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00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:17 The connection between mathematics and ethics 00:03:05 Mathematical concepts that are interpreted solely physically (thick and thin concepts) 00:16:33 The continuum hypothesis 00:19:23 A counter proof to the continuum hypothesis 00:24:45 What's possible can have probability of zero (measure zero, technically) 00:33:50 Platonism and "thick" mathematical concepts 00:34:39 Moral realism / objectivity, without God 00:36:59 Does 2+2=5? 00:40:43 Moral intuitions as serving a marker for what's "correct"? 00:46:42 What's makes some theory correct beside its ability to predict / explain? 00:47:54 Does libertarian Free Will exist, and how is it coexistent with physics? 00:53:13 VIEWER TEST: Platonism test for the audience 00:54:53 Did Shakespeare invent Hamlet, or discover it? 00:56:09 What created the Platonic world? 00:57:42 Eternal vs Sempiternal 00:59:12 Thought experiments as a tool of probing physics, without experiment 01:00:39 Galileo's thought experiment demonstrating objects fall at the same rate despite different masses / heaviness 01:03:39 Thought experiment demonstrating relative motion (invariance of physical laws given uniform motion) 01:05:01 The Tower thought experiment demonstrating the opposite of the above 01:09:43 VIEWER TEST: Are you a Newtonian absolutist, or a Leibnizian relationalist? 01:12:45 Why did Prof Brown go into the philosophy of math, instead of directly into mathematics (or physics)? 01:13:20 Have any philosophical problems ever been solved? 01:14:47 Is God good? Or is goodness independent of God? 01:15:41 Descartes vs Leibniz on God's power (God can do anything -- except what's logically impossible) 01:18:43 The parochial view of physicists / mathematicians to dismiss what they can't define 01:22:31 Thought experiment from Newton regarding the necessity of space 01:24:45 Einstein's variation on the above thought experiment 01:28:17 How to classify thought experiments 01:31:35 Prof. Brown's thoughts on Wolfram's TOE and Eric Weinstein's TOE 01:32:40 Nicholas Gisin's thoughts on real numbers, and free will 01:33:02 What other foundations are there to physics, other than classical logic? 01:39:05 What does Mathematical Realism look like when it's NOT Platonic? 01:45:31 The physical laws themselves as abstract entities, which have causal power 01:55:55 Lee Smolin's Principle of Precedence as a bridge between Platonism and non-Platonism 01:59:01 Deriving an "ought" from an "is" 02:03:29 What does James not like about Sam Harris? 02:06:45 Is Math discovered or invented? 02:10:18 Does Platonism entail some idea of a God? 02:14:49 Theism vs Deism 02:16:34 On the Sokal Affair and the trouble with Postmodernism 02:22:01 Limits of free speech? 02:27:41 The problem of commercializing research 02:33:09 On Jordan Peterson's "Darwinian" definition of truth
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James Robert Brown on Thought Experiments, the reality of mathematics, and the Continuum Hypothesis | Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
