Intended for use under the Fair Use Act - All Rights Belong to Stephen Fry and Associated Companies From Stephens Live Performance based on his memoir - "More Fool Me"
Oh my goodness. He keeps complimenting us. “As you may already know”(history of chess) “as I am sure you know”(Farsi). And in that incredibly well educated and modulated voice. I feel more educated and intelligent just listening to him. I’ve never seen him do stand up before, but “as I’m sure you know” he’s very good.
Bit of a late reply but your comment reminded me of a "saying" I saw recently. Talking to a stupid person will make you feel smart. Talking to a smart person will make you feel dumb. Talking to a very smart person will make you feel smart. I don't think its much of a stretch to call Stephen Fry very smart.
@@Raycu2 fry is a good narrator with prepared stories.. when he talks about chess you can straight away know there's no depth, it is just skimmed hearsay. But he does put it together and tells a wonderful story.
@@omarkhan9695 He's certainly full of anecdotes and is a practiced speaker and presenter. He was a good (comic) actor in combination with Hugh Laurie, particularly in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and their version of Jeeves & Wooster. The only one of his novels I read was mediocre. Compared to his various peers from the 80s, however, there isn't much in the way of competition.
Oh my goodness...the way he connected the chess and rice grains problem to the fact that we must all have been related just blew my mind!!!! This is a story worth repeating everywhere!!!! Hats off to you Mr. Fry...no wonder you played the perfect Jeeves 😁
@glyn hodges It is not liberalism to dress as you wish. It is what we are supposed to be able to do in Britain. The day I find my politicians telling me how to dress is the day I take up arms to stop paying them.
I feel so happy crushing that loser. It's easy but it's fun. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
Don't forget what a loser he is too. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
7.5 mins of Stephen Fry I thought would be reasonably long considering most yt videos I watch are about 2-3. Went by in a blink of an eye and I’m sad it’s over. Stephen is always totally engaging!!
@@troymadison7082 Seneca had such a knack for teaching resignation and the simple life, accepting what you got...from a private landed estate where a hundred slaves jumped to do whatever he ordered.
@will crow would you still think so when being tortured to death? the pacifist turns the other cheek when his kids are being slaugtered, his wife is being raped and his house burned... its the modern over-moralisation that makes us weak, did others in the past what happened to them? they died, empires went under and the „weak" survived go your way loving all these oxymorons and ignore basic common sense. women dont need to have children, we are all individuals thus all the same - join our faith, not every muslim believes in islam and so on im just glad that we havent reached the point where there is no hope for humanity to get rid of these truly weak ideas and believes that kill us. do you want to conquer the universe or slowly go extinct, all working for a universal income ?
With our grammatical overlord Hitchens eternally enhancing medical science, it's important we maintain high standards in such matters... Not angry, just disappointed...
you know Stephen when you do this stuff, you are going to be praised for your intellect, but you also must realise that you will be criticised too, Im so glad you exist, youve bought so much humour and sensibility to all you do.
Interestingly, the parable about the exponentially increasing grains of rice Stephen mentions is also there in Bengali Literature (major Eastern Indian language). It was written by one of our greatest writers, Sukumar Ray, in the form of a children's story called "Daaner Hisheb" (literally- the calculations/records kept of charity). An extremely miserly king is tricked into being charitable to his suffering subjects by a sage, who tells him that he should pay a paisa (1/100th of one rupee, the equivalent of a penny or a cent) on the first day, then double the amount on every succeeding day. The King assumes as a knee jerk reaction that this would only come to a meagre amount, but it ultimately ends up costing him more than he owns. My father taught me my first arithmetics. He used to tell me the story when I was a kid to show me the magic of exponentials and geometric growth.
I’ve heard an euro-american variation of the story, but it was about a younger man conning an older billionaire by saying he’ll trade the billionaire 100k dollars a day for 30 days for 1 cent, 2 cents, 4 cents, 8 cents... until the 30 days were over. The mathematical results were similar, albeit not as astronomical as the original grains on chessboard one, which is actually exponential and will tally up to more grains than the current global agriculture can grow for millennia.
