John Lloyd inventories the invisible

[thedesertrose99]

Fucking sociopaths making fun of what little sense is left in the world. TED must keep some standards.

[taigory]

it's just curious... we often think of ourselves as one of the most complex organisms on earth, but what extra complexity on what scale is contained in the extra chromosomes in those potatoes?

[Cube3Productions]

whats so funny about potatoes having 2 more chromosomes than humans? these people are just laughing at anything

[karlypilkoids]

47 people are the others.

[contemporarybeatnik]

@jursamaj - i don't think one can "make the mysterious un-mysterious without any good basis." mystery is just another word for ignorance, though we can appreciate the mystery we should not venerate it. making up an explanation for the universe (God did it) is not an acceptable answer that should not be taken on faith.

[Dreambearer23]

Amazing!!!

[ilovepotatos]

These women laugh at anything.

[heyawhaw]

that's what you get for wasting welcome drinks on the ladies ... ;)

[0reeferman0]

this was great!

[bigpotplant]

Very funny

[TheRealAristocrates]

Anyone who likes this should read "World of Perception" by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It includes the same kind of themes.

[contemporarybeatnik]

@clubsandwedge - so you're saying it's human nature to believe in some magical old man who created the universe in 6 days and then got mad that we ate a forbidden fruit because we wanted to be his equals so he kicked us out of paradise and made us mortal and then decided to wait thousands of years before he sent himself (as his own son) to gather 12 guys to spread the good news that resulted in his execution, then the zombie savior came back and then left to the skies, only to come back later?

[jursamaj]

@contemporarybeatnik

None of the specifics need apply, but there does indeed seem to be an innate urge to attribute anything unexplainable (to the given person) in terms of 1 or more mysterious agents.

[contemporarybeatnik]

@jursamaj

that's because our brains are complex pattern recognition machines... and a bunch of ignorant people cooked up an explanation for the origin of the universe. that doesn't mean belief in god is common nature. the desire for an explanation is. god is just a bad explanation.

[jursamaj]

@contemporarybeatnik

Yep. The flaw comes in where people try to make the mysterious un-mysterious without any good basis.

[msvoner]

There sure are a lot of arrogant posts here. What a waste of space...

[TheBlackStatic]

Einstein was the greatest scientist who ever lived

[contemporarybeatnik]

not really. newton was... he was a bit mad/crazy, but he solved 6 of the most difficult scientific problems at the time/ i suggest you read about him a bit more. fascinating but kooky guy.

[clippingdetected]

youtube is targeted for pc screens so please deinterlace your footage :/

this guy sounds like a salesman - there are more efficient ways to simplify science -sorry...

but his speech got a point, indeed

[darkdazh]

Meh.

[blueskiesmev]

I love this talk, can anyone tell me more about this man? I googled 'John LLoyd' and there are too many.

[CarhornAshtray]

My favourite too.

[lycanzen]

My favorite TED talk thus far!

[iveco555]

Philosophy, not anybody can understand it... but some of us can :)

[Long2John]

I'm sure this would be a lot funnier if he knew what he was talking about. It was like listening to a small child confidently explain something that they just don't really understand.

[coozno1977]

You obviously missed the point, and missed the point.

[ericv00]

Not so hard when it is dimensionless. :)

[coozno1977]

Are you saying its easy to miss the message?

[ericv00]

9:00

[Long2John]

Of course that is very possible. Perhaps he did make all those completely wrong statements, not because he didn't understand what he was talking about but because tying a lot of false hoods together made some grand point that just went right over my head.

So do you want to let me know what the point was?

[matholton]

very good

[SpacedTime]

I severely enjoyed that .

[adj789]

why is the quality so poor

[jiujitsuthug]

Good stuff

[Sondre7]

I truly enjoyed this talk

[Cakerolled]

"The closer we look at anything the more it disappears"

[OmnicideX]

-"I dont know why we are here but i'm preaty sure its not in order to enjoy ourself."

-"He was a cheerful bastard wasn't he"

LOL

[Northwichita]

There are 100 billion galaxies. Estimated. Can see 5 with eye. Amazing.

