Philosophy: 60-Second Adventures in Thought (combined)

[@jedimaster708]

I seriously wish all academic subjects could be presented in such a fun and interesting way!

[@OpenLearn_OU]

For those who have expressed an interest, the animators were: Henry Paker, Victoria Kitchingman.

[@OpenLearn_OU]

@bluegreenplanet89 Yes, it really is David Mitchell :)

[@LemonyBello]

@ShatterSide It's more of a thought experiment than a practical assessment of the possibility of time travel.

[@NavneetVasistha]

@StrikaAmaru : Another example used to explain this infinite series is that of two people separated by a distance and having to both move half of the distance between them to meet at the centre. Now if only one of the person is willing to move, each half that he/she moves will decrease the distance but would never make it zero as there can be infinitesimal halves between them.

[@SamLuke69]

@OULEARN you guys are the greatest channel on KZbin.

[@OpenLearn_OU]

@hla27b yes, it is :)

[@thetango288]

i love his work on "would i lie to you" and "mock the week"

[@oO_ox_O]

@Hissanrach The paradox is stating he _can't_ move beyond the tortoise because let's say at a certain point in time when he is behind the tortoise (like right after the start because of the advance he gave it) it would take him a certain amount of time to reach the point where the tortoise was at this moment and so once when he reached this point the tortoise had time to move on it's own, thus repeating this process but never coming to an end, ie. Achilles never moves beyond it.

[@SirDerekJames]

@Pretsal The first one is a bit antiquated, because it was theorized back when we had very little understanding of infinity.

[@terribletallrus6520]

I love this. This is amazing. Great work. :)

[@oO_ox_O]

@RedDaVincy to your comment regarding 4: I don't thing that's correct. AFAIK, the concept of multiple infinities is generally only used when referring to the cardinality of sets because in the case of sequence this won't help you solve certain other and maybe more extreme "anomalies" (like where "approximating" by cutting-off at terms next to each other can yield totally different results).

[@catbat06]

i've known of the schrodinger's cat theory for years but I never realised that it was based on the fact the particle's state decides on whether the cat is alive or dead. good stuff.

[@CaptainOfDoom]

Interestingly enough, 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 and so on DOES end, despite there being infinitely many items in the addition! In fact, the value of that particular infinite sequence is exactly 1!

[@almostnearlyevil]

The explanation for the twin paradox only covers the premise of the paradox. The paradox itself is that from the moving twin's perspective, his twin, as well as his planet, flew away from him and came back (because all motion is relative). The question this poses is why the twin in the ship is the one who ages slower. I don't fully understand the resolution, although it has something to do with acceleration.

[@jversace9318]

Is this voiced by david mitchell?

[@ManBearJordan]

Jack Versace most definitely

[@ilicarriedoll2843]

yes it is

[@liv4191]

I KNEW IT

[@kazfreedman9964]

I was just think that. It is him

[@Hissanrach]

@595o Yes I understand that, but what I still don't get is that if you actually applied this problem to real life Achillies would just speed past the turtle. The problem assumes that Achillies is forever moving to close the distance between him and the turtle, but for the idea to work he would have to slow down as he reaches the turtle. In reality, he would not, especially if it was a race to a predetermined point. This only makes sense if Achillies was phyiscally unable to reach the turtle.

[@Tanglephish]

@Tanglephish If you could count to infinity, you would be able to count each of these lists. However, the list of all real numbers or even all real numbers between 0 and 1 is bigger than those, because of Cantor's diagonalization argument, which I won't go into here.

[@Champigne]

The Schrodinger's Cat theory was postulated more as a joke/poking fun at quantum mechanics, yet everyone took it seriously.

[@thisisToLife]

this was amazing! and opened my eyes to a lot of things I don't quite yet understand but would like to learn about. thank you for this!

[@functor7]

Quantum Mechanics doesn't say that we can't accurately measure because the measurement disrupts it, it says that measurement is simply not predetermined. Wavefunctions are predetermined, but not measurement.

[@Wolfsherz]

@PyroGuideToHappiness Never in my life have I read a more awesome sentence. Bravo, sir.

