Why the world does not exist | Markus Gabriel | TEDxMünchen

let me begin with a very simple question how many people in this room believe in the existence of unicorns so probably you know as the sane modern person you would say well you know there really are no unicorns I will argue today in some detail that there really are unicorns but that the world does not exist okay so I believe that the world does not exist but I do believe that unicorns exist among other things I believe that there are planets numbers governments and fair elections really democratic elections love vulnerability and this event so I think that all these things exist but there's exactly one thing which really does not exist namely the world so all of this hopefully sounds crazy which gives me the chance to elaborate and show you what that really means and why I think that this has revolutionary consequences not just for philosophy as a discipline but for over a way of looking at what we still call the world okay so my talk bears the title why the world does not exist and I will more particularly talk about what the world is I will talk about existence and I will talk about not why the world does not exist I will not talk about why or does okay so let's begin with the world okay so there are these weird words that we constantly use in our everyday language also in science and pretty much everywhere in order to describe the impression that we are part of a really big thing okay and then we have all these words to refer to this really big thing nature reality the universe okay the world and all these terms okay or if you're you know slightly most ritual maybe you want to say God or being and all these terms seem to refer to like the maximally big thing the biggest thing okay not just this planet imagine imagine there's something which you might call Google univer okay hopefully you know that's the future of search okay and then at some point there will be Google universe so you can just zoom out and zoom out and zoom out and what you see if you maximally zoom out okay that's the world that's the universe and in this whole thing or reality and in this big thing we are somewhere okay somewhere in the Milky Way a tiny part not really important some kind of ants in the big picture okay but I believe that there is no such thing as this picture I think that the the whole train of thought which are just presented it's really an illusion okay the world is an illusion now that really sounds like something Buddhist or or Indian but it isn't it's you will see it's exactly the opposite so what is the world then really okay so philosophers have tried to clarify this for pretty much 2,500 years and arguably the world in that sense has been invented at some point in history in what is now Turkey okay so the philosophy didn't originate in in the Western tradition in Greece but in Turkey philosophy is a Turkish project and what happened okay at a particular coast is that people thought well look and what does it even mean that we are round okay so imagine at some point people were hunting and protecting themselves from wild animals etc they were interested what they had a hard time even fine finding good food imagine the food that you had to have in the savanna okay or when we're still living in case I don't want to eat that that's horrible that's a bad time okay so in that time people were really interested in just surviving but at some point when survival was pretty much guaranteed etc okay people were wondering but what does all of this mean what's going on where am i okay and the answer they gave is well I am in the world okay and the world is this really big thing and this is this triggered a huge process of civilization which philosophers call metaphysics metaphysics is a philosophical discipline and I define that discipline as the attempt okay to develop a theory of the world as world or a theory of absolutely everything okay so what we now know is so we're looking for this big theory of absolutely everything the maximally fundamental theory we really want to know what it is okay so if that's the spirit which drives you the unification of physics or whatever okay then the world formula okay then you're a metal physician this is what you're doing okay and I believe that it's an illusion okay so the world is this maximally big thing and how can we really characterize characterize that thing so let me give you two very prominent definitions of the world that you can find throughout the history of philosophy and show you okay how philosophers really operate when it comes to these things before we can see why there is no such thing as the world okay so the first very prominent definition of the world something that might probably have passed your mind everyone's and well is that well the world is the totality of things say the world is the totality of all spatial-temporal things okay the world is planets and trees and stars and people and friends and grass okay etc that's the world all these things and if you add all these things together okay plus of course time you know things gone and things yet to come then you have the world the big thing the totality of things well here's a problem you see two hands in front of you and it's true of these two hands okay that there are two that this end is my left hand that this hand is my right hand that this hand is not called Peter because it doesn't even have a name okay so all these things are true of these things okay so there are things which are true of things okay and those things are what philosophers call facts facts are things which are true of things now facts are really weird because they're not spatial-temporal okay we're in space time is the fact for instance that the earth is bigger than its moon okay the earth being bigger than its moon is neither the earth nor the moon nor any other spatial-temporal thing you cannot point to the fact of the earth being bigger than the moon and say well this is where it is the earth being bigger than the moon is in Alaska obviously no it's nowhere okay it concerns both the earth and the moon but it's nowhere to be found okay why because the ingredients are facts are not spatial-temporal things but concepts facts consist of concepts okay and what are concepts well concepts are something okay which can truly be set of something in such a way that you make explicit something's property okay now you want to know what is a property or this concept so let me give you a few of them so things obviously are what they are okay by having certain properties I am Marcus Gabriel means for instance that I'm currently wearing the suit that I grew up somewhere okay let I have a human body etc okay that's what I am I have all these properties other things have above other properties and are thereby distinguished from Marcus Gabriel for instance my chair is neither human body nor was he ever born by any human being okay so chairs don't do these things okay my chair is I don't know what's got colors my chair blue say okay and I'm not blue there's no sense in which I am blue okay so things have their properties and concepts are exactly okay what generally characterizes things Tessa Scott the concept of being green and the concept of being green is shared by all green things okay now you see that if you define the world it's just this huge thing this container of all spatial temporally extended things then you missed most most of it you miss all concepts you miss all relations you miss all facts all the interesting things are gone if that's the world for instance what about the Federal Republic of Germany okay is the Federal Republic of Germany identical with all spatial-temporal things appearing within its within its range now that's an absurd idea okay for instance the institution of democracy is not a spatial temporal object that's the weirdest thing to believe it's not like oh yeah I've seen democracy it looks like this and then you paint it it's it's it's kind of blue it looks like a mountain okay democracy doesn't have any looks okay that's why we make up all these images of democracy that's we that's what we need metaphors and myth in order to characterize it precisely because it's not a spatial-temporal thing so now we know already that the world okay the big thing that we are looking for cannot be the totality of spatial temporally extended things but weakly enough this is the most widespread and most common metaphysics of our time okay this is what gives rise to the idea that ultimately if you really want to know what's going on in this world okay then you have to ask unified physics well physics isn't exactly unified yet but say future physics when everything settled then you know okay everything then you have