So what you're saying is, no matter what universe you're born into, you still have to go to math class...

An excellent mental discourse about reality. Thank you.

I didn't see the 'why' at first. Without that the question looked absolutely ludicrous. But I loved it.

There are only two possibilities; something forever or nothing for never.

Even if mathematics is always there and true, that still doesn't explain how physical matter springs forth from equations. When I think of "why is there anything at all?" it necessarily includes the origins of any form of physical matter, or prima materia as I've heard some say.

This guy is indicative of how steeped Platonism is ontologically in order to explain what exactly physics or mathematics is fundamentally. Essentially his explanation is predicated off of the exists of Platonic forms that are eternal.

*"...Why is There Anything at All?..."* is a question that is so profoundly mysterious that I have often wondered if even God knows the answer.

Max never answer the fundamental question: why is there a Law of Logic rather than Nothing at all?

We can put "why..." before anything imaginable. It forces us to beg the question. We may have to accept that there are questions that lack answers.

I ask myself the same thing every day.

Hardest question anyone in any universe can ever get in an interview

Best channel ever!! 🙏

One could ask Tegmark what he precisely means by a "mathematical structure", In particular, because he seems pretty simplistic in his account of logic. I guess logic may provide a foundation for mathematics, not the other way around. In the way he poses the matter, it seems that by "mathematical structure" we could take anything. Moreover, we may defend that mathematics is just a product of the human mind, following the spirit o constructive mathematics, cf. Brouwer's intuitionism. This seems to call for a much deeper discussion.

Very good question 🤔

If there is nothing, then there are no rules to prevent the creation of something.

Aren’t mathematical structures mere relationships? If yes, then, “why anything exists” is because anything and everything is related. In the absence of relationships nothing might exist.

I believe the answer to that question is very simple and we expect some sort of grand explanation but all physical matter , all living things or inanimate things cannot bring about it’s own existence out of nothing, just because we’re discussing the universe doesn’t mean that principle changes

The very question of asking “why does that exist” presupposes logic, because it is a logical inquiry about causality. So logic (and all things that extrapolate from it - math, self-consistent structures) is therefore is its own reason for existence

Can mathematics exist without space or time? And if so, could it have any meaning?

it is good start.

The Mathematical Universe by Tegmark is one of the greatest books I've ever read. Check it out!

The nature of reality is belief. What you accept as true is real to you. Truth is reality's foundation. We can, however, place belief in illusions. A ten second glance at the world should tell you this is so. In fact, this is what we're all engaging in all the time; we are trying to bring truth to illusions. If you want to wake up from illusion, you have toput your perception-mobile in reverse by bringing your illusions to truth.

Such a MT fan!!!

Because nothing can't exist other than what we call the moment. And time is that what is all two, everything & nothing. It circulates so to say. Well that's short for an answer.

Nothing from nothing leaves nothing .

Math is a perfect idea, a structure that exists on top of this reality. Yet, if you look around, you won't see any numbers flying in the air. Math is a way to calculate this reality, but not actually explain what reality is. which is simply what it is. The entire realm of logic came from our imagination, trying to grasp and communicate what we experience. Logic by itself is just a construct of communication and agreements laid in our imagination. Imagination by itself is the main source of our survival and with it, everything that we "know" exist. What we "know" is what we define as reality, not reality itself.

This channel should be renamed “Questions“ unanswered.

Logic tells us nothing is an impossibility as if there was nothing the question itself would not exist

Maybe the question should be "How is there anything at all?"

From a quite controversial way of seeing this just isness was from an experience on salvia divinorum. In that experience, my brain stopped working; well not in the normal ways. I had a great insight. All my perceptions faded away, so the flowers, trees, grass, did not have any names or descriptions, they just were. They had no meaning attached to them. And pondering about this more, the universe hadn't gone with names, descriptions, concepts, and meaning, for billions of years. And will continue to have no meaning attached to it in the future. These meanings and names and descriptions we have attached to things will only be temporary. :)

Could I say, the property of existence, allows no subordinate living forms to discover the secret of why is there anything at all.