He is very well knowledged and wise. The history of chess and the Persian root for checkmate was wonderful! Awesome. He simply ruined racism. What a wonderful man.
He's a loser. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
@@2fast2block where did god come from? Who or what created him? No one you will say, he's always and will always be there. If you are so happy with this simpleton explanation, then why can't you believe that the universe also may have always been there? Just changing, evolving, morphing, creating and destructing what we know as the laws of nature without the need of any divine intervention? Don't be like the child who doesn't know where Christmas gifts and babies come from and is happy with the stork and Santa stories just because their little undeveloped minds can't think of or reason otherwise. I do believe in a god that is the universe itself, that changes and mutates, that creates and destroys with no conscious of what is doing whatsoever. One who doesn't need worshipping, who doesn't care about prayers, or the sins of the world, because he doesn't even care about us, we are just a happy accident of existence, who doesn't even care about itself because he's not even living, is just a thing, is just the universe and we happen to exist in it. That's it, that's all.
@@SergioCastillo87 loser, none of what you gave got around the science I gave. All you losers can do is come up with your stu---pid question that answers nothing but it does show how you losers hate to think. So in your way of shallow thinking, if a supernatural creator created the natural realm, then that supernatural creator who created the natural realm with its natural laws has then become also bound by those natural laws the supernatural creator created. So explain why a supernatural creator is also bound by the laws the supernatural creator created. Or, show how smart you are and just give your science for creation happening naturally and don't forget to give your science how the natural laws were created, too. If you want to act smart, it may be a good idea to actually show you are.
The thing I will always remember Steven Fry for is playing Belgrove in a TV adaptation (BBC. surely) of the first two Gormenghast books. I didn't think it could be done, but.....You Britishers probably know what I'm talking about while Americans are scratching their heads. The books didn't travel across the pond well. Also, by far, Christopher Lee as Flay was THE best thing he ever did. The series was an obvious labor of love.
@AMT I'm sure he's happy to have fellow losers like you. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
He's good at telling lies being the loser he is. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
@@2fast2block You could just say you don't like the fact he's an atheist, rather than going on an incomprehensible word salad and calling a phenomenal man a "loser".
@@2fast2block And I take it you happen to hold the key to understanding reality. Why don't you enlighten me then, and in the process let me know why it is you dislike Fry? Preferably in understandable English and with actual substance to your words.
@@TheHobbYT hey tiny brain, I gave a very small bit of science already that you keep on ignoring. Tackle and show us more how tiny your brain really is.
The 2018 world rice output was 480 million metric tonnes. The amount of rice required to meet the chess inventor's demands, according to Fry's story, would be 185 billion metric tonnes. Amazing, isn't it?
A brilliant actor, a fascinating interpreter of humankind and of history. His role portraying Oscar Wilde was very much as I expected: Brilliant! Watching Stephen Fry, I am curious how a discussion of any subject between he and the extraordinary Peter Ustinov - should such a conversation exist, I would pay to watch it! I am pleased these two men are part of my lifetime.
I’m a Christian and I enjoy listening to what Mr. Fry has to say, though I think he’s a little presumptuous, dismissive and overly simplistic in his approach to religion. He is still respectful and decent to the people he’s discussing with.
He can't think his way out of a wet paper bag. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
@@bluesyjazzy-ish3489 so to losers like you, the laws of nature are views. They can be or not be depending upon one's view. Too bad you can't see what a joke you are. Then.....you want nice names for your loser selves.
@@bluesyjazzy-ish3489 now here's science from a loser that somehow proved me wrong... "whoa, whoa…who shit in ur cheerios there dingleberry??🤣 Wanna talk about it sport?" You're such a joke.
@@bluesyjazzy-ish3489 you're NO stranger, YOU shown yourself to be a loser from the START... "Truly a man that is a gift of insight that knows how to play gracefully with ideas." Then you tell me the science I gave was just simply my view. YOU did that so you are NO stranger of what a loser you love to be. Over and over again you can't prove me wrong so you are NO stranger who wrote to me... "whoa, whoa…who shit in ur cheerios there dingleberry??🤣 Wanna talk about it sport?" F you! You showed what a horrible person you are.