[cheeseit126]

even though i knew this already, im glad someone is pointing it out :D

[kennebacasiskyle]

This is like listening to a nerdy George Carlin at points.

[LokiClock]

Atoms "smaller than the wavelength of light"? Wavelength is a reflection of frequency, so light has no one wavelength. Does he mean the lowest wavelength of visible light?

[Waranoa]

yes. And if you go below that, you will get rays to powerfull to refract.

[LokiClock]

Pretty sure the lower the frequency the lower the energy. No, visible wavelengths aren't the only wavelengths that refract. In fact, I'm pretty sure the mechanism of refraction doesn't lend it's self to a minimum or maximum frequency, because it's just a change of medium density.

[Cloudwolf40]

fuck off you know what he means...

[LokiClock]

He didn't say what he meant, if he meant that at all, and what he DID say is misleading.

[Waranoa]

You're not a very convincing troll. I meant that if you go below a certain wavelength, photons will tend to either pass through matter or rip it apart. So you're question is answered; they are not within detectable range of a refracted emission of photons with a frequency which coherently interacts with matter.

[LokiClock]

I got turned around, thought I said frequency not wavelength. Still, nanoscale imagery is entirely possible, I wouldn't say we can't see the atom.

[Waranoa]

Allright fuck you.

[coozno1977]

Ok his name starts with Loki, you really think someone with a name like that comes on here with an open mind? Troll yes..

[Waranoa]

My cousin's rat was named Loki. Wasn't that the Teutonic god of hellfire?

[floodindahood]

Loki is/was an trickster god in norse mythology, he seeded and gave birth to 3 "monster" kind of things.

[swyft187]

iremember watching a doc saying that the average brain cell lasts ~50 years...

did he fuck up or did i?

[bkjbs762]

Very funny, very cynical, tickles the imagination a lot!

[seppesai]

hahaha great :D dx some misconceptions here and there but very interesting after all..

:D

pd: you dont see a beam of light when it hits something, you see it when it reaches your eyes, doesn't matter if it hits someting or if it came directly. the reflection only will modify the beam making it look like a different colour :D

[Familiar7]

This was full of so much misinformation.

[kaxitaksi]

Brilliant! 5*

[roidroid]

we CAN see energy. the photons of "light" that hit our retinas, are indeed pure energy, we see them.

we CAN see atoms, amazingly technology has found a way to actually bypass the wavelength of light issue. I don't understand how it works, and am hopeful in a few years someone can find a way to explain it to me.

[jayx2710]

You're content to wait for years until someone will finally explain to you what it is you're telling everyone about! HAHAHA. That's awesome.

[roidroid]

In cases like this, it's better to expose other people to the information than to wait until i myself fully understand it.

Coz other people are probably smarter and will understand it quicker, overtaking me, as well they should.

But that's not going to happen if they never hear about it. So this at least assures they have been exposed to it, and if interested they may google it to find out more.

I can't count the amount of things i wish i heard about earlier. So i read youtube comments

[jayx2710]

Fair call.

[unscdoom]

If hes truly an immaterialist then although he believes that we overlay certain rational explanations for phenomena, the basic makeup of life is "invisible", therefore empirically unable to prove existence.

If thats true, then many of the things we presume to exist may not.

Usually for these people doing science is not discovering, its cataloging. Its a fine point but obviously has repercussion on it. I happen not to believe it, but i realize that "objective" science may not exist either...

[entheog3n]

. <- the point

[jonjon1333]

demensionless

[planetdarwin]

taoism answers all these puzzles quite nicely. :)

[Saktoth]

All religions do! Isnt it convenient to have all these answers to absolutely all questions no matter which religion you follow! Who cares if they all disagree, they are also all correct.

[planetdarwin]

taoism isn't a religion, you dildo!

[jasonlajoie]

@planetdarwin

You need a 'time-out' for throwing out an uncalled for insult like that. Go stand in the corner until you learn how to play nice.