I ask the same question!

Nothing is not a state where the question ‘why isn’t there anything’ can be asked.

He didn't answer the question posed by the title of the video. He just made the point that he thinks mathematics exists independent of anything else.

Perhaps this is better stated as "it is impossible for relationship to not be". Relationship can be expressed through mathematics. That relationship is transcendental is necessarily true. That relationship is comprehensible is also necessarily true, indicating the transcendence of consciousness ---- of which relationship is a property.

I think a more fundamental question is "why is there anywhere at all". If something exists it has to "be" somewhere, and that "somewhere" had to exist (if that,s the right word) before anything could be in it.

Matter cannot make or direct itself and matter is what makes time and space!

Read Donald Knuth's little story, "Surreal Numbers" based on John Horton Conway's development of that eponymous number system from the empty set. Also Ian Stewart's book ... Fearful Symmetry ... on symmetry breaking. The empty set is too symmetrical.

There is relations, meanings, and desires, in various forms, sat-cit-ānanda-vigrahaḥ.

Nothing happens without a cause

If states should be reduced to the platonic solid theory, which is fine, then this would help to explain how love is the transcendant force through which the seed of life germination is formed, the structure of which is the cuboctahedron, thus the transcendant form composed of the dual solids the cube and the octahedron, their forms existance is dependant on each other, as are the other dual solids, and therefore and then again, love.

Reductio ad absurdum : assuming the opposite to some conclusion and showing that it results in a contradiction, is redundant for proving anything mathematical without a math form of the law of non-contadiction, reducing the number line, -1, 0, 1, to, 0, 1 and leaving adding the opposite equal to deduction, by qualifying a number with the negation adjective, "-", for example, 1 - 1 = 1 + -1 = 0, undefined.

We don't know why. We are willing to continue trying to find out. We are not confident we could understand the answer or whether it will be satisfying if we did.That is OK. We are humans. We seem to have a drive for orderly pattern creation besides our drive to exist. This biases any discussion we have of why. The closest answer we may get to is existence is a pattern in a natural phenomenon and currently we do not have the ability to see outside the phenomenon to see if there are any clues to why it exists. That is probably OK because we have not exhausted lines of inquiry internally yet. One of the only handles we have on this question is it seems to do with math relating to probability.

🤔. . . . another fabulous video! I’ve followed this guy for some time now - Max is a very smart guy, no doubt. The ultimate problem mathematics faces (and therefore Max himself, taking the lead for us these days) is….. infinity. The problem is attempting to define and understand infinity - in any direction and/or dimension. It is probably true (but can’t be proven) that “nothingness” is impossible, in the same way that infinity is probable…… but will forever be impossible to define and understand. Max won’t like this statement, because he is a mathematics guy. And mathematics will “forever” fail to define or discover the nature (or shall we say, ‘the essence’) of infinity. Infinity underlies all of reality. And to put it plainly, this pisses off the smartest among us.

Why is there anything at all? One way to approach an answer is to start with the paradoxical phrase: “nothing exists” and work on the word “nothing”. (1) If we take “nothing” to mean “no thing”, we can, for example, think what reality was like before the big bang, and imagine the emptiness of pure space with “no things” in it. Then “nothing exists” has meaning. (2) If we take “nothing” to mean “non-existence” then we have “non-existence- exists’, a pure contradiction that can be interpreted “non-existence cannot exist. Hence “nothing exists” then means that here is only existence and it has to be infinite. (3) If we take “nothing” to mean “nothingness” a situation that appears empty but has existence, is “something”. And that something is pure existence, absolute being, or, as I prefer, “infinite nothingness”. And nothingness can be, and in fact, is continuous space. And where does that get us? I believe, a foundation of reality consists of infinite nothingness, continuous space. Because continuous space is referenced by the real number line that includes the rational numbers that is reference by the rational numbers, and we have stumbled on a true hylomorphic dualism from which life, mind, soul, and yes, consciousness are derived.