[@natro42]

@huswsimonbla Here the best way I can simplify it. As they start Achilles is at point A, and the tortoise is at point B. The time it takes for Achilles to reach B is 1. So when Achilles would have reached point B the tortoise will have moved to B+1. Now Achilles have to move from B to B+1, but the time it take to reach B+1 would allow the tortoise to move to B+1+2 (2 represent the time it takes to travel from B to B+1). As you can see this gap can continue to shrink indefinitely.

[@heyandy889]

Hello. I'll give it a shot. Rooms: 1, 2, 3, . . . n, n+1, n+2, . . . and so on so, there is always a room at the "end" of the sequence. It's kind of like trying to think of the "biggest" number. What's the biggest number you can think of? A billion? 10^87? Graham's number? Whatever number you say, you can always just add one to it. And there's a bigger number. So, if there were a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, there would always be one more room. :-)

[@PsychotherapyForYou]

The Chinese Room video, is very witty and sarcastic!

[@Jan96106]

Zeno's paradox applied to mortgage payments: funny.

[@piprod01]

If anyone is interested in theory of mind and artificial intelligence, I'd recommend reading "The Mind's I" by Hofstadter, and Dennett. It's fairly old, but it is a collection of essays, including the Turing test and Chinese Room experiment, both discussed here. With commentary from the book's Authors. Brilliant way to familiarise yourself with the field, without getting bogged down with too much jargon. And real interesting, and thought provoking!

[@elwoodhsmith]

Wonderful animation and a delightful educational tool. I hope these fun videos will lead viewers to crack a book or two to learn more about the topics. Also, it would be nice if the Open University adds the name of the animator who created the video.

[@typhirz]

In response to the Grandfather Paradox, it can be entirely disproved as a paradox if you take into account that time is just a dimension, like forwards, left, and up. Altering one part of the dimensions doesn't change another part along the same axes. Thus, killing your grandfather in the past would have zero effect at all, except if someone else went back in time to that moment, the grandfather would be dead. Of course, assuming you CAN time travel and that time works like a spacial dimension.

[@dothedeed]

@bodyheals quite an eloquent refutation you just gave.

[@Sarahmint]

@BinghamVlogs like the Hizenburg Uncertainty principle, the two would try to slow down/speed up to understand the other

[@DiceWarwick]

@pancakewafflebacon agree, the paradox disregards time and distance, and only factors in the space between the two. it makes a point, but with a nonsensical argument.

[@lazypunk502]

@timen1986 That's not the way you want to think of it. You have to think of it as 1 is paired with 2 and therefore 2 is paired with 4 and so on. This would make them the same level of infiniti i.e. countably infinite.

[@anwaya]

@lampofhell By definition, Searle's Chinese room operator has a book of instructions and no semantic relation to the ideograms. What is he to remember? If he remembers "I've seen this sequence of inbound symbols before and produced this sequence of symbols in reply," and concludes "that's a bit fishy," then the operator has added meaning - which is a fail for Searle's hypothesis that the operator has no semantic relation to the stream. Memory is where meaning lies. Searle requires no memory.

[@kornellster]

@TeamJulene it wasn't explained here, but it actually is a paradox. If we treated Earth as an intertial frame of reference, the twin in the rocket might be treated as stationary and we could say that earth is moving close to the speed of light, hence the paradox, we wouldn't know which twin should age faster. However, Earth isn't in fact an inertial frame and therefore we know that the guy who stays on earth has proper clock...

[@ajsadler1]

@BastardMan91 Peep Show was created/written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, not David Mitchell or Robert Webb. He did, however, write for The Mitchell And Webb Situation and That Mitchell And Webb Look.

[@locouk]

Locouk's Padadox: An infinite is such a big number it becomes a paradox in it's own right, but if you put that infinite number in a box.. You know the box will have 4 sides, even though you'll never reach a corner on that box.

[@AgentHD123]

achilles & the tortoise is a easy one - when the tortoise moved the achilles have to cover the distance tortoise maked but the speed of the tortoise and chilles doesnt change so while the tortoise is covering distance achilles will cover the distance tortoise maked and the distance making

[@catbat06]

@jimmyt3411 yea, but i guess this is the point it stands to prove. infinity is not a fixed integer and must, in itself include all of the available units to remain a valid expression. as soon as there is the possibility that there are more people to add, they are suddenly already in the hotel!