[planetdarwin]

@jasonlajoie

10 credits have been deducted from your YouTube account for using twitter syntax on YouTube! :P

[HigherPlanes]

seriously. He's got some nerd rage going on. Go back to twitter.

[gotilk]

You have to start at the beginning of the Internet now for thinking using @ to indicate who a comment is directed @ started with twitter.

Also, off topic, the end of a sentence is not where a preposition should be @.

[HigherPlanes]

Grammatical elegance was not my primary concern, so fuck off. Oops. there I go again.

[princeofexcess]

grammar doesnt exist on the interwebs. You spell in a way so ppl can understand and if they cant then its their prob not yours.

My motto is. you dont understand then why are you replying. If you do understand then why are you complaining :)

[seppesai]

Communicativist approach.

i share it to a certain point :D

[gotilk]

Did you actually think I was correcting you? I was just using the @ symbol in the context of an old joke. DID you use a preposition "@" the end of a sentence? If you did, I didn't notice. But nice diversion! @ still didn't come from or start with Twitter.

[HigherPlanes]

I thought you were correcting me because I ended a sentence with a proposition. And I retorted with fuck off because that's another sentence that ends with a proposition lol.

[HigherPlanes]

But I was pretty certain that the whole "@user" syntax started with twitter. I did not mean @ started with twitter. You know what I'm getting @?

[gotilk]

I know what you're getting @ (lol) but it was still used before twitter before usernames(i.e. @username), in the same exact way to address people in comments where the discussions were not threaded and constant quoting would make you run out of text space or would get too messy. No offense, I've seen it for many, many years before twitter.

[HigherPlanes]

No offense taken. I'm sure it's been around since the early days of internet. Personally, I think twitter is useless and annoying and I probably indirectly gave them credit somehow for starting the @user thing.

[BinaryReader]

twitter is not "useless and annoying", its a useful communication tool in the right hands. As well as a means of measuring peoples interest in things, that alone gives it incredible worth.

[gotilk]

It would be more useful if there were fewer people into "marketing" on it. Of course spam is really easy to avoid. I find it useful for link sharing and if you're careful about who you follow (and do it intelligently) it's useful for keeping up to date with your interests. But it's exposure is reaching myspace levels of annoying.

[HigherPlanes]

Exactly dude. Marketers spam the hell out of twitter, no shame. Evil blood thirsty corporate marketing zombies. I admit, I have an account on twitter. When I first signed up, the same day I got over 10 followers, mostly marketers spamming twitter looking for specific keywords that users type in. I was in the game so I know it all too well.

[gotilk]

This is fun to try. I noticed a LOT of marketing follows one day and I decided to try something. I tweeted "You know what sucks more than marketing? ...Nothing." And about 20 marketing people were following me within hours. They follow ANYONE who mentions the word, even if the context is that you think they are worse than people who eat babies. Try it. Tweet "Marketing is worse than baby eating" and see what happens.

[MagicianOnAMission]

HigherPlanes,

Twitter is either useless and annoying, entertaining, interesting or a great tool depending on how you use it!

e.g, I can search for something and see what thousands of people are saying about it at that moment. That is useful.

Oh... and for the record. I found out about TEDtalks FROM twitter! Not so useless now is it :P ;-)

Steven ;-)

[HigherPlanes]

Fair enough. You have a point :).

[Shaunt1]

Anything can have a use if enough people use it.

[gotilk]

Also, when I think of Higher Planes, I think "fuck off" almost every time. They're just like that up there. But fun @ parties.

[Saktoth]

Oh, so you think you can answer all the deepest puzzles of science with a philosophy? Great. Good luck with that.

[planetdarwin]

re: Saktoth

No, science is the best tool for science puzzles. I love science, and I'm a hardcore atheist. Yet there is still room for philosophical viewpoints like Taoism. Science and Taoism are not incompatible. Really. Check it out. Don't become such an atheist nut that you ignore philosophy. Philosophy is not religion.

[Saktoth]

Taoism does not answer all these puzzles, nicely or otherwise, neither in its religious or philosophical components.

