Search

Home > Hidden Forces > Philosophical Mathematics and First Principles | A Conversation with Ray Monk
Podcast: Hidden Forces
Episode:

Philosophical Mathematics and First Principles | A Conversation with Ray Monk
Category: Business
Duration: 0
Publish Date: 2017-05-22 03:00:00
Description:

In Episode 11 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ray Monk. Ray Monk is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton in the UK, where he lectures on logic, philosophical mathematics and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He is presently a visiting Miller Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. A prolific biographer, professor Monk has written books on the philosophers and mathematicians Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, as well as the theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer.

In this episode, we explore the mysterious and paradoxical world of mathematics. What are the foundations of mathematics? Where did it come from? How did this seemingly infinite body of knowledge arise from virtually nothing? What are Euclid’s axioms? What are Plato’s forms? What did the Pythagorean mystery cults worship? How did our notions of mathematics evolve from the time of the Ancient Greeks? What were Immanuel Kant’s insights about how we experience the phenomenal world? What did he believe about the nature of reality and the role of mathematics in structuring perception? What was Russell’s paradox? Why did Bertrand Russell ultimately fail in his attempt to create a formal system of mathematics built off of logical axioms and postulates? What was it that Kurt Gödel uttered in 1931 that shattered our confidence in the very foundations of mathematics? What did his theorem of incompleteness prove about the limits of mathematical knowledge and the uncertainty of formal systems? Finally, what was the great insight of Ludwig Wittgenstein about why paradoxes exist? What did he have to say about the limits of language and expression? And what are the implications of all of this, for the existence of God?

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod
Total Play: 0