David Deutsch: Chemical scum that dream of distant quasars 

Read 'The Beginning of Infinity.' Seriously. Do it.

"Resources are plentiful. Knowledge is scarce." -- that sums it up nicely.

Probably the most profoundly intelligent speech I have heard. Wonderful - and incredibly thought-provoking. Loved it!

2300 youtube vids, and NOW I FINALLY GET TO HEAR THIS GUY!!!! IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!!

Noble Prize to David Deutsch. thumbs up if you agree !

This is one of my favorite TED talks of all time. I keep coming back to it even years later.

This is the best (most concise / vivid / true / thoughtful / straight-to-the-essence) presentation of knowledge in the history of humankind yet. Bravo and thanks, David.

''So take 2 stone tablets and carve: ''PROBLEMS ARE SOLUBLE" and on the other ''PROBLEMS ARE INEVITABLE'''

In another universe David Deutsch is on a biology field trip.

I'm just reading The Beginning of Infinity. What an amazing book! Highly recommended.

He's a gripping speaker, who the layman can understand, talking about some of the most profound questions and revelations mankind has stumbled upon.

what a boss

I do love his "TED virtual immersive simulation" : "can we have the lights off please that we can see it" :-D

A marvel of a human being.

Listening to this from David after a long time. Makes me happy to listen...

@reinic91 He's essentially saying that knowledge is the only thing that can save us from ourselves. Problems will always arise, and we need to come up with either a way to live with the problem, or overcome it.

It's always a good idea to read or listen to David Deutsch. He is an International Treasure. I am eagerly awaiting "The Beginning of Infinity".

2:46 David Deutsh calling hundreds of people scum, to their delight

Problems are an opertunity to create knowledge, and knowledge is information that is useful; THANK YOU David. As to CO2 problem, I'm for greening the desert, whose with me?

Looks like a Bee Gee. Fantastic, amazing speech.

Thats just a great way to put things in context, very well done

The Fabric of Reality and the Beginning of Infinity are the Old and New Testament of our world. I mean, the real ones. And the most exciting thing that someday they will not be so, being disapproved by even deeper understanding of the Uni... well, our Multiverse.

Fantastic thinker, thanks for the upload. Already subscribed to the channel. Cheers!

i can't stop watching this, really interesting. Love TED!

Excellent. Many Thanks!

Thank you. Total awesomeness.

One of the greatest thinkers of our time!

Respect to David Deutsch. Always.

Great speech.

Wow 👏 great speech 😍

No precautions can avoid problems which we haven't seen. That's the reason why we need a stance for problem solving not problem avoidance.

Does anyone know of any philosophical / ethical papers written recently on the cosmologically expanding human foofprint in a philosophical journal? Thanks.

He's brilliant, pure brilliant!

Who can disagree? His speech is a moment of clarity.

Sage wisdom

Compost (organic waste of which there is plenty, but always in the wrong place) dug into the ground is the start, Use old plastcs to create moisture traps..It is worth a try.

Well said, we have to use our ability to problem solve and develop the knowledge necessary to save our world or else we will become another brief chapter in history.

Keep going on like you’re the most important thing in life and you’ll reach your limit.

holy shit, richard dawkins is on hold, im buying his book!

I liked this talk a lot. When Deutsch says that knowledge is scarce (yet evidence surrounds us and has been there for billions of years even before humans were here) I think that he means that our understanding is currently limited.

beautiful man

Don't worry about it!

...but yes greening things is always good. I love verdancy anyway. Part of why I love the UK. :)

I can't find a date, so I will assume this lecture was prior to 2011, about when he started creating Constructor Theory.

Genius.

The conclusion is we are special because we can achieve anything through knowledge that we have the ability to attain. This guy is smart!

Matter- the world around us Energy- the supreme being Evidence- us Rumi once said that created us so we could witness his beauty. Am I connecting this correctly?

@VvAnarchangelvV Intergalactic doesn't necessarily mean being on a line connecting two galaxies. Galaxies are usually in clusters, just like stars are usually in clusters. The great voids between galaxy clusters make up maybe 99% of all the volume in the universe, that's why they're typical.

@jimRRRRRRRRRR beautiful~!

I wonder if the 6th extinction was proverbially baked into the cake with the advent of some earlier technology like stone tools or our use of fire. I'm not an expert but didn't some of the previous extinctions play out over a period of a few million years?

genius!