What exists? Your consciousness.

👉📣 Dear Robert🧐 You have asked the most complicated question anybody can asked by someone in his/her whole life 👋👋👋 keep it up 😂😂I know as you too that we are still far away from the truth but you with your unstoppable work taking us a little more CLOSER TO TRUTH 👍

If you think you can quantify love.. then you can know for certain that it is not love, ....if it is quantifiable, it may be a relationship, but it is not love. Therefore if mathematics is needed to calculate quantities, and therefore certainly not needed before love is..before the calculable exists the incalculable. .. so therefore love precedes mathematics, and for there to be mathematics, love must be prerequisite, before any attractions, affinities or relationships are to be measured. Therefore the reason for existance is love, not mathematics, love is in spite of mathematics.

Love is the reason why.

Could the whole of mathematics as a general class be an abstract existence, with the parts of mathematics, like numbers, addition / subtraction, algebra, geometry and the rest becoming the structure of physical reality?

We experience nothingness when we die and when we sleep, but every time we try to include it in our picture of reality, the Universe doesn't make sense. I think nothingness must be an illusion of human minds and the human experience possibly.

Maybe the question itself is the problem. People ask how did something come from nothing? Maybe there has ALWAYS been "something" (the universe), and the universe didn't have a choice but TO exist.

I think it's basically because 'nothing' can't exist, there must therefore be 'something'.

If there was nothing you wouldn't get to ask that question but now you're getting into philosophy. Tegmark is a physicist, physics deals with how not why.

Of all the people Robert's has interviewed about this question, I think Max's answer comes closest to the truth. (I wish David K. Lewis were still around to Robert to interview.) But I would rather they had cut to the chase and got to the fundamental issue at hand, instead of dancing around it in this video. Possibly, the very reason why we find questions about "existence" difficult to answer may stem from the word "existence" failing to refer to any well-defined physical concept in the first place. Notice that it doesn't fit into the same categories as any other physically descriptive words we use. A few examples will suffice: "exists" doesn't describe an action things perform; it doesn't describe a place things literally come of go from; it doesn't describe any sort of substance individual things can trade, gain, or lose; existence doesn't represent something things can possess to differing degrees, with one thing having more of it than another. In this sense "existence" remains categorically different from all other physical concepts like mass, volume, energy, measure, acceleration, and the like. We can see a demonstration of the utter lack-of-importance of the concept of "existence" within physics just by examining a random selection of advanced physics textbooks, must of which rarely, if ever, find any need to use any form of the word "exists" at all! Generally speaking, we need to address the question "HOW do we know that a certain proposition X is true", BEFORE we can address that question "WHY is proposition X true?". If we try to ask "Why do numbers exist", we quickly come to the problem that philosophers differ over whether they'd even claim that "numbers exist". When philosophers express disagreement over whether numbers exist, generally no part of their disagreement regards the actual properties, functions, derivation or usefulness of numbers, per se. The disagreement instead boils down to simply having differing arbitrary conventions for how to legitimately make use of the word "exist", just like players disagreeing over the particular rules for a board game. Wittgenstein showed good insight when he referred to various disputes within philosophy as simply "language games." Likewise, before we can ask "why does anything exist", we first need to explain what, in the first place, even justifies our asserting that "something exists". If the reason for making that assertion comes simply from the arbitrary rules of our language game, the truth of the assertion need not demand any external explanation. Immanuel Kant, in The Critique of Pure Reason, included "existence" within his list of analytic a priori intuitions, a sort of filter all our experiences go through in the process of us thinking about them. He contrasted it and other specific a priori intuitions with other kinds of knowledge that we gain a posteriori through our senses. Kant later went on the argue that "existence is not a predicate" and his profound insights there give us good reasons to doubt whether "Why is there anything at all? " even expresses a meaningful question. One can talk about things and properties of things directly, without having to ever having include within our ontology some bogus ineffable referent somehow in addition to the things themselves, something that has variously been called the "existence of the things", "ground of being", "prima materia", "instantiation", or the like. This extra referent, which supposedly helps account for the contrast between actually existent things and other mere thing-in-themselves, comes from runaway philosophical speculation, proves purely fictional, and thus needs no causal explanation. "Existence", as a concept, finds more useful application within linguistics than within physics. When we say "X exists" we mean that the symbol X has a referent within whatever domain (whether reality, or a fictional universe, or mathematics, or some other domain) we consider relevant at the time. To say "X exists" is just to say that using X as a referent succeeds in a particular way. The question "Why does anything exist?" thus overlaps with the question "Why does language work?"