[@SylarTheBest]

What's so hard to understand about no. 4? What paradox? Infinite is infinite, it never ends, we all know that, I don't get what's so strange about that. And about the no. 1, it's all fun and games until Achiles is 1 cm from the turtle and he takes a step 1 meter long. Schrodinger's cat: the engine only does one thing or another, depending on the particle's state. The answer: the engine needs to to something when the particle is in the superposition state. I liked the time machine one :)

[@Monkeylabs]

@Hawkknight88 Have you played the game? It's like standing between two mirrors, but they are portals instead which when you go in one you come out of the other, and they are closing up towards you like a sandwich.

[@adamsbja]

It's interesting to note that when the first GPS satellites were being launched General Relativity was still up in the air, though supported by theory and experiments. The folks programming the satellites had to gamble on whether to correct for it or not.

[@jennelleli6403]

I love all six of those！！！

[@thegateopener]

Zeno's paradox is basically built around the mathematical idea that you can divide any length of space an infinite number of times. Essentially, Zeno showed that, taken literally, that principle means we cannot move anywhere, even though such a principle is very important for math and geometry. Both his paradox and Hilbert's hotel shows how the concept of infinity is logically bonkers and hard for us puny humans to understand.

[@marioluigi9669]

The guy who though about the grandfather paradox died when back to the future was created

[@ineedlez01]

If you graphed the position from origin of each on the same axes, then the point where the lines cross... The Y-value would be the "where" and the X-value would be the "when"?

[@adamsbja]

Just to clarify why the twin paradox is a paradox, from Bert's perspective his brother's time was slowed and so Al should be younger. This is resolved because while both of them see the other one moving, only Bert has experienced acceleration, which is where all the bookkeeping of relativity catches up with them. This is the issue with GPS, the satellites in orbit experience less acceleration from the Earth's gravity than we do on the ground, and as a result their clocks run faster.

[@moh89]

To explain the first theory, Achilles wouldn't be able to catch up with the tortoise as when he reaches the spot here the tortoise had started, the tortoise would have already moved. Then when Achilles reaches the second spot where the tortoise had moved to, he would again have moved. So basically everytime Achilles moves to the new spot the tortoise had reached he would always have moved even if it's the tiniest fraction of length. Remember it's just a theory :)

[@Tehtog]

@xBreeTannerx Subatomic particles can be in two states at once, Kind of like your computer being on and off at the same time. While this is true at the sub atomic level, it is also true at the human level (i.e. The cat being dead or alive) in the confines of this experiment. The point being that only when an observation is made does the state change from both possible positions and becomes one definite position. (i.e. the computer is on)

[@paulrules]

@jmarrvin This is where the whole "Challenging our perception of reality" part of quantum mechanics comes in...

[@ThatRubikGuy]

@BinghamVlogs Yes. However the means of communicating would be very complex, with the ship moving at speed close to speed of light, you can confirm this by another simple mind experiment. If you went on a 10 year old journey in that space ship and you had the "skype" window open all the time, you would need to see the other end sped up, otherwise when you return, there'd have to be a sudden leap of time and where would that time difference go?

[@lil_pharma]

4. Infinity is not a number, it is a concept. 6. The only way to observe a particle that small is to hit it with electrons. You can't just take a microscope and look at it. By hitting it with other particles, the unknown changes.

[@WilliamLetzkus]

Very interesting....thanks...many are historically philosophical paradoxes.

[@eagleduzt]

@Haroids Hehe I know the monty hall problem :) is that the one about the animals behind the doors during a game show?

[@MegaLadysman1234]

@leafblight27 Trolling via semantics? Don't know. The idea isn't that you age slower, it's that from the frame of reference of the sedentary person, they view time moving slower for the person that's moving. The traveller won't notice a difference in regards to his own clock: it will appear to be moving at normal speeds.

[@martindj88]

As far as I know, Turing didn't say that the machine can be said to think if it passes his test or any other test.

[@MaybeSomeone7483]

It's amazing ❤️

[@ludwigchopin]

Love that a comedian is somehow qualified to comment on physics and mathematics perhaps because he has an interesting, intellectual sounding voice . . .

[@Wanderlust1972]

This is like college all over again, gives me the chills seriously I miss college that much.

