Marvin Minsky - What are Possible Worlds?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ม.ค. 2016
- Possible worlds' are all the ways in which a world can be. A 'world' is a complete state of cosmic affairs: all the infinite variations of innumerable parts and their myriad relationships.
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Who'd have thought? Marvin Minsky is a hardcore modal realist.
He doesn't use the same terms as David Lewis, sure. He also adds his logical-positivist slant on "meaningless terms".
From what I understand, Minsky believes that saying “the universe exists” doesn't make sense because the word "universe" already means ALL THAT EXISTS. When we think of other universes, we automatically have this spacial idea that perhaps is not applicable anymore, because our universe includes all the space and matter.
I think so but it's not clear from how he talks.. Yes, it's adding redundant words to describe something that's already fully described. If universe is all that exists, it is useless to say that universe exists. It makes sense, it is true, but it doesn't bring any new information on top of the original definition. Tautologies have zero informational value.
A problem: consciousness exists, and the universe and that which emerges from consciousness are very different classes of reality.
Russell's paradox: the set of all sets is not a set.
The interviewer is asking if possible worlds are physical, like ours, or abstract; Minsky believes they are physical, like ours (that's my interpretation). I also think the nuance Minsky is missing is an important part of the concept of actuality is self-reference. Personally, I don't think anyone has yet come up with a satisfactory analysis of self-reference and it's one of the deepest mysteries there is. The idea "The Universe exists" is meaningless is interesting.
minsky believes that there is no distinction between abstract and physical
❤❤❤ I’m in love with the mind of this man
How is measurement done in a possible world?
Something about this bugs me. I guess what we're trying to articulate is "You can't just conjure up an idea that seems plausible to us and treat it with the same weight as the world around us". We don't even have any grounds to say what is possible and what isn't. What's 'possible' is dictated to us by outside circumstance, jammed down our throat by a largely hostile universe. Its observed and enforced upon us. What Minksy is saying feels speculative, ungrounded. Just because we can't imagine a reason why-not something cannot be, doesn't POOF it into existence magically.
Poor audio!
I was wondering if it was just me at first haha
Perhaps a picture says more than a thousand words... but certainly, Marvin Minsky's hands gesture at more words than his mouth!
I honestly don't know what he means but perhaps it has to do with a feeling I have too do after thinking about many worlds. You could exist in multiple worlds at once because each body particle follows it's own timeline and can split up in being present in many worlds. Further you experience your body of the past because of the not infinite speed of light, your low processing speed of the brain, any signals , taking time to travel from your body to your brain..Some say even that what we remember from our past could wrong and not because of false memories but because the past evolves, changes all the time. Thinking about all this abundant incoherence makes me say things about" this reality" or "this world" like Minsky says here.
Mathematically speaking, "the universe exists" is not that meaningless andthe phrase. If a Universe is a set of all things that exist within a given boundary, then to say that a Universe exists is like including the set within that set....
They really disagree over the term "real".
there is a subject they disagree on, not just linguistics
" " = concept (whatever is put inside the quotation marks); that we then give a name to; and a meaning to go with that name.
"Reality" "really" exists based upon the meanings we give those names for those concepts that most of us agree upon. Otherwise, "Reality" might not be "really" "real" in the first place in actual factual "reality". "Really"?
Here's what the interviewer was thinking throughout: This is Marvin Minsky, so there is something here that I must not be understanding!
Most people might, but I doubt Lawrence is that much of a lightweight. Minsky is to some degree an obvious Naive Realist.
This is a nice contrast to my notion of "possibilities". I enjoyed it. I should hope that there's more to this point.
+TesserId - I'm completely lost on this. I read your comment and would be very grateful if you can help me understand. What does he mean when he says the term "real" is nonsense when referring to the universe? How can the term "probability" have any meaning when referring to a concept that can never be? If there is only probability, then there cannot be any objectivity, thus, making the concept of probability incoherent.
+redirishmanxlt, I think this fits the notion: "all models are false, but some models are useful." There is more going on in the Universe than can possible ever be encoded into our brains (as our mental space is a subset of the Universe).
And, granted the level of objectivity is limited by the ability of our models to some useful solutions to our problems. An absolutely perfect representation of the Universe is not really possible under conventional scientific thinking.