[planetdarwin]

Sure it does. I have this theory that you're just disgusted by the idea of philosophy because it's too close to religion (but it ISN'T religion). You've probably been calling yourself an atheist so long that you now have a built-in avoidance system for any other -ism. Did you know Sam Harris promotes the study of Buddha (while decrying the religion of Buddhism)? He advises embracing the "contemplative path", which is not conflictive with science. Read his article "Killing the Buddha".

[Saktoth]

You're just making stuff up about who you think i am: I have studied and practiced Theravadan meditation!

But Taoism does not answer these questions.

[ChristopherAtheist]

I found that some atheists were disgusted when I stated that, I believe no god exists. They get hung up on the word belief, as though it means the same thing as faith; it doesn't. It only means: That, of which, you are convinced. How you become convinced (i.e. through faith or study) is the real seperation point. I think it is sad when atheists have taboos.

[planetdarwin]

I totally agree. Belief is an act of conviction. Faith is an act of suspension.. Not the same thing.

[clubsandwedge]

atheists are subhuman

[ChristopherAtheist]

How do you define human? And for that matter, what is sub-human? Once I know your parameters, then I can spread the word and we can all start being human, just for you.

[clubsandwedge]

subhuman is anything that goes against our common nature. human as an adjective describes things close to our common nature. besides, what sense does it make to say 'i think god doesn't exist'? before you define the term 'exist'? once i know your parameters, then i can spread the word and we can all start being dickheads, like you.

[ChristopherAtheist]

You said, "anything that goes agains our nature." My nature is to be inquisitive and sceptical. So Are you- by your standards- subhuman in comparison to me through my nature? I really don't get your position and what it is you are comparing it to. Also, existence to me is anything I can sense in any way. Also, I do realize that your first attempt to call me 'subhuman' was childish name calling at best. If you want to be an adult then you can take my first question seriously.

[contemporarybeatnik]

and what is common nature? we are born blank slates with the exception of the rooting reflex and other similar behaviors. the rest is culture, we are trained to believe what we do, to act as we do, none of it comes naturally or out of nothing. you're fairly foolish about certain fundamental concepts.

the Judeo-Christian concept of God is about as likely to exist as The Flying Spaghetti Monster or a magical Pink Unicorn. The only place they exist is in your mind. you're ignorant and uneducated.

[clubsandwedge]

jesus fucking christ. i never said anything about the judeo-christian concept of god you ass so stop ranting.

i give it up though about the common nature thing, what i was hinting at there was a sense of god rather than having an idea about god. we need to study language and neuroscience more rather than looking for a physical god. doing that is just persiflage of theology altogether. i'm not ignorant and uneducated, just incoherent.

[contemporarybeatnik]

well, when you start making unqualified generalizations that are largely insulting, don't be surprised when someone bites back.

you essentially made a statement that left some with the impression that to deny the existence of (a) god, or to deny some innate drive to believe in the concept of a higher power made one subhuman because it flew in the face of some intangible "common nature".

god is a concept that is taught. one is not born with it. it is not common nature, it is culture.

[Marakinyo]

@contemporarybeatnik

Disagree.

[contemporarybeatnik]

@Marakinyo

man invented god (all of them).

[zappyhod]

"We don't know 1% of 1millionth about anything"....Amen !

[WAHsu]

well said, hit all major points!

[GetMeThere1]

That must have been his mother with all the big laughs...

[dmix09]

Brilliant!! lmao

[ShadowofCatron]

The interlacing on this video is horrible, but the talk is good.

[Javan1004]

Hilarious!!!... and an extra "!" just for the record!

[siim258]

Certainly very entertaining.

[lebasson]

Hmm..... probably one of the least interesting and most ill-performed TED talks I've seen in a while. Very easy to state "nobody knows......" and "we can't understand....." all the time while it's simply convenient for your story to make that statement. Frankly I'm surprised there was laughter in the video, as an audience member I would've felt rather insulted in my intelligence.

[arabidopsissb]

what kind of scientific lecture would u expect from a comedian? He is ok and the talk is enjoyable.

