Bestselling author Benjamin Labatut joins Brian Greene for an exploration of the extremes of the human mind, centering on one of its most extraordinary incarnations—polymath John von Neumann–delving into existential dilemmas, moral quandaries, and the profound impacts of scientific discovery.
This program is part of the Big Ideas series, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.
Participant: Benjamin Labatut
Moderator: Brian Greene
00:00 – Introduction
01:27 – Benjamin Labatut Introduction
02:23 – Introduction to Labatut’s Maniac
03:56 – Pain and Woe Coming From the Faculty of Reason
09:30 – Father of AI, John von Neumann
14:01 – How AI Might Change Humanity
16:22 – Examining Extreme Personalities
18:20 – Kurt Gödel and Von Neumann
23:20 – Balancing the Rational with Belief
27:29 – Von Neumann’s Conception of God
28:56 – Labatut’s mixing of reality and imaginary
31:55 – Labatut’s view of the medium of the novel
34:46 – Von Neumann’s Desire for Legacy
39:48 – Labatut’s view of mortality
42:21 – Credits
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wow!
Oh no, "the form of the novel is dead," (around 33:25) but the author still has to write novels. Because what else is there? Once we abandon the form of the novel, we're just writing short stories or poetry.
I feel all of this.
I’m not impressed by the questions or answers. Dude is trying way too hard to be cool.
Anyone who gives serious credence to a supernatural “God” gives license to humans who take god-like power/actions over others. Human inequality STARTS with the inherent inequality between an omnipotent, immortal being and a corporeal humanity. We can be “irrational” in other ways, if, as Brian says, we need to be.
This was so insightful. Another great video Brian. I have always thought that all humans are insecure from the time we are old enough to grasp reality.. I feel in short, Benjamin portrayed my thought in so many eloquent ways. He has a fascinating way to express the human experience. Thank you so much for having him as your guest.
“The mind is alive when it is suffering, when it is unsure” – Wow. As a mystic on one side and an engineer on the other I find this kind of conversation to be deeply insightful.
i don't judge his work, but I always have problems with people who speak in plural, I have problems means "snake oil salesman"
I resonated very much with his idea that we're "a haunted species … haunted by yourselves" …
I've often marvelled at old B&W, archival photos and thought that even the youngest babies in them would have been long gone a long time ago … and found myself realizing, that I, too, like those people of the past, am merely one of tomorrow's ghosts …
What BS…
So this guy is peddling religion in the science fair? How is this guy just all over the place? Please stop. People are killing each other in god’s name in the Middle East and all over the world. For centuries this nonsense is going on.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL
Without reality we don't even have our imagination. I see consciousness as this orientation. Remembering or reimagining the past if you will and foreshadowing the future is what allows us to see ourselves and to emote and experience these relative harmonies and tensions of our environment. The essence of totalitarianism for instance is a lie so pervasive and coerced that it distorts this ability to orientate ourselves in the world. Our consciousness becomes narrower rather than lesser and we tell ourselves stories to derive meaning from the meaningless even more.
It was September 9th when I began using chat gpt you guys were laughing at my math 🏹🔥
Humans mentality master bating 😂
If you hear with your eyes the world will change right in front of you
Imagine the next step of understanding the human psyche encapsulation 4 walls and your height radiation purge no light
A strong deconstructive interference full deflagration in scaling positive geometry full coherence
The delta resonates with your heartbeat
There are certain truths that math is unable to prove, that's true for any kind of experience, no? I mean you can bite but can't bite your own teeth, you can touch with your fingertip, but you can't touch the tip of your finger with the tip of the same finger
At the edge of our model of the world is our beliefs and they are that which shape our interpretation of the world. To change from "believe " to "think" 😍 that's going to break down some models in some human minds
29:07 Unfortunately, this hasn't been able to unconvince me of a hard deterministic view of this thing we call reality.
First, we must remember to use magical thinking for entertainment purposes only. If we don’t it could creep in and we may believe something to be true without any evidence. This is what breaks science.
I’ve been experimenting with my mind for over 50 years. I’ve recently been interested in the concept of something called ‘the mind’s eye’. I’ve been able to do it all of my life, sometimes easier than others, but even when I can see clearly, in 3D it’s very clear, but only briefly. It’s hard to hold for more than 5 seconds.
I have found a way to do it better. I can hold the visions for up to 30 seconds now and they are even more clear. I also think we can employ several things the mind is capable of at the same time. Lucid dreaming and hallucinations for example, but with near perfect control.
The only thing I’m afraid of is that maybe the human mind isn’t built to do these sorts of things, but I’m still fine. There have been times that scared me because once i found a path to the fast mind. It affected me for a couple of weeks.
Someone would say something and my mind would go through hundreds of files or thoughts or scenarios that I might want to choose from and I was perfectly conscious of it. That was weird.
Playing is a more appropriate word than suffering. Suffering can be helpful and beautiful but placing it higher than creation, pleasure, learning etc. is wrong imo.