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Richard Feynman on hungry philosophers (or do we see objects or only their light)

Zero · 271.9K views · 2009-08-18 · 0:55

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Overview

A one-minute clip from Richard Feynman's 1979 Auckland lecture in which he answers whether you see an object or only its light. It is a short, playful take on perception and on the use of philosophy.

On Hacker News

HN uses it to illustrate Feynman's wry view of philosophical questions and perception.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2012–2021

Topics

Philosophy & ethicsFundamental physicsScientific method & science communication
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feynmanlightperceptionphilosophy of science

What people said

thaumaturgy · 2017-11 · Recommendation

I dunno about the rest of you, but I clicked on the link to her Twitter account, which so far has much higher quality stuff than this thread on HN. Some fun links: "Lightning makes new isotopes" [LINK] "P-values--abused but not abandoned" (includes some nice background on p-values for those of us for whom the concept is a little fuzzy) [LINK] A cute video of Feynman answering the question of whether you're seeing an object, or only the light from an object, when looking at it: [VIDEO] A single-molecule magnet: [LINK] ...and all that's just in the last 24 hours. She's got a fantastic Twitter feed for the science-interested.

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spodek · 2012-01 · Recommendation

I respect philosophy, but am more persuaded by Richard Feynman's perspective, when asked what he considered a philosophical question. [VIDEO] This NY Times story gets that philosophy isn't that necessary, but then got so bogged down in philosophical writing it was a chore to get through and I don't consider it worth my time to have read it. Socrates said "The unexamined life is not worth living." I've examined my life a bunch and have benefited from the examination, but the people I know who seem to enjoy their lives the most haven't examined theirs at all. I tend to examine mine less now and I think I'm living better. But maybe that's from figuring things out earlier.

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incrudible · 2021-07 · Reference

> It's like proving a negative. "You can't prove a negative" is one of dopey philosophical slogans[1] that are meaningless in practice. It gives undue weight to absolutes that do not exist in reality. The statement "money doesn't grow on trees" is obviously true, yet you can't logically rule out the existence of such a tree. What are the practical implications of this? None. If we tested a hypothesis thoroughly, we can say that it is true or not true, not with absolute platonic certainty , but for all intents and purposes . [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Zero, played through YouTube.

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