particles. You do not own them. At least not permanently. They all will pass through you eventually. Neither do your particles own you. They are foced by all their local interactions to act in ways which, in aggregate, cause the existence of you. But at each instant they all only "know" (as in "interact with") their neighbours.


So I would say the first Theseus' ship is definitely still that ship even after every part got replaced. Even if it got upgraded or modified. The second ship, at best, would be something like an offspring. That's not *quite* right, but it's the closest analogy I can think of if we were to talk humans. Your mom grew a full extra set of organs and then shed them all. All those parts were her at one point. But after shedding them, they have become a new life. It's like a wave that split in two.


So how many things are there? In a way it's actually just one. An enormous wave that is the entire universe. In a way it's every single particle that makes up that wave. And in a way you can take an in-between stance, looking at waves of, effectively, certain ranges of frequencies. And in some contexts it might be valuable to look at combinations of such bands as well.
Each answer you might possibly get from that is a valid answer in my book, so long as it matches the current notion of "thing" discussed.
In fact, I'm not sure, but I think that might allow for even more than Marissa's (or Mar's) number of "things"? Because waves could be split up in ways particles cannot. As said, the precise number of particles in a wave does not even matter to the wave. Even if you take out a few or add a few, the wave is gonna act in nearly identical ways. (This reduces to the discussion about when a pile of sand starts/stops being a pile which is, of course, a related issue) - I'm really not quite sure if that principle could somehow be used to get out even more combinations somehow.

[noticias]

I like how it when you do something as simple as give definitions:mereological nihilism and mereological unverisalism/unrestricted composition and merological innocence. Nice symbol for when you give a reference. I liked the part ar 6:08-7:02.

:D Dang!, you went the distance with bringing up one certain Vsauce video.Marrissa's number !. I'll say for now I prefer mereological universalism and I'm dig either video topics for next time.

[yafietabraha]

This is corroborated by the ship of Theseus example. Theseus's ship=ship of Theseus. As pieces get replaced, the used product is the ship of Theseus. The apparatus that Theseus uses as a ship is quite literally his ship. The min problem in realizing this is simply the fact that one is pushing obligation of a ship to random particles. The obligation is not theirs, but the original person's. So, as I've said before, here, there is only one object. The will, or desire manifested in any particular form it needs. Desire is the connection between these particles. They are all one "object" as they are all used for a pragmatic reason, proving universalism. They(particles), with their obligation on themselves, and not on this odd connection between themselves, are simply working particles with no real form. As for the trouturkey, or trout turkey, here's this:there's infinite uses for the particles in the universe. Well, maybe not infinite, but so many that they eclipse our uses. The trout turkey is one example of these not needed uses.

[Philmightbehere]

Sorry to be picky about the math, but I'm pretty sure Marissa's Number is wrong by many, many orders of magnitude. It is big, but nowhere near big enough. The formula I think you want (for finding subsets) is 2^n, rather than n factorial, though that includes the empty set (so subtracting 1 gives the correct answer). For 3 bottles of beer that would be 2^3 - 1 which is 7 (not 6 as in the video). We can check that - for bottles A, B, C the subsets are { ABC, AB, AC, BC, A, B, C }.

So the total number of objects should be 2^(10^80)-1. A very rough approximation for that number as a power of 10 would be 10^(3*10^79). That has 3*10^79 digits, as opposed to 3240 digits for Marissa's number as you listed it!

I'd guess Marissa was thinking of permutations and not combinations or something?

[muaadtamtam]

Great video! But the maths is awfully wrong.
Firstly (10^80)! is not equal to 10^3240. In fact the former is almost unimaginably greater than the latter.
Secondly and most importantly, (10^80)! is equal to the number of permutations possible (i.e. the number of ways we can organise 10^80 atoms) which is not what you're trying to calculate.
As some have pointed out in the comments, if we want to calculate the number of subsets of 10^80 atoms we need to calculate it's powerset (minus the empty set), which is equal to 2^(10^80) -1.
However, the order of elements in these subsets (for this case the order in which the atoms are arranged) does not matter, which I believe not to be what you're trying to calculate.
So we need to account for all the permutations of all elements in each subset.
Using binomial coefficients we can work that out to be equal to :
the sum ∑
[from k=1 to 10^80] of [(10^80)!/((10^80) - k)!]
I believe this is the answer you wanted
Feel free to show this to Marissa :)
I'm personally a maths student