[lebasson]

Since when does TED to stand-up? I might've enjoyed this if it weren't on a TED talk, I think we all expect more depth from the TED channel.

[HansTheAtheist]

lebasson, I think you're new at TED. It has a wide array of talks and performances.

[lebasson]

@Hans no I've been following TED for quite a while now and yes you're right, there's been comedians on the show before. Let's just say I'm going back to my initial statement and saying that I was disappointed by this particular talk.

[unscdoom]

theres a lot of comedy on TED... also he cleverly injected a certain philosophy into this...

[arabidopsissb]

Iebasson, it is the "E" of TED

[thethreeheadedmonkey]

You insult your own intelligence by not comprehending what he's trying to say. I'd say it's invisible, but you wouldn't understand.

[austpom333]

Matter colective conciesness materialising?

[Atoyota]

A completely material satire.

I do however have an answer to his last two questions. I understand why we are here, and I know what we should do about it.

But either of the answers depend on everyone's complete cooperation and faith that my vision is correct.

LOL no way...

But it was a pretty useless satire anyways.

[jailarson]

I am here because I lost a bet. AND There is nothing I can do about it except make the best of it.

[Atoyota]

interesting perspective, my take is more scientific "and" spiritual. sort of a combo...

[robmixstyle]

lol dude you're retarted

[Zetimenvec]

don't mean to rain on your parade, but it's "retarded" not "retarted."

I'd try to spell correctly if you're going to criticize someone's intellect or opinion.

[bmed19]

he was going for retar-TED

just to show how limited in creativity and imagination rude and self absorbed individuals like urself are.

[Zetimenvec]

If he was going for a clever play on words he should have made it obvious, where as "retarted" without the emphasis on the ted to make the joke is an easily understandable mistake that could be made by anyone not up on their spelling.

It's not my responsibility to understand the inner workings of another human being, but for him to adequately explain himself such that a misunderstanding would not happen.

[austpom333]

Artificial stupidity is invented just switch on a windows computer.

[Zetimenvec]

fairly sure that electrons aren't dimensionless, just multi dimensional

[mmminivannn]

he means 3-dimensionaless.

like, it's mass doesn't go forwards backwards up and down.

[Zetimenvec]

well i'm pretty sure it has something similar to a location, else we wouldn't be able to trace paths where it was. it's just never where we look when we look there.

Schrodinger's cat comes to mind.

[abram730]

but knowing where it is changes what it did in the past and thus where it is, is not where it would of been If we didn't look.

[Zetimenvec]

but we don't know where it is, we only know where it was. something like, in the present it's wave function is open, but in the past it collapses into one of the many paths it could have taken.

[sheepwshotguns]

other than a couple little jokes, am i the only one that thought that was a fairly empty speech...?

[lebasson]

nope, I'm with ya :)

[FlamingHomelessDude]

wow

[TheBlackStatic]

we are here on earth to help others... what the others are here for i have no idea!

lol

[infinitum17]

funny, but full of technical inaccuracies.

[stevenaudet]

Some people tell me the same about "God", unfortunately for them. There is a difference between invisible and non-existent.

[ratholin]

yes one can find ways to test for the invisible. The nonexistent always leads to great leaps of conjecture to explain it's untestability..

[mguerreroarnaiz]

great talk

[cognitivemind]

absolutely brilliant ... but again brilliance is invisible.... lol

[lilcryingangel]

lól 12:48 look the guy on the left

[defect530]

that is an old trick

[T3rraBahamut]

oh boy.. worst tedtalk ever

he makes it seem he learned about those things just recently - guess he thinks the audience lived under a rock, and those guys laughing probably did

tell us more facts we already know, boring unfunny guy

...not

[T3rraBahamut]

the marriage suffered a setback in 1965 when the husband was killed by the wife

aaahahahaha...

old men arent funny -.-

[gaarasan1]

genius

[LordBLB]

Sharp wit indeed. Good show!

[trylonperisphere]

This isn't the first comment. That one is invisible.

[00corin00]

LOL!!