Roger Penrose explains Godel's incompleteness theorem in 3 minutes

good explanation

from his interview with joe rogan

[OngoGablogian]

I'll never forget the first time I met this brilliant man. I was an undergrad at Oxford and all I had with me was a mathematics textbook and green pen. I asked him to sign it and he happily obliged. I still open it almost weekly to see the short, wonderful message inside. It said "All the best, Joe Rogan".

[isaacwilson]

This reminds me of that time when I read Shakespeare to a pigeon.

[carlrosa]

Throughout that entire speech, All Joe is thinking is - "I could take this dude, easily."

[jaserogers]

If there is one nuanced intellectual on the planet with which you want to discuss high level pure mathematics, it's Joe Rogan.

[documenter]

Penrose: *finishes explaining mathematical theorems*
Joe: I too think that Conor will win the trilogy

[OBM]

I appreciate that Joe just lets Penrose talk uninterrupted to complete his thought. The interview is about the interviewee.

[jonassteinberg]

I've briefly met this man. I had him sign my *pre-algebra* textbook. Then I completed my undergrad in Math. That textbook sits proudly on my shelf.

[KurtGodel]

Joe’s face in the first few seconds says it all.

[EpicMathTime]

This is like when you accidentally wander into a zone 90 levels too high in an mmo

[maurogarces]

You can mock Joe for not knowing every thing that every guest is really good at. Yet he gives them the space, and gives us the opportunity to see these kind of things.

[Sam_on_YouTube]

I remember going through the proof in my logic class. We spent 2 full long lectures establishing the coding system and learning how it works. Then, in like 15 minutes, the professor writes the code that translates to "This statement cannot be proved." And proves that the fact this statement can be encoded in a system (and very simple systems can encode it) means that the system cannot be complete.

[RichardASalisbury]

The LOGICAL structure of Godel's proof is simple. He tweaks "This statement is false" to make this: "This statement is unprovable." There are two possible truth-values for this: If the statement is true, then you have a true statement that is unprovable. If the statement is false, then the statement is provable, which means you have proof of a false statement. So any (sufficiently complex) mathematical-logical system is either incomplete (with statements you know to be true but can't prove) or self-contradictory (with false statements you can prove), or both.

[xthe_nojx]

Joe is by no means a brilliant man, but he was smart enough to listen and not interrupt.

[rustychassis]

Not shown here, but I loved how Rogan immediately jumped in with several razor-sharp rebuttals to Penrose’s thesis; especially with regard to the worrying epistemological implications of applying temporal elliptic curves to the integral space-time manifold projected in Hilbert space by the application of algebraic homotopy determinants.

[zgobermn]

Joe's thoughts: 'for the life of me I'm not even sure if he's speaking english!'

[copkhan]

Joe Rogan : So you are saying that you can tap someone out but you can not really prove it unless the referee is watching it?

[spacevspitch]

Veritasium owned this in his video. Best explanation I've seen.

[abhishekshah]

Roger Penrose is actually the first intellectual who got me started on this whole train of logic, incompleteness and halting problems. I was always interested in the study of logic, but by first listening to him talk about this matters is what deepened my curiosity. His books go into more detail and is a pure joy to read for logic/math/science nerds alike. I have immense respect for this man, just for the way he bridges the cutting edge of human thought with simplistic language, a feat not easy for mere mortals like us.

[Shooshie]

I wouldn’t say that Penrose “just explained Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.” He described it, but did not explain it at all. Douglas Hoffstaedter explained it, but maybe not in a way that’s accessible to everyone, in his book “Gödel, Escher, Bach; an Eternal Golden Braid.” It hasn’t aged well, but if you forget that computer languages used to be much more basic it still makes sense. That one book will transform your knowledge and understanding of the world, sciences, arts, and everything else. G-Plot - one of Hoffstaedter’s illustrations - is like witnessing the code of the universe. It’s a book that’s impossible to sum up, but which genuinely tries to make the most complex things simple enough to understand and appreciate.

[little.bear]

Penrose: "Everything proceeds mathematically"
Joe: "Wanna see a video of a one thousand pounds polar bear being killed by four Eskimo midgets using nothing but Inuit axes?"