What Exists II? | ENCORE Episode 1906 | Closer To Truth

What exists? What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible - the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified? Featuring interviews with Barry Loewer, David Albert, Luke Barnes, Raymond Tallis, and George F. R. Ellis.
An encore screening of Season 19, Episode 6 - #CloserToTruth
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Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.
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Closer to Truth 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.
#Existence #Reality

[@lordkresh]

I feel him on the losing his friends remark, lol.

[@theliamofella]

Me too Especially considering that most people I know don’t even know that stars are suns , How could you be so uninterested in this reality that you haven’t even considered what are them glowing things in space , so when I try talking about the wave function and Boltzmann brains , the block universe and the ramifications of an infinite universe , they think I’m a gobshite😂

[@theliamofella]

@@rumble1925 oh 100% , I have no interest in making myself look smarter, but I do have an obsession with trying to find out what is it all about, everyone who knows me knows that I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, and have medium intelligence at best, but the interest is just not there from people who I know, after studying this stuff every day for 20 years I have naturally learned a fair bit , so I actually keep most of what I have learned to myself because it will not register and will look like I’m being egotistical, when I do not give a one single Fuk about that

[@morganhavard1605]

I don't have any additional categories of what exists to propose. However, I have a question about the nature of said categories of what exists. Does the whole category have to exist first before any individual member can exist? For example, does the whole electron field have to exist first before any given electron can exist? Or can some particular thing exist locally without first being a member of the category? Or put another way, does the whole universe have to exist first as a unified whole before any particular thing within it can exist? Or can individual things emerge first and only by combining the multitude of things can the whole be achievable, though not necessarily achieved? I learned to ask these questions by reading William James' book, The Pluralistic Universe. Check it out.

[@xenphoton5833]

No

[@cbton_]

Really good. I enjoyed this very much. Thanks.

[@Biggus_Diggus1]

This show follows the likes of Carl Sagan's majical aura.

[@micpin6810]

@@cosminvisan520 Yeah, Sagan was way overrated.

[@TheTroofSayer]

25:53 - Well, I don't know if this helps Robert's quest, but a category I've been toying with (and written about) relates to Being (Dasein) as some kind of fundamental (Heidegger's Dasein relates to Being at the human level, but I suggest that it also relates to every other kind of Being, including non-human). Within its context we have 1) the desire to be and 2) knowing how to be. It is fairly easy to see how these two fundamental principles might play out among the living. When an organism is born, all its motivations to *know how to be* spring from its *desire to be*. If you desire to be, then you pursue what your mind-body is predisposed to pursuing, and you are motivated to know how to be. Knowing how to be is integral to top-down causation. But does Dasein also play out at the level of void, where matter is created (virtual particles and all that) in observance of the laws of symmetry? Can a subatomic particle "desire to be"? And when, with cubed root reduction, we arrive at the level of the very small that has been released from its newtonian-physics constraints (refer Geoffrey West's book Scale** for what I'm getting at), must subatomic particles also "know how to be", in order to fulfill their roles at the cellular level and across synapses? Many of the paradoxes in quantum physics might be better understood in this context of "knowing how to be." And so I would suggest that yes, maybe this Dasein interpretation merits further exploration. Being as fundamental implies that there is no such thing as not-Being. If I am right and Being (Dasein) is some kind of fundamental category, then all other categories are subsumed within its domain, including God Himself (if we want to go that route). For ultimately, He must surely be the ultimate manifestation of the desire to be *and* the knowing how to be. **West, G. (2017). Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies. Penguin Press.

[@petrospetroupetrou9653]

Interesting as always...philosophy is inexhaustible...defines humanity

[@TheFreedomBay]

Son, thats just like your mother😉

[@JungleJargon]

Only truth is forever.

[@randumbnobody]

Can y'all update the spotify podcast so we can listen to more on there? Ty and love what this channel does

[@rickwyant]

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

[@silveryashkul]

Both statements are applicable

[@jarrettesselman8144]

Give your life to Christ and be saved, then, we can experience the entirety of the universe forever and ever, together. That would be a good experience.

[@gene4094]

To make our existence have purpose, we should explore scientific knowledge as far as possible.

[@jarrettesselman8144]

I just know that if some of you understood how many scientific hints are embedded in scripture that you would find it as compelling and intriguing as I do. I know you would. I enjoyed this video more than most any other from this channel. So many answers to some of the questions can be found in Scripture. I find that intriguing. There’s so many things that it’s like an onion, becoming more and more potent with every layer you peel back. From your laryngeal nerve all the way to the molecular make up of a molecule of carbon, your entire reality and existence from beginning to end can be found in Scripture. As Can the reason why you won’t look.

[@jarrettesselman8144]

The Word must be in you first.

