1,384 words · auto-generated from the episode video
1:26:20you may have noticed the Platonic solids as our sort of emblem, as our logo. You're going to see it in the top right corner of our videos. The Platonic solids are something that we chose early on, at the very beginning, when we started this podcast. We were thinking about like, you know, what is what is the symbolism that encapsulates what we're trying to do. >> Yep. >> The Platonic solids are introduced in Plato's dialogues, which I have a copy of here. This next shelf, the third and final shelf, is going to consist of philosophy in a broad sense. And
1:27:01again, it's a living document, or it's a living library. So, if you guys have other books that you want to include there, please let us know. But, for now, we've got three. We're going to start with Plato's dialogues. This is a copy from way back that includes, um, both Timaeus and The Republic. Okay? So, um, in Plato's dialogue Timaeus, he introduces these Platonic solids, and he says that these are the shapes that are his answer for the question, "What is the universe made out of?" Now, I like that for the reason that he's even asking that question, right? It's
1:27:42kind of cool that someone's asking, "What is the material like what what's the stuff made out of?" And he says, "Everything is made out of Platonic solids. There's some hidden geometric building blocks that make up the world." And Timaeus is kind of like a first attempt at, you know, what we as physicists try to chase all the time, which is a unified field theory. >> Theory of everything. >> Right? A theory of everything. Well, Plato had his version of a theory of everything. I I mean, it's it's wrong. It's not made out of shapes, but I mean, if you ask string theorists, they'll say, "Yes, it's made out of shapes. It's just that the shape is in 11 dimensions." Okay. >> [laughter] >> But the the the
1:28:23the philosophy is there, right? Where like as physicists, we want to find unification. And I think Plato was one of these philosophers that really suggested that very early on. Um what I also love about Plato is the fact that, you know, in his Republic, there's the very famous allegory of the cave, which talks about how um human perceptual senses have a limitation. Okay? The fact that I mean, let's go over the allegory of the cave. The idea is that there's these philosopher kings or whatever that are creating
1:29:04real shapes, and the shapes are getting projected as shadows on a wall. And all we humans are doing are looking at the shadows and thinking that they're real. This is how the Matrix comes out to be, right? Where it's like all of our senses are actually fooling us into thinking that there's a hidden reality underneath. I mean, the deeper and deeper we go into physics, it turns out there's a lot of truth to that idea, right? The other reason why I love Platonic shapes is just the geometry of it is so cool. Um the fact that there are only five of them and no more, right? There are only five three-dimensional objects where every single face is exactly the same. You've got the tetrahedron, which is the
1:29:46triangle with a bunch of equal at four equilateral triangles. You've got the cube, obviously with square square square square. Um you've got the octahedron, the dodecahedron. And Plato in Timaeus, he constructed this like mathematical cosmology where um the physical world was consisting of these shapes, and each of the shapes had to do with an element that the universe is made out of. Like the tetrahedron was fire, the cube is Earth, the icosahedron is water, the dodecahedron is the cosmos itself, and then there's like an ether, which is crazy that he thought of an ether and then we borrowed it in the 1900s to describe how electromagnetism worked.
1:30:27Turns out that's not exactly true, but again, it's like it's very cool to see like, you know, from 2,000 years ago, 2,500 years ago, this trail of intellectual thought still coming down. Um the idea that the universe is understandable at a first principles level from building blocks. I think that's very cool. And so that's why Plato gets on our philosophy >> shelf. >> shelf. >> The inaugural selection, the inventor of the concept of Legos. >> Yes. >> And then one day the Fire Nation attacked. For those Avatar fans. The Last Airbender Avatar in the audience.
1:31:07>> Yes, that's exactly right. So, you know, we're going from Plato, which is this idea that realism um a true reality exists in the realm of forms. There's the this idea like the theory of forms. If you've seen that very famous um painting, I think it's by Raphael, it's in the Vatican, where um Plato it's it's all of the Greek philosophers in a single paint painting. Um my fav actually my favorite philosopher Diogenes, who's just a troll, is like in a corner there. Um The funni my my favorite even though Plato is awesome, >> Yeah. >> just from a personal perspective, my favorite philosopher is Diogenes, because he invented trolling.
1:31:49Um there's a famous story where Plato said, I I let I'm paraphrasing, but Plato said, um how do you define a human being? It's a featherless biped. And then and then Diogenes got a >> [laughter] >> And plucked all of his feathers. And then and then came into Plato's like lecture and he was like, "Behold, a human." [laughter] >> Diogenes the degenerate. >> Dude, he's so degenerate, right? >> And we love we love it. >> I mean, he trolled Alexander the Great, right? When Alexander the Great was like, "What can I do for you?" He's like, "Uh step out of the sun for me. You're you're you're in the way of the light." Like to Alexander the Great. Like this guy did not care.
1:32:29So, I love that about him. Um it's not someone that I let's say aspire to be, sure but uh it's he's still funny. >> Well, you sometimes you got to be the original contrarian. >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was the original. Anyway, so Plato in the in this giant um painting by Raphael about it's um about all of the philosophers in the School of Athens, um there's Plato and Aristotle and Plato is pointing at the sky. Cuz he's saying that the true reality is in this world of forms, right? And we're just we're just peons looking at through our senses some random nonsense, okay? Um
1:33:11>> Some representation. >> So, yeah, some representation based on our senses. >> But not the true form itself. >> Yeah. Well, he was kind of late to the party. >> Okay. >> Because a thousand years ago the Hindus >> Of course. >> in the Upanishads wrote exactly this down, okay? The Upanishads are something that I grew up learning about. Um it's a school of Hindu philosophy called Advaita Vedanta, which is this non-dual representation of the world. The fact that consciousness and the material world are one in the same. They're not actually separate. This is very different from I think Western philosophy that talks about a creator having created creation, right?
1:33:51>> Um you know, God said, "Let there be light and there was light and then it was all good. Um in in in Hindu philosophy, especially in Advaita philosophy, Advaita means non-dual. Dvaita means two two, and then a is like a non. Um there it's one in the same. Like the the creation and the creator cannot be separated. Right. Right? I really like that, but that's that's from a more philosophical point of view. Um in the line of in the line of Plato and his idea of forms and the idea that the senses are limited. The Upanishads definitely talk about
1:34:31that a thousand years earlier. Um there's the Shvetashvatara Upanishad that talks about the origin of Maya. Maya is um this idea that when we talk about the world is an illusion, it's