[@SpiritofSix]

Ideas are powerful things, I have always believed. Reality, due to the diverse nature in which it is perceived and experienced, is mostly an idea: reality results from a certain way of thinking and perceiving the things and events around us. Following this course of thought, if we are to change the ideas that we uphold we would also effectively shift the realities that we experience. This is my one passion: to expand our minds and to tear down the walls of traditional thinking that have chained us. By giving the power of new ideas back to people we can excite change where it is really needed. If you think yourself a philosopher or you want to expand your mind: bring me your thoughts and I will bring you mine. Life is no competition; may we learn from each other.

[@gabrielseth2666]

+SpiritofSix I agree completely :) The reality which we experience is the reality which we pay attention to. Attention, along with time and energy, are the true currency of life. They can all be spent, wasted, shared, and invested, and it is only when we learn how to manage THESE accounts that we find our "value" and begin to understand the true capacity of human life, and consciousness in general...

[@aneldabotes8527]

+SpiritofSix the true state of consciousness is being able to see reality from every standpoint that exists. Consciousness is the trees understanding enough to know when to shed its leaves. Reality is such a dumb word because it requires knowledge to exist. Consciousness is existence itself with a little bit of understanding. If we were truly conscious... we would not be able to contemplate these things. we would already understand and just simply exist. The rest of nature understands. we do not. We are the pervertedness of nature. We are self-conscious. #shemustbehigh

[@sunny-vega]

Not only ideas my friend, but every thought is there to give change

[@hiijjh100]

Its easy to understand, but when you really start to think about them your mind gets blown. :P

[@alZiiHardstylez]

This was really fun, MOAR MOAR MOAR.

[@tolitbrush]

the turtle one makes little sense ''would have to first cover the distance to where the turtle began'' well the turtle ''began'' from one spot so if the turtle ''started'' 20 yrds into the race and given Achilles is faster than the turtle, and even if the turtle covered an additional 5yrds in the time it took achilles to cover the 20yrds he will obviously overtake the turtle, i feel this was poorly worded or just silly thinking.

[@MegRadcliffe213]

it depends on how long the race is. If it ends before Achilles can close the distance between him and the turtle, then the turtle wins. Obviously since he moves much faster than the turtle, it would have to be a short distance, but never the less, it would still be a possibility. I think they used an overly simplified example that didn't work as well as they hoped.

[@antoineborel6667]

It is a paradox which by definition is a question with a wrong path of reflexion. The true answer is indeed that achilles will beat the turtle however we can still ask ourselves how he is going to pass the turtle if he always have to make half the way before reaching it. It doesn't mean that it's true it's just an interestung reflexion

[@cyin974]

It has to do with the time taken for Achilles to reach the turtle’s old position, notice that the time needed gets shorter each time and eventually it gets infinitely small.

[@1ucasvb]

@LordCumberdale Geez, how many times will people ask if it's David Mitchell? It's him, they've confirmed it already (on the stand-alone version of the videos).

[@heBz0rL]

Zuse was the first who build a "Turing Complete Machine" but Turing was the guy who invented the mathematical construct.

[@Hawkknight88]

@AgentHD123 They're not riddles, they're paradoxes. You can't solve it. The Achilles and the Tortoise paradox deals with the fact that infinite series can add up to whole numbers. In reality Achilles *would* catch up to the tortoise, but when you look at it as a series of steps, Achilles would just barely never catch up.

[@TheTalsh]

Twin paradox is not a paradox. When rocket-twin turns around to come back, he changes his direction, which means he is accelerating. Non-constant velocity means special relativity does not apply.

[@withoutsin]

@iranakamura This is only possible mathematically. Realistically it is not true - which is why it was stated it is a paradox, and also why the video contained the caption: "NB: Movement is possible".

[@NoirTheSable]

Yes, it seems paradoxical, but there are indeed different "sizes" of infinity (And yes, infinity does POSSIBLY exist outside of the mathematical realm). Imagine it like this: Imagine a mathematical set containing all integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 19, -22, 1564, -29552, etc.), and another set containing all real numbers (1, 2, pi, 4/9, 77/4, -1, sqrt(3), etc.). Both sets contain an infinite number of numbers, but the second should be larger than the first.

