Does Math Reveal Reality?

Once you realize how beautiful and literal math can be, how it makes the unknown and the future come to reality, you’ll instantly fall in love with it and it will be your best friend throughout life.

I am a Colombian trying to study English to teach it to our young people... You can NOT imagine how much pleasant it is to listen to all of you with this outstanding topic to be shared with my students. There's beauty in the desire of sharing such deep and basic ideas. That would be for me the real result of a mathemathics that lies underneath, inside, outside, in and about our desire of sharing such awareness deep in us.

Thank you Dr. Brian Greene for all the work you do to make physics more visually accessible to people who think in images. Such a great video!!

this has got to be my favorite WSF talk. I really think we need to have more conversation about understanding conciseness and how it is actually very deeply related to the universe, physics, and even mathematics.

Brian greene is a total legend. Love your style and enthusiasm of bringing science to a lay person like me. We owe you lots of gratitude and a thanks for helping us mere mortals with science.

This Channel is the best youtube channel out there, such good topics and the in-depth conversation that happens. Love this 5, 6-panel group style of presenting the information. You get some great information from various good views on things from people from many fields.

I have been binge watching this channel since I came across it a few weeks ago. Such eloquent debates are difficult to find sometimes on the Internet these days... How about "Mathematics: Tangible or Theoretical". Thanks.

It's so wonderful to listen to these discussions around Mathematics and its relationship with physical reality. At the same time, I find it quite interesting that people discuss the topic of Conciousness without actually describing it or having a common definition of what it really means to be conscious. I so wish to see Brian in conversation with Swami Sarvapriyananda on this very topic.

ty for this. im lonely while studying math and logic, so this helps me more than you could possibly know. adam from Florida.

This conversation really reveal the "beauty of mathematics " . Thanks Brain.

Ok Dr. Greene! I am driven to tears by the awesomeness of this! Can I make a comment: Maybe consciousness comes from our senses yet the interpretation of those senses, is intelligence. And morality, comes from the senses, in what hurts us and does not hurt us. Fear comes from what hurts us. Is there an electron charge to the feeling of hurtness? Or is the feeling of hurtness, a quantum mechanics response of one impulse which effects another entity, which is our senses in our body? We thus apply those feelings of safety on a broader scale in society. This is morality. And, in time, for example, a child of 2, does not cross over, a plate of glass at a high level. The child's innate depth perception, is to keep the child safe. But with interpretation, and experiences over time and growth, we interpret that piece of glass from our ability to perceive safety, and interpret that information through reasoning. So what are the basic elements in morality: safety and not safety? So if the number 5 is safe to me, then its moral, its a moral entity. Its just all our perceptions and interpretations. Is there a mathematical model to the colour brown of the bark of a tree? Or a mathematical model to the concept of perception? The colour brown is a perception. I dont understand the discussion on morality, without a neuropsychologist on your panel.

Thank you for this most inspiring conversation, which made me want to think. Since I went ahead and wrote some of my thoughts down, I decided to share what I wrote. The way I see it is: there cannot be a count without a counter. And “counting” is the starting point of mathematics, in my view. Put differently: I cannot see counting without a consciousness of some sort. Between a rock which does not itself count, yet still follows a geometric path around the sun within its gravitational field, and us humans, there is a threshold to consciousness which, I believe to be marked by the ability to count. Our intelligence/consciousness as humans has brought us to the point where we keep on projecting our “counting” onto the universe in attempts of grogging it. With the help of mathematics ( counting ), we were and are able to model aspects of the universe evermore closely, yet not fully. Take the Gregorian Calendar for example, which has to deal with 365 earth rotations and a fraction around the sun, mapping this on a duodecimal and base seven system in turn… what a mess! While the truth of the matter is that the earth follows a helical path around the sun as it move around the galactic center, where our galaxy is moving within the local group, and so on and so forth. In the end all what we achieved are approximations, arrived at through models which we have come up with through conciseness observation and iteration. If one would submit to the concept that the universe is ruled by qualities rather than quantities, one might have a better chance at describing the universe more fully. The universe is innocent of our interpretation of it. As long as we are counted out of the universe, that is. And yet, we emerged from the universe with consciousness and are on our way of becoming evermore conscious of where we live. P.S.: I like the production of this video.

You folks put together the most compelling environment with graphics folded seamlessly into the intellect of the discussion. The panel was fantastic! At some points I wanted to slap either David or Max. Loved it! Congrats, again, Dr. Greene, on another touchdown.

I love the concept of knowing things about mathematics we can't know but intrinsically understand. As Shelly put it, "Consciousness is left out" is something I have experienced when thinking through a mathematical problem. All of the sudden my brain will put it together without me consciously connecting the dots by doing the work. Like our brains sometimes know what our conscious mind does not. So many more questions.

Thank you so much for this video,incredibly interesting to think about!

Thank you for your panel Dr. Greene a good cross of disciplines and opinions, Dr. Jonas explanation of the history of previous civilizations is needed to keep learning from our ancestors. I value this. I aspire to learn your language of physics to be able to understand your concepts (your discipline) and one day sit across the table to explain to each other our realities. Thus survive. Gracias!

Thank you for working around the parameters of covid and producing high end quality videos for YouTube!! It's good to see you again!

I have to congratulate Brian and the WSF team on the production quality and the attention to detail of the video. I think this type of video production could definitely compete with or supplant the standard setting as well. I love the use of green screens here into aiding immersion. Beautiful work. *Edit - The content was eye opening thanks to the exquisite panel.

I have certainly enjoyed this discussion. I feel it intuitive and also mysterious that mathematics is discovered, and that it was always a part of our universe.

Damn, this David Albert rules. I certainly want to hear more from him.