We know that we're all related. Of course, no dispute. But we are all also more related to certain groups of people than others, which have been isolated by geography and time, sometimes many thousands of years and this gives us distinguishable tribes and races.
It depends indeed on how far one wants to go back. Probability does not overcome geographical barriers on its own. There is not reason to assume south americans should have been closer related to europeans than by the people migrating there way before any english kings and no matter how many great grandpeople of them one would end up with. In the simplified version Fry presents here, it is a flawed assumption based on being bamboozeled by large numbers without understanding them.
3:26 For anyone interested, an alternative (and possibly more accurate) translation is "the King is helpless" Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Etymology
There’s a funny Comic Relief sketch about national treasures and he appears on it as a judge for new applicants: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nJYE20cO8h0.html
No, he's a complete loser. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
@@2fast2block Only mindless people use the supernatural as an argument. At least learn the difference between reality and fantasy before making such idiotic arguments in the future.
Tanks “A “ times 2!l am an old guy who has always Loved mathematics.It explains everything, never thought about it in this way.Cheers ,Peace to all me related family ✌️”A”
It's an uncomfortable topic because it undoes who we think we are at a fundamental level. It's a comforting solution to hear we aren't alone in this. Stephen Frye has a beautiful mind
My Professor of American Literature at the University of Amsterdam Harold L. Beaver had the same gift of the gab, and his unstoppable mind would literally take us on a trip through European history - I remember a particularly inspiring riff on why Tintin could be considered a literary comic strip.
@@FrankieParadiso4evah Could you briefly share with us on behalf of Professor Beaver why he riffed on Tintin being considered a literary comic strip? Just out of curiosity. :)
@@manvirsahota5310 Mind you, this was three and a half decades ago, but I recall that HB was especially impressed by the way Herge kept the storyline of The Castafiore Emerald going without anything significant happening (which reminded him of French experimental novelists such as Perec and Robbe-Grillet), Tintin's Melvillean mission to decipher the evil world around him, and the human condition of stubbornly coping with failure as symbolized by Haddock, Thomson & Thompson and Professor Calculus. But then Beaver was the type of academic who would remind a student who spilled coffee on his professorial desk that this was reminiscent of a homo-erotic scene in Moby-Dick! Here's more on Tintin's literary merits fyi: www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/16/booksforchildrenandteenagers.features
@Gillie Monger Yes and gay still means happy, literally still means "as it's written", flirt means a sharp movement, myriad still refers to the number 10,000 and terrific means to inspire terror. Words change as language does. Loquacious can have a negative meaning but it can also mean to be able to speak well and effectively. So do us all a favor and stop being the Anglo-Norman meaning of "nice".
Only to his fellow losers he can. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
Because you refuse to think too. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
No, what a loser. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
I always thought the rice thing was from Maco Polo? but it is true that if you do 1 x 2 x 2 x 2 and so-on by the time you hit the 20th move the numbers won't fit your calculator.
no it doesn't. You can use his same argument for us to not care for our species more than other species. In fact the argument would be stronger since the shared ancestry with have compared to different species than different races is much larger and much less known.
Haha, quite true! I wonder what the critical amount of having one ancestor appearing in more that one familial stream is. There must be a level beyond which problems start to manifest.
I caught Stephen Fry checking me out on the streets on Notting Hill when I was younger. I recognised him but didn't know what a wonderful, kind, thoughtful, brave man he was. Biggest regret of my life is not responding to his wandering eye.
That's just on square 64 (H8). And then you have to add the rice from square 63, and then the rice from square 62, and then from square 61, etc. I think it's more rice than grains of sand in the Sahara Desert.
Really? You admire perverts and petty criminals? Don't forget that they gave Jimmy Savile an honorary doctorate and a knighthood. These people 'hide in plain sight'.