Consciousness is living an illusion that it weaves out of itself. There is no separating the universe from consciousness just as there is no separating the bubble from water or a wave from the sea.They are one and the same.

Alfa and Omega ..no end en no beginning

Nothing is the only potential with a zero chance of occurrence, this is the fundamental law.

Great Topic, However it is Arrogant to Conclude We Know All of Anything Right Now. If You take the Simple Example of Materials ( Our Periodic Table ). To Suggest there are No New Materials in another Location of the Universe. That's More than Likely Wrong. The Same May be True for Maths. We may Discover More Maths, New Maths.

its just 5 of them but what about the next dimension. the 4th the one we cant see? or 5th or 6th...

Interesting - To me it's a different perspective. I don't agree or disagree, just worth considering is where I'm at with this "Mathematics Only Exists" theory.

Mathematics surely has no ontological power, without there being some form of prior consciousness to bring forth its Apriori concepts 'into reality'? In this respect, since we have mathematical concepts, which require further that there be consciousness to bring them into reality, on a deeper level still, maybe consciousness itself, has no choice other than to exist?

In my humble opinion, his claim that mathematics always existed does not explain how anything material exists and I would suggest that universe is made of matter. As he admitted mathematics is abstract but abstract things cannot cause to exist material things. Any thoughts on my thought? :)

Also unrelated, but does consciousness support reality?

So what Max Tegmark is saying is first there was the word (mathemetics) and the word became flesh (physical reality). But how did that jump happen? How did the word become flesh?

Nothing may be ruled out.

The consistency of mathematical relations causes the existence of reality

Exactly my view on mathematics and reality. That's why Max Tegmark is my favorite modern scientist, together with Roger Penrose. And by the way, morality and aesthetics are mathematical in nature too.

I can't help but think that question of why anything exists at all is a bad one. The real question is how could anything NOT exist.

I love Max so much.... but because eternal Math that equals Universe?

That was a great explanation.

Matter makes time and distance.

Endless

I find the question Why is there anything at all weird. We are predisposed to asking this kind of questions because of evolution. ( if there is something, than it should have come from somewhere, because that helped us survive in the wild). To suppose that something exist, supposes the existence of space-time. In that sense, there is something rather than nothing because the universe exists, otherwise the question itself wouldn't exist.

Why anything? Because of you. Without you, nothing would exist.

from "DIVINE RECKONING" "When our machines grow capable of thought, and we assign them to the greatest task - to find the answers that mankind’s long sought and learn what is behind Creation’s mask - they likely will respond in God’s own tongue - the language that we call mathematics. Equations, like sacred psalms, will be sung, and math will garner devout fanatics."

Robert looks like a cross between Einstein and Larry King.

Rational thought is the basis of all mathematics. Thus you cannot have a house with two rooms such that one of the room is bigger than the whole house. No one needs mathematics to understand this statement. However, one can represent this in mathematical form: If A+B=C then C>A & C>B So there seems to be something more fundamental than even mathematics i.e. rational thought.