The question of possibilities is one that I've realized butts up against the problem of the counterfactual. Is our notion of an alternative possibility something that only exists in our head, or is there some aspect of the physical realm that supports a fork in time? There is the one idea of time being static, were all that will ever happen has already been determined and cannot be changed. In such a Universe with only a single, static thread of time, there is no physical manifestation of an alternative possibility--thus, making alternatives something that only exist as an illusion. Yet, we appear to make choices among alternative possibilities all the time. So, which is true in the physical realm. Does quantum physics or a multi-verse theory have anything to say about this? What should a model of an alternative possibility look like in Physics, and could there ever be a testable hypothesis for such a thing?
Thanks for response. I think I get what your saying, but answering this question would help. What if we refer to the "observable universe", as scientists often do, would it still be problematic to say the observable universe exists?
+redirishmanxlt, I think it's important to deal with these perspectives as different levels of inquiry. We can walk down the street questioning whether the experiences we have represent anything real, but our feet keep us moving along. So, the level of inquiry in this video is an acknowledgement that the models of Physics are in essence mathematical logic, and they are based upon the perceptions achieved through our five senses along with any instrumentation that emerged out of our understanding of those senses. If on some alien planet beings had evolved with completely different senses, their model of the physical, along with their logic and mathematics, would reasonably be completely different. There could be aspects of our external "reality" that could be so far beyond what our senses and logic can understand, that we will never know them. And, thus, the full nature of the external can never be completely and perfectly known to us. And, note that Science is basically dependent upon Inductive Logic, as is reasonably explained on Wikipedia. So, "problematic" is a good term to use for this. We act upon our experiences according to how well it gets us good results. And, we refer to the external reality as existing to the extent that this gives us good results. The same goes for the observable universe, and we continue to expand our understanding as our logic, senses, and instrumentation allow. But, none of this is absolute proof that it is as we observe it--or that it exists at all. So, we treat it as real as it gets us good results, but greater strides in the expansion of understanding are achieved by always maintaining some questioning of our models and understanding that they are an incomplete impression of anything outside the logic in which these models emerged.
TesserId Once again, thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. I'm fairly confident I get where your coming from at this point, and philosophically this makes sense. I'm actually familiar with the notion that reality is contingent on the way our minds construct reality, and science is merely nature subjected to our method of examination. I think you made a great point referring to these perspectives as different levels of inquiry, but does the meaning on one level invalidate the meaning on other levels? Minsky seems to think so.
I find myself wondering if this is any different that saying “words” or “numbers” don’t exist. Whether language or math has utility is beyond question, so what do we mean when we say something “exists”? Another way to look at this is to ask, what is the characteristic that distinguishes what exists, and what does not exist? Given our epistemic limitations, one could make the argument (as people have) that we are simply not capable of this determination, in which case Marvin’s error was not including everything else in his argument against existence.
Just for fun, I thought about the recent discovery of “gravity waves”, and wondered how the scientists would have presented the evidence that affirmed the hypothesis, if they were to speak in this inscrutable manner. LoL
To my fellow scientists, we are attempting to measure a phenomena, that may or may not be real, from a false theory called "Relativity" that has been useful here and there. Due to the limitations of the human mind, which wasn’t developed to understand reality, we have concluded that whatever it is that we measured can be represented by our primitive, almost certainly inaccurate, system of mathematics. I'm not going to say we were successful because that would imply a vision of reality that makes to many unjustified assumptions. We did measure something, and that something matches the phenomena that is fictitiously titled "gravity waves". I hope this is useful, and not a complete waste of our time.
Like I said before, a appreciate you taking the time to create such a thought provoking response to my question, and you did make some very interesting points. I don’t disagree with your assessment, in fact I found it very informative and intriguing.
crazy to think if he lived a few more years he would have been 100 years old. he doesnt look like he was close to 100 but he really was. rip. also possible worlds are crazy and i believe in them but what about impossible worlds?
In a possible world, do the laws of nature come from mathematics?
Full blooded platonism or the plenum that Plato talked about.
cant hear a word
Minsky's closing remark demonstrates how tricky reality is to nail down! 😂😂 Silly humans.
lol What?! Provocative, but needless to say I couldn't quite understand what he was saying anymore than the host here. The host tried to make him elucidate his thoughts, but without success.