I'll let you leave it at that just because I want to give a smiley face too :-)

RogerHoare, The difference is that quantum physics makes very specific and testable predictions which are all found to be true. Religions and other things like parapsychology either do not or which can be easily made to encompass any result, which renders them void of any substantial content. If it were not so, the skeptics would be out in force. It is easy to say exactly what sort of discovery would prove conclusively that evolution or quantum mechanics was false. This is not so for nonsense.

13:30 I have some doubts. A solar-size cube which contains enough matter (1E6 tons) to possible create a space station with intelligent life forms in it, is not equivalent to out solar system in terms of "having the same open ended stream of explanations". His statement: "any such cube is capable to become the same kind of hub we live" seems quite incorrect to me. It simply does not happen in nature. Open intergalactic space is not capable to create anything and contains about zero information and knowledge. You need at least enough mass (1E27 tons) in one of those cube for a star to form, and produce energy, etc before intelligent life can possibly exists on one of its planets. In the open intergalactic space this does not happen, the laws of physics says no: not enough matter. The only way to create such space station containing "the open ended creation of knowledge" would be if we go there and take those 1E6 tons of matter and put it together in the right way, i.e. if we bring the knowledge there. Otherwise there is none and there never will be, and this is exactly the difference between our solar system and any of those cubes. Our solar system is a very, very special and unique place.

I don't understand what he is talking about then I understand what he is talking about and then I don't know again ..

А перевода нет???? 😒

@slamblambacid We don't use Euclidean space since the basic space to do physics is Minkowski space. Simples.

Why do you say David Deutsch is a fool? I found this speech pretty interesting and inspiring personally.

yes, youre right. thats what he wrote about evolution in his book. everything will survive and adapt in its own environment. An opinion about anything is knowledge. it survives in your mind which is its environment. Other opinions which you dont agree with cannot survive in your mind because it cannot adapt there. So it survives in other's minds.

the universe is self aware thru each of us

"At No time in recorded history has it been like this." now tell me one point in history where this sentence is not true! lol.

@Tenocticatl, there is a pragmatic quality, too. We need to be able to theorize. And the structure of some problems forces us to move forward without absolute evidence of truth value. Are all ravens black? You can never be sure you have catalogued all ravens. A truth value sometimes needs to accumulate through observation. And in some cases, the type of thing you're dealing with forces you to go to step two on the basis of a mass of opinions, rather than proof of step one.

My place in the cosmos is Lemming ! • a person who unthinkingly joins a mass movement, esp. a headlong rush to destruction ... Yes that is my place.

@NewEraRevolution soluble is fine

@leporidus Nice, I like that

What is typical, actually? If "The easiest person to fool is yourself", then you're reasonably sure you're the only person who can "un-fool" yourself, ..through the only relatively reliable methodology of analytical science and philosophy. It's realistic but impolite to suspect everyone else is also fooled by complex circumstances, because "I am you and you are me and we are all together", ..similar qualities and loci in a mish-mash that is a pulsed construction of constant creation connection and quiescentmodulated coherence objectives, ..in QM-TIMESPACE. Pointing out the failings of others, (but keep it to ourselves), could be either a form of critique and making supporting arguments that go with the truth you've perceived, or it's simply a visible reflection of self-abuse, in principle. If there's a solution for any problem at all, it's (probabilisticly), in constant mutual respect and support for teaching and learning techniques, by doing both at once in sync, cause-effect, in sciencing the Universe. Studing Quantum Mechanics in Actuality is the only real Principle.

Umn....Knowledge doesn't die. It is always there to be discovered and displayed.

From a typical location in the Universe -there would be no perception that a Universe was in existence. In any direction there would be only darkness as complete as an unlight underground dungeon. Only the lingering "warmth" of the Big Bang, at 2.7 K above absolute zero (minus 270.45 C ) would provide a clue to the existence of an imperceptible something rather than absolute nothingness.

@evakent3 I have no idea. Maybe they want to say this: Concepts of "Nothing" and "something" have value only in a relative way, as "up" and "down" or "right" and "left", but in absolute ways they mean nothing (no pun intended). We have to free ourselves from the idea that "absolute nothing" can be real. Maybe it is like talking of "absolute Upness". I dont know, I am only babbling. excuse bad english.