I think he's underestimating how common it was to marry 2nd cousins, and how unlikely it is you would know if you're marrying a fourth or fifth removed cousin
If you want to see the math: (Assuming 1 generation = 25 years) 30 generations ago (c. 1250AD) you had over 1 billion ancestors vs. global population of 500 million, meaning that statistically you're probably related to everyone alive back then, twice over (they appear in your family tree twice) 40 generations ago (1000AD) over 1 trillion ancestors. Related to every human alive 000s of times over 50 generations (750) over 1 quadrillion ancestors. Related to everyone millions of times. 60 generations (500) over 1 quintillion ancestors. Related to every single human alive BILLIONS of times over.
That's not accounting for geographical lock-downs, I'm pretty sure I've got to go more than 30 generations to find relations with Australian aboriginals but yes, eventually it all evens out if you go far back enough.
Too bad your conclusions are wrong and genetic distance can be measured. That is like saying if you go back far enough you are related to the chicken on your salad. Different group of people are different and everyone knows and accepts this except Whites. But hey, if no one is different and everyone is related why make all those special "assistance" programs and then discriminate on who can use or benefit from them. Especially when it's the global minority discriminating against themselves in their own country.
@@elliotkouame3849 : Facts are racism and if you say facts I will insult you like a child I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to speak up on the internet. Perhaps you are also comfortable enough to educate yourself on the subjects you speak on? Try it. Knowledge is power after all.
I need help, please, clever internet people: I once saw a video of him talking about the same topics (exponential growth / the invention of chess / relations) but much more elaborate, e.g. him explaining the reaction of the moghuls advisors in much more detail, how they started to calculate and the inventor (described as an old man) first inviting the moghul to play and the moghul then, once he understood, that he could never fullfill the inventor's wish "reacting like any calm and civilised ruler should - he chopped of his head". Stephen also said more on the topic of us all being related. The speech was held in a kind of arena, with him walking around. It ended with "So, all I really wanted to say was - hello, brothers and sisters!". It cannot find the longer version again, but I' d really love to show to my students. Can anybody help?
its well worth learning to play chess. I have a top of the range gaming system yet the most enjoyable game for me right now that i play on it is chess.
The earliest Indian version of chess, regrettably, may have used dice too. It was also certainly around a LONG time before the "Moghuls" (who never called themselves that anyway). No disrespect to the great Mr Fry, who's always worth listening to.
I was disappointed by this rather sloppy research by Steven Fry especially as I enjoy listening to him and admire his intellect greatly. Perhaps his knowledge of Indian history only begins with the Muslim colonisers, the Mughals. I wonder how many other fake facts he's presented over the years which I have taken as sacrosanct thus far.
@@suen3634 You all seem to have missed the point - this is a well known parable that was created to explain exponentiality. It was not meant to be an accurate representation of the original creation of Chess.
the story about the rice on the chessboard was on the world service this afternoon, i hadn't heard that story for years then youtube plays it for me again the same day.
I've struck that sort of thing too, synchronicity or whatever you want to call it. It's kind of fascinating. Same with individual words, there have been times when I've heard a particular word for the first time, then over the course of the next few days I'll hear the same word a few more times from different sources.
@@Markus_Andrew Glad i'm not the only one, sometimes i'm thinking of something pretty random, and the next item when i turn on the radio or tv will mention the subject.
Once I saw mentions of Samuel Johnson (the dictionary compiler) in 5 different books and TV shows that were otherwise entirely unrelated to each other in subject and genre (only one was actually about history). All in the space of a little over a week. A few days ago I saw two different parodies of the song Jolene in unrelated contexts, a song which previously I hadn't heard in about 15 years. Life is weird like that.