[@JungleJargon]

You can’t have any physical thing without a Creator of matter since it can’t make or direct itself. Energy can’t make or direct itself.

[@micpin6810]

21:00 - Classic example of philosophical gobbledygook. Nonsense. 😂😂

[@holgerjrgensen2166]

The Naked Basic Analysis of Life, is, it is 'Some that Exists', (X0) Not a thing, but a Living Reality. Basic-analysis of X0, is X1, X2 and X3, the 'I', Consciousness and Organism (short told) What's the ultimate stuff of reality? Mind-Stuff, is the ultimate stuff, the spring of Thoughts, is where 'The Energies Turns', Every thing goes in Circuits, all directions is curved, all movement is spiral. Cold and Heat (+ Instinct) is the Stuff-bearing Basic-Energies, in all stuff, including Mind-stuff/Life-side.

[@troyyoung1121]

Hi Robert Does a crocodile that lived in the Mesozoic era 230 million years ago. Sit at a watering hole and wait for another herd of animals to take a drink, then ambush one for food to obtain energy have a thought about its prey, about the time the prey would be there for a drink and other opportunistic thoughts .Time, regular patterns , dominance of a region by individuals gives way to consciousness. Could it be said that thinking and consciousness is related to a full , satisfied stomach and very few predators?

[@mikel4879]

Troy Y / Robert truly agrees with what you say, but he's not interested in that. He is interested in how to create in reality the full artificial consciousness. That's his mission with his channel.

[@gigelchiazna1573]

thing either are or not - very interesting!

[@peweegangloku6428]

1) The physical stuff (including quantum field) is not self explanatory as to its existence. It is not self sustaining. (2) It requires something else to explain the existence and conglomeration of the physical. What is that something else? (3) Next, anything physical has values in terms of numbers. Not so with consciousness along with all its attachés, namely, emotions, inherent meaning of language, self awareness, beauty, etc. (4) Time is in its own category. It is neither physical nor is it an element of consciousness. We tend to attach numbers to time, albeit haphazardly. (5) Then we also have the ever existing infinite space, which is the container for the physical stuffs. Eventually, we will discover and analyse additional ones.

[@rayfighter]

you don't know that

[@rnp5157]

Thousands of years ago, Indians said that pure and undivided consciousness is the basic stuff of the universe.

[@LPArabia]

I agree with Ser Davos Seaworth 16:13

[@troyyoung1121]

Hi Robert Humans have lasted long enough to think about simply more than finding,consuming food for energy and procreating to ensure our dominance in our new position at the top of the tree!Very basic thoughts ! Prior to humans having thoughts to decipher actions of our physical earth and how we react accordingly to extract energy from it and exist . Did or did not the rest of the universe just exist living and dying on its own ? It seems your ultimate question is why can we even understand anything with the mathematics that we’ve discovered about how our surroundings work at all ?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Could space - time develop from a specific energy density measured in time?

[@ronpaulrevered]

The category of human action.

[@williampatton7476]

Information and information about information. In other words, there's stuff- and then there's the experience/consciousness of that stuff(what i'm calling information about information).

[@qazswer2345]

One of your great episode here! Now it is all in the words. Define exist: what is real. Define real: what exists. We are not far. So let's talk about this. Someone has an example of something that doesn't exist? With facts. Easy, there is no integer between 1 and 2. Ok... Let's not ask for something we couldn't think about. Let's ask for something physical that doesn't exist in the universe. With facts please.

[@misterbobo8139]

You can only think a thought if it’s possible to think it.

[@tomkwake2503]

What’s absolutely fundamental? My answer is ENERGY, energy creates potential and kinetic energy, mass, forces, space, time, and over time, energy became aware of itself.....human beings, who became aware of the different types of energies that exist....CONSCIOUS SENSES of (waves, forces, matter, life and abstract energy forms, dark energy, dark matter, bosons, fermions, thought, and platonic forms, such as mathematics and qualia, etc.). Forms of energy that are dynamically stable patterns of energy over and in time.

[@08wolfeyes]

Maybe it's something as simple as the probability of information at any given point in time and space.

[@georgegrubbs2966]

Why not the possibility that our universe "emerged from" or "is part of" a larger Universe that is all of reality and has existed and will exist "forever"? This fundamental substrate consists of the most basic form of energy field and a few "rules." Everything came from that substrate, even physical "laws."

[@steve_____K307]

It seems you are suggesting that the “substrate” had no cause? That it is eternal, uncaused, and the cause of everything else, and that it somehow even had the ability to derive consciousness along the way (a significant feat)? For many people the only way they could accept that is if that lowest level “substrate” was itself already a form of consciousness.