the world formula that idea okay assumes that the world is precisely the totality of these things but that's not true because they're concepts and facts and governments and elections and they're not spatial temporal okay now what is the world then well the best definition you can come up with is the world okay it's the totality of facts where that means that the world is all the truth everything which is true it is true that I'm right now here it is true that the earth is bigger than the moon okay but now in order to see where I'm heading just ask yourself the question imagine you write down a list okay of all these facts try it in your mind okay I'll give you ten seconds right write down everything which is true okay Munich is south of Berlin the earth is bigger than the moon the Big Bang happened at some particular point in time when you can if that's a legitimate way of talking it kind of isn't etc okay I have hair you write all these things down okay on your list now what you just did is you produced a new fact namely the list so you need an extra list okay to talk about that list and what about the list that you just gave the metal is the list okay which talks about the list well obviously you need another list okay you cannot finish that there's no way to write down a list with everything which is true okay it's pretty it's impossible in principle there's no such list but if there is no such list then the world does not exist okay that's one of the arguments that use them more of them okay because the world would precisely be the biggest thing the world does not exist in just the same way in which there is no such thing as the biggest natural number you don't understand what a natural number is if you think there's the biggest one it's like yeah I can count to a thousand probably the next one is the biggest one okay no there's a thousand one and two etc you will never finish that okay and the same holds for the world and that entails immediately that we have to reconsider what we even mean by existence okay we just heard that you know some people believe that to exist or that if not that if something isn't measurable then it doesn't exist okay so that's the definition of existence to exist is to be measurable to exist is to have a certain number okay to exist is to have a quantity and I think that's also at early confused okay for instance in you know that's a very standard example that philosophers used in order to refuse this idea okay so just ask yourself the question how many ball people are in this room okay there should be a number for that okay how many ball people are in this room but now do you have a problem with this concept bald because if you're going to Yul Brynner look-alike context okay there will hardly be any bald people in this room because Yul Brynner is absolutely bald okay no hair but if you go to a Larry David look-alike context okay then a lot of people will be bald so the concept of bald is such that it's not completely settled how many people fall under it so we use a lot of concepts like bald or laugh okay and friendship and hate and justice which aren't settled we have no idea what they apply to we are constantly negotiating the limits of these concepts and all these things that we are applying these concepts to nevertheless exist so existence has nothing really to do with numbers okay or discrete entities the somewhere spread out in space and time existence is something else so what is existence then okay now here's a deep philosophical question what is existence so and I think here's what existence is okay I think existence the fact that something appears in say a context I have my own word for that I call these context fields of sense but that doesn't really matter okay so to exist is to piano context and now you can see why there are unicorns okay we all know hopefully the movie The Last Unicorn okay now there are obviously is a unicorn in the movie The Last Unicorn any interpretation according to which there are no unicorns in the last unicorn is a very contentious interpretation I mean you might come up with the idea that the movie is really about a pony which dresses which pretends to be a unicorn in order to cheat people into believing that it's a unicorn okay but there's no evidence for that interpretation okay also would be incredibly disappointing for all the young beautiful daughters on this planet that this is an evil Pony dressing up like a unicorn okay so that's a bad interpretation the same holds for things like witches okay it's a very bad interpretation of of the tragedy Faust or of Macbeth okay according to which there are no witches in these tragedies obviously they're witches or Blair Witch Project I mean that's more contentious people have argued that there is no witch in Blair Witch Project but okay in my interpretation there is one so if existence means to appear in a context then you can fully legitimately say and understand what we say things such as there is a number a natural number or exactly one natural number between three and five namely four or there are witches for instance in Macbeth there are trolls okay for instance in some other movie but not in Norway okay so there are witches well in Macbeth but not in Spain or in any other country they have never been any witches in any country okay but they have been witches in literature for instance so for something to exist is really for it to be part of a context and that means that we have to give up the idea that there is something like an all-encompassing context okay which settles all matters of existence once and for all in such a way that we are always entitled to not look into the details because I think that the concept of the world or reality or the universe really serves a particular function it's a fear concept I think it's the concept okay which gets the goods ribs of the actual infinity of things okay because what we are really confronted with I wanted to demonstrate that with this example of the list it's an actual infinity of facts okay so if I were to describe reality if I if I were able to give you another worldview which are not because I'm claiming that there are no coherent worldviews here okay neither any religious worldview no the scientific worldview for that matter no worldview works they're all false they're all expressions of fear you want to make things much simpler than they really are and this is why you look for some formula covering everything everything is spatial temporal okay things are exactly like physics say they are okay or all things are exactly like sociology says they are okay whatever your preferred discipline or way of thinking or things that exactly like the Bible says okay so whenever you use something like that what you're really giving voice to is fear okay namely the fear of infinity you're not looking into how things really are and if I were to give you a world picture okay again I could only give you a metaphor in order to show you how I believe things look once you give up the fantasy of the world okay so here's how things look once the world's gone think of it this way in this very moment all our lives intersect and they all intersect within within Ted at the TEDx event okay people watching this intersect currently with our lives and all these things intersect in manifold ways and if you really want to find out how they intersect you have to talk to the people you have to do particular research on how people interpret what I'm saying etc all these things intersect while I'm while I'm saying this manner ons are firing your neurons are firing okay some volcano is exploding in a galaxy far away and will never be observed etc all these detailed things are happening right now maybe a really crazy martian creature is writing a book by the title why the world really does exist okay or another version of the Bible all at the schnabel over there okay so all of this is really happening and I think what we need to do now okay and I think that that's an important step for Humanity is we really have to give up the idea that all things are connected some things are connected and some things are not we have to give up the idea that there's an overall structure which already settles things and if we give up the idea we also have a chance of reconsidering the option that we're really the free autonomous human beings that we think we are we are not determined by an overall structure okay behind our backs it's neither God nor the universe okay it's us and that means in that sense we are alone but the way we are alone is we're alone with infinite possibilities worth exploring and this is how I want to end this talk thank you very much for you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 225,296

