What We Cannot Know - Marcus du Sautoy

Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures: Marcus du Sautoy - What We Cannot Know
Science is giving us unprecedented insight into the big questions that have challenged humanity. Where did we come from? What is the ultimate destiny of the universe? What are the building blocks of the physical world? What is consciousness?
‘What We Cannot Know’ asks us to rein in this unbridled enthusiasm for the power of science. Are there limits to what we can discover about our physical universe? Are some regions of the future beyond the predictive powers of science and mathematics? Are there ideas so complex that they are beyond the conception of our finite human brains? Can brains even investigate themselves or does the analysis enter an infinite loop from which it is impossible to rescue itself?
To coincide with the launch of his new book of the same title, Marcus du Sautoy will be answering (or not answering) those questions

[@JuanGabrielOyolaCardona]

Thanks for sharing 😃🇨🇴

[@behrad9712]

Inspirational talk,Thank you

[@ecisme10]

Thank you for the Back to the Future reference.

[@fines158]

Holding one of his book now

[@zaidsserubogo261]

About your mental limits, that's why you have a chance to top up your knowledge with belief

[@axeman2638]

the universe is not controlled by equations, we can use equations to describe the action of a limited subset of reality in a limited region of space, but the equations are not the reality and do not create the reality. Reality exists regardless of the perception of it.

[@axeman2638]

@lisakirstin that also happens to be the truth.

[@2CSST2]

Reality can actually come down to equations, you cannot disprove that. Of course, that doesn't mean writing those equations down "creates" reality, it's just that they ARE actually a full description of how reality works. The description is not THE thing, but it does map 1 to 1 an explanation with anything it does

[@axeman2638]

@@2CSST2 No it doesn't, You have obviously failed to grasp the implications of Godel's incompleteness theorem. No mathematical model can ever be a complete description of reality.

[@gaven2976]

My college female professor told me that the bombing of Hiroshima had no effect on the environment

[@johnmartin7346]

Godel prove of God´s existence:

[@johnmartin7346]

A translation of Gödel's proof sketch (in the version of Gödel's student Dana Scott) from formal logic into natural language: • Axiom 1: Either a property or its negation is positive. • Axiom 2: A property that is necessarily implied by a positive property is positive. • Theorem 1: Positive characteristics may be due to an existent entity. • Definition 1: A God-like entity has all the positive features. • Axiom 3: The property of being God-like is positive. • Conclusion: Perhaps God exists. • Axiom 4: Positive characteristics are necessarily positive. • Definition 2: A property is the essence of an entity, if it belongs to the entity and necessarily implies all the properties of the entity. • Theorem 2: To be God-like is the essence of every God-like entity. • Definition 3: An entity exists necessarily if all of its essences are necessarily realized in an existing entity. • Axiom 5: Necessarily existing is a positive property. • Theorem 3: God must necessarily exist.

[@2CSST2]

@@johnmartin7346 Reminds me of this proof: - God is the perfect being - A perfect being, by definition, must exist, otherwise it wouldn't be perfect - Therefore god exists Problem with this is you can replace God with The Perfect Island. Yet, even though The Perfect Island would have to exist, and it would have to allow me to teleport to it any time I want to have a good time, here I am still in my apartment instead. Clearly, just because you can define something as perfect, doesn't mean it suddenly exists because it wouldn't be perfect otherwise and violate your definition. Here you could replace "positive" with "perfect" and it looks almost like a copy-paste of the same logic. Mind you, just because it's described in formal mathematics doesn't make it any less vulnerable to the problem I've just described, you're still betting on defining something that you think should exist by the mere fact that existing is part of its definition, either directly or indirectly through logical deduction.