The Meaning of Life and Other Vegetables

Hello everyone.

A few days ago Prof. Hoffman gave a live interview. As noted in the intro, he has not given a talk or an interview for a while, so it’s quite exciting. The interview was made available as a free online event, but pre-registration was required. I registered well in advance, but due to time zone differences it was impractical for me to watch live. Luckily, the recording was made available to everyone who registered, so today I watched it. I don’t know if it’s currently available to everyone to watch, or whether it will at some point be uploaded on YouTube or similar. I hope it will.

The interview was just under an hour (including intro and outro), and honestly, I don’t recommend jumping right in and watching it even if you can. Whilst it represents (some aspects of) Hoffman’s most current thinking, I still highly recommend reading The Case Against Reality first, and then maybe watching the 3-hours interview with Lex Fridman (available on YouTube). There is also a shorter (about 20 minutes) TED talk that is available online. The latest interview, which I just watched, might be more illuminating to watch at that stage.

In the interview, Hoffman was quite “mathematical”. Maybe he was in a mathematical mood… He didn’t really go into details (for obvious reasons), but he did touch on the mathematical side quite often, and he provided plenty of references to mathematical constructs and methods. Honestly, my level is way below the one necessary to fully grasp that side of the theory, especially with all the latest (apparently groundbreaking and exciting) developments. As a result, at some points I felt a little lost.

Side note: Years ago, after I read his book, I reached out to Prof. Hoffman and asked him if he could lay out a roadmap for studying the necessary areas of mathematics, that would allow beginning to obtain a good understanding of the theory’s mathematical models. My intention was to try and obtain such a good understanding, so that I might be able to help popularize the theory, from within a more robust background. I have an engineering degree and I take a great liking to mathematics. At some point, almost 15 years ago, I even looked into a PhD in Queue Theory (a branch in Probability). Hoffman was kind enough to provide the roadmap. He also pointed out 2 (slightly obscure) textbooks I should start with, and I obtained both. Alas, after starting, I realised it would take me years, if I was even successful in achieving my ambitious goal… So at that point I parked it. It’s not a bad thing, to acknowledge one’s own limitations. Looking back, it wasn’t a terribly bad decision. While the mathematical side of the theory intrigues me, I’m currently more interested in the philosophical aspects.

Back on topic – mathematics aside, Hoffman didn’t provide too many news. I am sure that a lot has been happening in the background, but generally speaking, his non-mathematical ideas and statements, as expressed in the interview, were mostly aligned with the ones I was exposed to before, with only the occasional “new twist”.

The biggest takeaway for me was a surprising sense of encouragement, that built up slowly, but steadily, throughout the interview: Hoffman spoke a lot like my thinking (as I’ve been trying to present in this blog), including statements or phrasings I never heard from him before!… Sometimes it was downright chilling, because he used almost identical wordings (the One comes to mind, and how we’re all integrated in it; our inherent inability to understand “everything” is another example). I found myself watching and often muttering to myself “M-hmm”, “Exactly!” and “That’s what I wrote in my blog”… So, overall – very encouraging. I feel I’m not doing him wrong, and it’s possible I’m on a good track.

The best part for me was when Hoffman briefly touched on the “Why” aspect – why would all of that complexity come into being. I actually wondered about that many times myself, and I have my own speculations (which I will present in another post); but I don’t remember him ever bringing that up before (please note that how is not a substitute for why).

That’s all I wanted to share today. I think that next I will start a series of posts, in which I will come back to some of the points he made in the interview, one by one, and complement with my own views. I feel that this will help me tie up my speculations a little bit tighter, a little bit neater, with his current thinking. Apparently, we are closer than I thought.

See you tomorrow, and as usual – peace to all.