Rating: 3.9734514 out of 5

Keywords: 20. September 2013, ted talk, tedx talk, Markus Gabriel, tedx, TEDx, ted talks, Muffathalle, tedx talks, Why the world does not exist, ted x, Muenchen, ted, Munich, Lost and Found, München, Lost & Found, TEDxMuenchen, TEDxMünchen

Id: hzvesGB_TI0

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/neftalydotcom]

Did I miss something that went completely over my head? I felt like he spun a linguistic failure/fallacy into a 20-minute talk while ignoring math theory.

[u/auctor_ignotus]

Deleuze; plane of immanence.

[u/this_is_the_NSA]

He is criticizing the view that to be real is to be "measurable" -- particular material things (e.g. an electron) have effects and exert forces, so we can slip into the habit of thinking that's just what it is to exist--i.e. it is to be a physical object.

But general things -- concepts, relations, facts -- don't literally exert forces in the spatio-temporal world of cause and effect. So, in the jargon, he is talking about the ancient problem of "universals," and rejecting a certain "nominalist" take on it.

His solution to the problem of universals seems to be a version of what is called "coherentism." Basically, you posit entities within theories, languages, stories (contexts), and there's no sense in asking what entities there are independent of theories, languages and stories.

The standard reply to his remedy is that some contexts are merely stories, while others are true in virtue of corresponding to how things really are.

But to do justice to these themes (universals, truth, existence) in such a short talk is impossible.

I could be wrong, but that's what I got out of it.

EDIT: perhaps I should have also said his view is that the concepts, relations and facts get "posited" within, and so are "real" within these varied contexts. Needless to say, I don't find this view very persuasive.

[u/[deleted]]

Ach, Markus. Do we really need this?

[u/pxmckay]

Facts/concepts exists inside the individual, materialism. done.

[u/Dr_Momentism]

So that I can watch later... Will comment again

[u/cratylus]

The whole point of moving to the spatiotemporal description of nature was to talk about events/processes as primary - not "things". + it's simply not true that there is no room in this description for relations - pick up any book of mathematical logic and there's a wealth of detail on how to model relations. There are even formal logics for modelling processes/signals etc

Nelson Goodman put forward very similar ideas about the lack of one world - although it really doesn't amount to more than allowing for many different descriptions of "the world" ( "many worlds" / "many contexts" ) -

witches in novels / witches in norway is just equivocation I would say -

I think the "disconnection" he hints at the end is easily accommodated by the contextual talk he uses earlier - we can make sense of ( in space time) local contexts of applicability where forces have more or less power ,drop off over distance and so forth - we can embed (indeed explain) all that variation easily by appeal to physical law and spacetime. Even within the same local regions of spacetime we can identify distinct strata /processes based on other physical laws /properties of materials and so on. ( all I mean by accomodate is make sense of btw, not predict/explain away)