So the answer is that we don't know, and can't know, it just doesn't make sense to anyone.

Why not?

As others have posted this is a profound question but I think there is an underlying assumption that "nothing" is somehow fundamental and the default state, I'm not sure that is the case . If nothing is the default then somehow it would need to transition to something, I don't see how that can occur. Why is it not as likely that "something" is the default of nature?

I don't know if this is actually true, but it is intuitively true.

(0:20) *MT: **_"I think that we are part of this mathematical structure ... that just exists."_* ... It is literally inconceivable to have a state of absolute nothingness. Something must be present to comprehend nothing, and nothing must be present to comprehend something. Any attempts to communicate nothing or something without the conceivable presence of the opposite results in a paradox. When you rewind conceivability to its most minimalistic structure you end up at a juxtaposition of *Existence* and *Nonexistence.* That is the structural yin-yang of reality, and you cannot regress any further than this and remain grounded in logic. In the beginning ... *Existence:* a single mathematical point (data). *Nonexistence:* whatever does not represent that mathematical point (non-data). Ironically, Big Bang even shows us that this strange, axiomatic point of self-existence is where everything in the universe has emerged.

Is there no such thing as "Nothing?" Does nothing exist? Will there always be something? And in the case of life. Is there really death? Is death the "Nothing?" Or is death as we know it, just "Something Else?"

'Why...?" is not a valid existential question. The fact that there IS SOMETING is self-evidential. If the genuine motive is to understand anything ABOUT this existence, the first pre-requisite is to learn the basics of logic.. Existence is 'that which exists', so it is not a question of 'why' but of HOW? In order for a correct understanding to even be possible, it must firstly be realised that we may not have asked the correct questions yet.. And we can begin with why any given 'scientist' does not calibrate their most important of all apparatus, where all of the understanding is to occur, their own mind? Then, can we call a species 'sapient', 'intelligent' or 'civilised', that is still in the process of destroying its own atmosphere? Still 'at war' with itself?

Time is a creation.

Nothing only relative to physical existence, as to before physical existence; and not absolute?

So mathematics would even exist if nothing existed..what would it exist into then..it would be in the perceptual domain of someone ..thus the dilemma for someone to exist in the first place for mathematics to exist in its imagination..its similar to the observer issue in wave particle duality ..what if we were made to observe particles and Discover mathematics etc..for such things to exist

Nothing have only an imagine existence, something have also an existence out of the imagine.

The human mind has evolved to look for explanations and exploit them, and we’ve gained a strong competitive advantage from that (so far). But the idea that existence itself requires an explanation is a purely human construct, and I think a fallacious one. (Prove me wrong!) Mathematics is a symbolic language developed by humans that we have found useful in modeling the physical world. But I wouldn’t characterize the physical world as an actual “mathematical structure.” We model it as such, but that’s always an approximation.

Who’s reality . And , what reality .. Just the material reality ?

It's like saying that the room exists because of its reflection in the mirror or because one can measure the furniture. Cart before the horse.

It simply may be that non-existence doesn’t exist.

Genesis 2:18

Structure is of time and distance.

On a net basis there is truly nothing. Fortunately we are a vacuum fluctuation.

No human knows or can truly know why .

If you think that the best way to describe the universe as 'mathematical structure' and you're asking (why there is anything at all) The best answer is that because 1 created every thing, and that let us know that the creator is 1 not 2,3 or more.. And this one has wisdom of his creation.

The question Max should be asked is “How is it possible for a physical universe to emerge from abstract principles?” Mathematical principles may be responsible for organizing the physical, but it cannot be responsible for creating the physical. Max was answering a different question, namely “Is it possible for math not to exist?“ or “Does math exist if there’s nothing to quantify?”

why does a subjective value like love feels so real? It may not be universal but it's reality is overwhelmingly felt. Could life be more real than Mathematics?