[@PsychotherapyForYou]

These are brilliant thank you!

[@v0rtic]

@maliceit reddit isn't limited to the US. This kind of action has a global impact.

[@Laytonesque278]

It's brilliant how the top comments differ so much.

[@psychobollox]

and one of my alma maters putting some really cool stuff out on here!

[@ElasticWorld]

Well, that was certainly a well displayed video.

[@DrewidDesktop]

This is great I feel I've just been watching my own Hitchikers Guide and seeing the Universe for less than 50 Altainian Euros a day.

[@amazingwave]

Hey, I'm learning about the Artificial Intelligence in my philosophy class now.

[@thespiritofcoolness]

Wait, in #1, the Tortoise was given a head start. Then it was stated that Achilles had to catch up. By then, the Tortoise had already moved. Then Achilles had to cover that distance. But isn't it weird that that meant that Achilles had to SLOW DOWN for that one and only purpose of covering the distance the tortoise made? He could have easily overtaken if he didn't slow down every time the Tortoise would move.

[@BloggerguyJr]

So, stopping at 60 seconds is more important than fullfilling the video?

[@dahZeee]

Imagine an infinite hotel with an infinite amount of rooms, with infinite guests filling only every odd-numbered room. This also gives an infinite amount of vacancies.

[@Djangolulu]

so fascinating

[@1ucasvb]

What's the music in the Twin Paradox part?

[@Gogeta0991]

The thing with the tortoise is that you always look at smalller time spans. that's the whole trick to this.

[@OSS1E42]

@Fuzzy192006 Yes, his voice is perfect for this.

[@BassLiberators]

@pancakewafflebacon no it doesn't, even if he is always moving forward its impossible to divide the distance between them past zero. so logically he can never catch up to the tortoise because the distance between them can never reach zero.

[@oO_ox_O]

@wwcaleb Isn't that already an interpretation of how we perceive quantum mechanics?

[@Annatar3469]

Stephen Fry brought me here via twitter :) I like the video!

[@dahZeee]

As you zoom closer and closer the the distance between them, you are also showing smaller and smaller bits of time, or 'snapshots' of the race. You will never see the completion of the race, just as you will never see Achilles overtake the tortoise when viewing the race in this manner.

[@OpenLearn_OU]

The OU is conducting a survey investigating how people use our free content. The aim is to provide a better free learning experience for everyone. If you are interested in giving your views please copy and paste this link into your browser - bit.ly /ouytsurvey - (you will need to remove the space before /ouytsurvey in order for the link to work)

[@KingToniono]

but that's the challenge of the paradox, you can infinitely divide the distance between 2 objects in half, how and when do you eventually break that?

[@TheMayari]

@bluegreenplanet89 Yes!!! I think its David Mitchell. I love him!!

[@simongarrettmusic]

brilliant

[@ilanarhian]

can a Polish person explain why you are expecting a translation of this in Polish? it's from the UK Open University, not the Polish one? or did they have a link to this on the Polish OU site? I'm just wondering, that's all. :)

[@peregrinetoad2459]

i think with schrodingers cat the geiger counter would just break the poison anyway because there is one raidioactive state present which it detects because it's not a smart enough geiger counter to handle them both

[@variousmentalproblems]

I don't know if this is possible to explain in 500 characters, but how can an atom be both decayed and not decayed at the same time?

[@miniemor]

@A55ma57er My point, is that he's not a "jack-off" for saying multiple dimensions don't exist, because there's no evidence for or against it. He didn't even say anything about another dimension, he said something about a parallel universe. Learn the difference. The String theory is also still what it says it is, a theory. While it seems plausible, it still isn't a hard fact.

[@gme5881]

this is the best part of youtube:... MAKE MOOOAAAR !!! plz :3

[@leafblight27]

@Bubbiea yes, time actually doesn't exist. The idea that you simply age slower because you "go real fast" is beyond preposterous.

[@oO_ox_O]

@Hissanrach The paradox assumes that both move at constant speed.

[@ShiroKage009]

While the video is awesome, all I can think of is "where can I get the music from the cat's segment?"

[@Dodobird133]

Okay, I understood number 4 (infinite hotel one), but I don't get the point. What did he prove with that?