[@johnyharris]

@@steve_____K307 We have an innate ability to detect consciousness in things. We only ever detect it in living things. So consciousness is a feature of living things. All features of living things evolve through natural selection. Therefore, consciousness evolved through natural selection.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Possibility space through conscious energy?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Does quantum wave of universe have time / energy uncertainty?

[@raajrajan1956]

More correct is who perceives existence.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Is mathematics related to causation?

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Could consciousness happen when matter turned back to energy?

[@ItsEverythingElse]

"Maybe" there are fields?! lol

[@terrycallow2979]

I've asked this question a few times with no answer. What does RLK think of Tom Campbells book "My Big Toe" and his views on consciousness. Anyone know?

[@jeffamos9854]

Nope

[@yourlogicalnightmare1014]

Tom not only gave a ridiculous name and book cover photo to his treatise, he walks a fine line between sanity and total loon, staggering towards total loon too often. Bernardo Kastrup has a far better, more cogent explanation than Tom

[@georgegrubbs2966]

"Possibility space" is not a new idea." It is fundamental to mathematics, physics, and probability (probability space)."

[@jeffamos9854]

You are wrong

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Matter produced from energy?

[@ianrobbins]

the category of unknown categories?

[@goham5481]

What does it matter

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Might quantum mechanics be the future measured into the present by a causation?

[@georgegrubbs2966]

No such thing as "thoughts." A thought is simply neural activity. Humans gave the name "thought" to certain types of that activity.

[@RolandHuettmann]

I do not agree. My thoughts have content, are not just electrical impulses in my brain, and it includes that I am aware of them, even in dreams. A taste of an apple is more than the physicality of the apple, whether you like it, or not...)

[@jeffamos9854]

Thoughts don’t exist. Thoughts are just an idea in your consciousness

[@RolandHuettmann]

If thoughts do not exist then you do not exist. Take it easy..)

[@jamenta2]

How do you know this? Currently, there is no scientific evidence that any kind of electro-chemical exchange can create a single thought. That is not to say there is plenty of correlations between brain-states and the experience of a "thought". But correlation is not causation. What scientific evidence or explanation allows you to make your statement here - unless it's just a unfounded assumption you are making - not based on any science at all?

[@steve_____K307]

I guess we'll interpret the very sentence you just typed as nothing more than random neural activity guided by the particular chemistry occurring in your brain at the moment. Ok, let me give that some thought.

[@osip7315]

what are abstractions ? why is there no answer to this ? because any answer impinges upon abstractions

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

Maybe subjectivity has time?

[@charlesrothauser1328]

Is there a threshold between the world of quantum mechanics and the newtonian world?

[@lucofparis4819]

Not a threshold, just a glaring incompatibility when it comes to describing gravity at the quantum scales. Neither theory succeeds by the way.

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

quantum mechanics has energy fields?

[@brothero.tongue-bey435]

A Motion is all there is. Stop Motion, No Existence.

[@ziaedin]

My comment was deleted as I only said our understanding of existence is shallow. To show this fact I linked a document I have uploaded to researchgate. Please inform me your reason otherwise.

[@sonicjihad7]

When hi brow philosophy meets stoner question: what exists?

[@georgegrubbs2966]

Consciousness is not fundamental. There were living things without consciousness for billions of years. Consciousness IS locally fundamental to things that have consciousness.

[@jeffamos9854]

Consciousness is everything. Context and meaning doesn’t exist without consciousness

[@jamenta2]

Wheeler's delayed choice experiment demonstrates events of a past can be constrained by the measurement of an Observer. Therefore, an Observer need not be present in the past. It has also been scientifically demonstrated with some considerable evidence, consciousness contains non-local properties.

[@steve_____K307]

Maybe a summary of your claim would be that non-conscience stuff created consciousness. Hmmmm? Really?

[@yourlogicalnightmare1014]

Your lack of basic and readily available knowledge is both deeply disturbing and mind numbing profound

[@georgegrubbs2966]

@@yourlogicalnightmare1014 It never fails. When someone has nothing intelligent to add, they attack people.

[@danielwaters6001]

Can I send a message to myself from

[@danielwaters6001]

Future

[@jamenta2]

A good episode that doesn't heavily lean into reductive materialism to find absolute answers. The best part I like about this episode is the frequent statement that many questions are still *open questions* in science and philosophy. And probably will be open questions long after this show is done and you and I and the rest of you reading this have given up the ghost - to - what? Another reality? Self annihilation forever? The answer is: an open question.

[@jamenta2]

@@cosminvisan520 If you weren't so certain about yourself and laughed every time you made a reply to one of my comments Cosmin - I would be more inclined to share your sentiments. But certainty is often a sure sign of mental instability instead.