Well there is a bit of a problem with Stephen’s example of the exponential increase in our ancestors, which is that he is calculating as you go back in time, each preceding generation gave you twice as many ancestors as the succeeding generation. This is literally impossible since otherwise the number of ancestors would be tending towards infinity as you go back further in time (or if you go forward in time, it would suggest the number of descendants is halving each generation, which would mean eventually we would be down to one person and then zero, since an individual cannot procreate by themselves). The problem is, of course, that this assumes each ancestor is a distinct person, when at some points, many points in fact, we must have had ancestors that produced more than one, and in fact many more than one of our later ancestors. Stephen kind of gets at the problem when he says “unless there was incest” in his family. Of course it need not be incest. I could have had a great, great, great grandparent, for instance, that was a great, great grandparent to both my mother and father, without having married someone of a very small number of degrees of consanguinity that might therefore be considered incest. That does not mean we are not all descended from Charlemagne, but the idea that a person had more ancestors than existed in all of Europe is not a proof that we are so descended. In fact, taken further, Stephen’s “proof” would prove that we had more ancestors at a far enough distant generation than existed people on the earth at the time, which is obviously impossible. Which is not to say the general idea Stephen poses is invalid. We are indeed ignorant of our heritage and very likely all related to each other (at some possible quite distant degree of consanguinity), and therefore it is nonsensical to treat others as somehow less worthy of consideration and respect and love based on their heritage. And moreover, I hope somehow I am closely related to Stephen since he is a marvelous human being.
He obviously knows all this, his message is of unity and brotherhood. His idea can be put another way: If we were able to travel in time, the further back we go, the more likely we will meet one ancestor.
@Marcus This is an excellent point, Marcus, but I think Scandinavia is a bit unusual in that respect, and of course further afield Iceland is I think the most highly related (which is why that population is so useful for genetic studies). In the UK for example, we have the influence of various invasions, mostly Norman, but also the odd Viking ;)
Fry screws up from the start, creation, and he's all downhill from there. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
You completely missed the point. He’s delineating the problem with the exponential nature of ancestry without common ancestry, which gives you completely unrealistic figures - the only way to reconcile these figures and make them more manageable is by accepting that our ever-branching trees intersect many times over. Hence, we are all statistically likely to be direct descendants of someone living as recently as in the 9th century.
Anybody wondering about the rice problem... It's an exponential series: 1+2^2+2^3+2^4+............+2^63. The number of rice grains on the 64th square will be 2^63. I calculated it and it comes to almost 267.5 trillion(=267.5 x 10^12) individual rice grains. Now, the weight of a rice grain is approximately 0.029 grams. Do the math and it turns to be around 7.75 billion tons!
The version i heard once concerning chess origin: Indian rulers invented it loving the game of war without any unnecessary decorum. The theory being enough.
What a wonderful story about the history of chess. It turned out to be a great trip down memory lane. I still have an old photo of my father with the Shah of Iran.
I used to play a lot of chess. It teaches many things. One of the things it teaches is reality. You can't pretend to have the upper hand when you clearly don't. You have to go with what the real situation is. Fry never learned that lesson and is happy to be delusional. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
@@2fast2block Hmm, 🤔 it seems you are suggesting that I am a mindless person. That would only be possible if we were aggregates of mindless matter, but it is actually a contradiction in terms, since we exist as smaller, limited minds within the infinite mind of God. As the physicist Sir James Jeans put it: the universe is beginning to look more like a great thought. You are quite right in your assessment that the idea that the universe just popped into existence and generated natural laws through random processes and chance conjunctions of dead matter is science fiction. I would go so far as to suggest that it is a credulous belief in magic; an unacknowledged belief system that begins with a miracle and then attempts to explain this miraculous existence through the clouded lens of its own misguided point of view. Unfortunately, we are awash in a sea of materialism which is the water in which we are now swimming, beyond which most are either unable or unwilling to see. Secular humanism makes man the measure of all things, and the maker of meaning in a meaningless universe. This is not only an impossible task, but a form of spiritual solipsism that is a starvation of the soul, and has resulted in the crisis of meaning in which we now find ourselves. Secular humanism, with its belief in physical materialism, is a dead end. Check mate. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed Fry’s observations on chess.
We're all humans! There's only one race! THE HUMAN RACE! I remember a program about DNA where 4 people were interviewed and DNA tested. An Irishman, an African man, an Asian woman and an Englishman. It was discovered that the Englishman and the African man had common ancestral DNA. The African man saw the joke and leaned to the Englishman saying "Brother".