@abarbar06 Too busy playing on the xbox

Try reading Deutsch's 'Fabric of Reality' for a fairly accessible intro to his views on the multiverse (it's a great read). There's no point trying to refute an idea you have no real understanding of.

This is my favourite video ever. Keep re posting it on facebook. The "science predicted an ice age in the 70s" thing turns out to be a myth by the way. Potholer54 made a vid on that.

We call it space, but we don't treat it like that. If Euclidean space is that in wich abstract geometric entitys exists.... why we don't use them to do physics ?? Take a look at Nassim haramein in Awake and Aware 2011. Genius

Having others form an opinion on your theory will never make it any more -or less- true; To find out wether a theory holds merit you need to test it. That's what scientists do, and that's what Deutsch is talking about. So yeah, ask the right questions, in the form of experiments.

We already know about a resource based economy but not many seem to listen. So knowledge is not all that is needed.

@TomFynn @TomFynn apply plato solids to minkowski space and you got hyperdimensional physics. Ignorant people call it pseudoscience nowadays but the ancients know well about it and used it in astrology. These concepts are just being introduced now (matrix, lost, fringe series) in the mass subconcious so we can begin to understand syncronicity.

@Lukethemk I disagree completely. He makes some great, positive points and his underlying theme, that our salvation lies ultimately in our ability and willingness to understand and explain our environment, both immediate and remote, is logical and correct.

Lol, aaronsalad ... I think you read TEDtalksDirector's synopsis (incorrectly, I might add) rather than actually watching the video. Yes, Deutsch is the "leading proponent of the multiverse intrepretation of quantum theory", but no, he does *not* talk about this in his presentation.

Well it's very likely. Parallel universes can be similar, or they can be very very very different. They might even have different laws of physics. Humans can have 5 eyes and 10 nostrils. The possibilities are endless.

誤訳…かな？ 「Now, the physics of the human brain could hardly be more unlike the physics of such a jet.」 「人間の脳における物理現象は ジェットで起きている物理現象とは 全く異なっています」 この文はhardlyとunlikeの二重否定なので、「全く同じです」という意味では？（実際、働いている物理法則は同じですし） …でも、そうなると、次節の「We couldn't survive for an instant in it.」の文意に繋がりにくくはなりますね…

If theories of the universe were the size of a grain of salt, I could fill countless salt shakers. Nobody has a finger on it, not the church, not science, not the government, nobody. I'll tell you what though, if you view the universe thru your own personal filter and extrapolate your own theory, it makes you that much more authentic. I hadn't heard of Douglas Adams though. I like his theory. I firmly believe that the universe is stranger than you CAN suppose.

Lol, witty. Your intellect knows no bounds... To be honest, it was all worth it just to hear someone use the insult "Mr. Scientist" in their argument. Still gives me a chuckle.

It is now 2019, co2 concentration is higher than it was in 2007

wow the Universe is mostly pitch black and almost absolutely frozen. Great job God.

The problem with people who want to develop underdeveloped countries is that their primary goal is to use their resources for their own benefit, while ignoring the pre-existing social and cultural order and bringing large amounts of structural violence.

Yes, what I meant is that the neocortex is the most complex place in the known universe. therefore how can Hawkings refer to that as chemical scum. That's a joke. But I'm not arguing against curiosity and creativity. But I think it's important to not be lead astray by big claims and such. I'm all for personal experience.

Do you mean Nobel Prize?

Dear sir(david Deutsch), is our imagination creates reality?

everyone on the planet should listen to this

hawkings gets pwned :-)

Gosh, don't be so hard on him.

He looks like John the Stutterer.

A religion about the scientific method? I could settle for that as a compromise.

not in america

Way to go! Insulting someone over the internet, gee I bet mommy would be proud.

From the initial picture on the video I thought he was a zombie.

This guy looks like Sion Lentil, but you can forget about that.

I'm sick of the TED talk "What if good ideas weren't cherished BLAH BLAH BLAH with emotional LOUD music every time I watch one of these things... Sorry but it gets old and annoying. Just give me the lecture please. Anyway, great lecture

@abarbar06 Get a cure for deafness first!

I deleted my comment because I realized that I misinterpreted your comment. My apologies. I thought you were maliciously calling scientists ignorant, but I now see the context of ignorance.