MrSidney9 one can't make sense of what he says because it's meaningless. He is equivocating on the phrase "possible worlds". He does to "possible worlds" what Kraus does to "nothing". Slight of hand. The magic art of scientism
@@Jemoh66 I think what Minsky means is that it is meaningless (or useless) to ask whether any given world exists or not. Minsky makes some related remarks from 5:32 onward in th-cam.com/video/hVJwzVD3jEs/w-d-xo.htmlm32s ("Marvin Minsky - Are There Things Not Material?") This is different from Lawrence Krauss talking about "nothing" while failing to acknowledge that his "nothing" implies laws of physics that make it active and creative.
MrSidney9 what Minsky is saying is that ‘realness’ is an illusion in that all things that are possible are by definition already real. Consider mathematical computations that have answers. Performing the calculation doesn’t create the answer, or create the formula, it just reveals it. The answer was already and always was real in the sense that it is eternally true. You can’t add any realness to it by doing anything to the formula. Minsky extends this principle to possible worlds, the fact of possibility is eternal, you can’t make it more or less possible by doing anything or ‘instantiating’ it in any way. For Minsky possible and real mean the same thing.
Marvin can also says each mind and body is one different entity than another mind and body. To assure this be understood we have enlightment magna cartas like the US Constintution or the French. but it is here where like modern day society, marvin is stuck! Because if this was the start 300 yesrs ago, should we not be much further than we are in realizing a theory of everything plus...Well we are stuck.
If Minsky is going to try to reduce quantification with modal operators, he is going to have to throw out Kripke's work on possible world semantics - the only successful attempt at making modal logic extensional. I think he'd find difficulty in making sense of a non-extensional modal logic.
He is either epressing Lewisian modal realism in clumsy terms, or he is being completely nonsensical.
Oh brother.
But he couldn't explain why.
why what? :)
Marvin Minsky fails to realize what Robert Kuhn is trying to ask. Marvin Minsky assumes, "Many possible worlds"/ Multiverse exists without a doubt, so he thinks Robert is asking a silly question. However, the Multiverse is only a hypothesis, not a science based fact. So Robert is asking a brilliant question that even proponents of the Multiverse also ponder about. How do we know whether other "possible worlds" definitely exist?? I guess even Marvin Minsky says stupid things...
it's impossible to know unless they're connected to ours somehow, and then they're not a separate universe any more
No you're wrong, what marvin minsky is saying that there is no way to know whether possible universes exist or not, and also it's impossible to know that our universe exists, therefore these questions are meaningless due to their indeterminacy. That's why he said it's meaningful to say that my hand exists in this universe, but not that the universe exists, meaning he thinks that his hand exists in this universe is true only after making the assumption of the existence of the universe. So you can interpret his words almost as an extension of the copernicun principle to its fullest extent.
Pretty sure Minsky is talking about modal realism. Not multiverse theory.
I find this guest speakers comments to be condescending
Such a mad lad.
Possible worlds are not the same as "other universes," just to be clear.
why
This guy doesn't make the strongest argument for modal realism. He doesn't seem to be referring to neither many-worlds theory, or inflation theory.
how are many worlds or inflation related to modal realism? Universes, created by inflation or everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics, are all part of a single ontological world, and minsky argues for the existence of all possible ontological worlds
I can understand his confused face.
Minsky is right. Continental philosophy is romantic and fun, but arises from a misuse of language.
Except continental philosophy doesn't even talk about possible worlds. Analytic philosophy does. The fact that you don't know this, shows that you are in no position to claim that Minsky is right.
#thuglife
So according to Minsky "actual world" is a meaningless term, as are "existence" and "reality"! Even Wittgenstein did not go that far. Just for fun, I've checked the number of occurrences of some of these terms in Kripke's "Naming and Necessity":
-actual world, 29 occurrences (which for some reason he does not disallow)
-possible worlds, 76 occurrences
-existence, 18 occurrences
-exist, 24 occurrences
-exists, 57 occurrences
-real, 20 occurrences
Minsky's claims defies common sense. Even Robert has trouble following him on this path. An exercise in futility! Minsky does not understand what possible worlds are (from a purely logical point of view): maximally consistent sets of modal sentences. Nothing more, nothing less!
Even David Lewis, the champion of modal realism, uses these terms.
Closer to nonsense.
I think this is stupidity in the actual world.
The entire conversation felt like nonsense.
Wow! the psychological contortions some people will take on to avoid a purposeful reality.