During the last ice age, the earth was frozen almost to the equator. The only human beings that could have survived it were those who lived on or very close to the equator. It is a dreadful fact for racists to have to discover that we are all descended from those black people.
If you like being lied to. "The humanist view of the meaning of life is different. Humanists do not see that there is any obvious purpose to the universe, but that it is a natural phenomenon with no design behind it. Meaning is not something out there, waiting to be discovered, but something we create in our own lives." Stephen Fry Real science says nothing does nothing. Real science says if there was something there already it must fit with the evidence of what we know. We know the 1LT says there's a conservation of energy. It can change forms and neither can be created or destroyed. Creation cannot happen by natural means. The 2LT has various aspects, one being the universe is winding down, entropy. Usable energy is becoming less usable, so at one point usable energy was at its max. This all points to a supernatural creation, by a supernatural creator at a certain point in which matter, space, and time were created. When I read how it can happen otherwise, ALL the fools resort to science-fiction. Once a supernatural creation is accepted, then the next step is finding proof of what supernatural power did it. We can't even get science without God. The laws of nature only can come from a Lawgiver, God. Only mindless people believe Fry.
We had a YT discussion on who should replace Paxman on University Challenge. What's needed is someone who's very knowledgeable and authoritative but also witty and agreeable. Only one person...
You do realize, I hope, that the UC quiz-masters have the answers on cue-cards. They do not have the answers in their own heads. And is there not a basically faulty logic in play here? That is, highly educated people acquire a lot of general knowledge, but memorizing a lot of disjointed facts does not make one 'educated'. One winner of Mastermind was deemed to be 'unemployable'. Also, why does knowing a few facts about a wide range of subjects earn titles like Mastermind, while knowing 'everything' about one topic makes one 'an anorak' or 'nerd' or Nobel laureate? Think on't.
The exponential number of connexions increases, while the number of humans decreases as we go back in time. What does this mean for these mathematical calculations?
That they are wrong. At some point people were mating with far relatives going back in time and that solves it. So you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 grand-grandparents and so on but at some point the genealogy lines start to cross and my grandgrandgrandgrandgrandparent was the brother of another of my grandgrandgrandgrandgrandparent
It means that his whole speech is gibberish. No goal other than to condition westerners for the great replacement, because how can a race be systematically replaced if there are no races to begin with?
@@TristanSune the wrongness of the math calculation does not cancel the fact that there are no races, and the whole concept of 'race' has been introduced only to sow differences among men and keep power..
It's funny because it's differente from version I knew about the origin of chess. Same thing, bored king, actually, he was depressed, because he had just lost his only son in combat. In a big state of depression, the king didn't want anything with anyone. But then there comes this peasant wanting to show him a game. The king learned and played with other wise man of the castle. He was so good and challenge the inventor to a game. The pieces had some differences, the bishop was an elephant(this change would only get later on when it got to medieval Europe), and the queen was a prince, young and thriving through the board. Anyway, it got to a certain point where the king had to make a sacrifice of his own prince, in order for the greater good. After that undeniable evidence, he felt as he was cured from the depression. The inventor asked for a reward and same way Fry told (with powers of 2). EXCEPT, the king didn't cut his head off. After that smart move and put himself in so much debt. He hired him as his counselor and, after he was dead, since there were no heir, the inventor of chess became king. I know it is a bit farfetched, but it is a nice story, I like to tell it. I know there is little evidence and it is probably didn't happen, but, oh wel... Thing is, he was talking about heritage and such, I thought he was going to mention the story of the origin of chess as a reminder that we can still influence History even though it is not through our blood line.
Of course I know who my 8 great grandparents were!! That’s only my grandparents parents. (Admittedly, I knew, and had relationships with all 4 of my grandparents who all told me stories about their parents etc. and, believe it or not, I actually *listened* to them!)
I've heard the story of chess invention, but the king's name was Kaid, and it took place 1500 yrs ago. However, they didn't mention killing the guy by chopping off his head.