[@jamenta2]

@@cosminvisan520 There are many intelligent people alive Cosmin. Very smart people - in the past and present. You are not the only one.

[@jamenta2]

@@cosminvisan520 No thanks. Your replies (and condescension) tell me all I really need to know about you.

[@jamenta2]

@@cosminvisan520 Wow. Just wow.

[@yourlogicalnightmare1014]

Nothing physical, if there is such a thing, that is outside your own mind is ultimately knowable in its essence, as there's an unbridgeable gap between the observer and the observed

[@kalkidanissac]

Hey 👋. I am pretty sure my comments exist

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

*"I am pretty sure my comments exist"* ... Have you verified this using another channel? CTT is only allowing maybe 10 to 12 comments in the "top comment" section. Everything else is getting shoved into the "newest first" section. When you mistakenly end up added to their spam filters, then you'll understand what's happening to everyone else. I'm not going to spend my time commenting with information that CTT simply shoves aside.

[@kalkidanissac]

@@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC I see, I will check

[@jeffamos9854]

@@kalkidanissac you don’t exist. Your just an idea in some else’s consciousness

[@paulorrmorais3697]

Please, study "The Great Sinthesys" of Pietro Ubaldi! Do you want answers for your fundamental questions? Read his work!

[@PetraKann]

No

[@jamesruscheinski8602]

God's existence in time?

[@jarrettesselman8144]

The law was made for man, man was not made for the law. Consciousness is first and creates the law.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

I won't be watching because my comments don't show up anymore. No sense in sharing my information when the end result is "nonexistence" of that information. You really need to fix your "spam filters," CTT.

[@jeffamos9854]

Nonexistent of your information ? Did you fall into a black hole.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@cosminvisan520 *"I told you, is not ctt, is utube. Long live America!"* ... Go to your own channel's "YT Studio" settings and find the spam and word filters located under "community." There ya go!

[@johnyharris]

It's very odd, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. You don't use any words that any other comment creator on here wouldn't use. It's CTT comment section loss if you go, we need more courteous commenters on here, not less. Don't let the bar-stuards grind you down.

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@johnyharris *"It's very odd, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. You don't use any words that any other comment creator on here wouldn't use."* ... I don't understand it either. I noticed that on Sundays, none of my comments show up; Monday through Friday they do. Now Sundays and Mondays. Add today (Wednesday) to the mix. They probably don't mind losing a subscriber and content contributor. *"It's CTT comment section loss if you go, we need more courteous commenters on here, not less. "* ... Thank's man. You were a great discussion partner, and I'll miss our many exchanges. I'll even miss all of the other stuff that's just ideas in consciousness. *"Don't let the bar-stuards grind you down."* ... Well, as you already know: _"Existence pushes forward, Existence takes chances, Existence evolves!"_ I'll either survive or go down trying!

[@0-by-1_Publishing_LLC]

@@cosminvisan520 *"I told you, is not ctt, is utube. Long live America!"* ... This is what is going on, and CTT is filtering the comments (not KZbin). kzbin.info/www/bejne/imnMd6lqpNRrjNk

[@micpin6810]

25:53 - You missed the "White Privilege" category. The category that lets you talk about nonsense and problems that will never be solved and at the same time feel important. 😂😂

[@alanrobison4761]

🤣🤣😅😅

[@surfnow.]

magnificence exists right here

[@kafiruddinmulhiddeen2386]

This show is for beginners.

[@Azupiru]

And for people who are interested in keeping track of which ideas are being fed to beginners.

[@janeb305]

I could watch this series with admiration before, but as time went on, I see there's just too many women excluded in the line ups. I've lost patience. Once again all-male guests. I'll google something else to watch now.

[@chilluminati1292]

A woman is to learn in silence with ALL submission and I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over no man

[@cumpata]

Don't need to tell us, do it and bye bye!

[@piruz3243]

Women are not excluded. Almost all of the interviewees are physicists and philosophers. And most of the experts in these two fields are men. Suppose you were the producer of this show; would you look for who is most appropriate, or would you choose by gender? Quite a few of the guests are Nobel laureates; would you not have listened to Einstein because he was a man?

[@jeffamos9854]

No male guests. Is this what woke means ?

[@itsgoingdown803]

We need more men in society and way less simps because simps are the reason why you women are the way you all are, but if there were more men to give you all a couple shiners you'd all think twice about the way you all talk and act the way you blchs do.

[@biedl86]

There is too much Platonism is this video.

[@TheFreedomBay]

No comment on todays world? -OK I get that, its not a political channel. Ignoring the spiritual & scientific & philosophical & religious & material and etc part of this culture in decline is, however, NOT OK Enough chit chat waste already, I unsub from this echo chamber. BB

[@leoborganelli3558]

You lost me at without god. I’m out