Spinoza’s Ethics - Chapter 1

When asked whether he believed in God or not, Einstein quickly answered, "If what you mean by God is Spinoza's God, then yes, I do believe in God."

The best explanation on Spinoza so far for me.
Science does not look down on anything, it is not a person. Science is an aggregation of knowledge which has been demonstrated and proven many time and assumes true until proven wrong. The big bang is a theory. Don't mix up science and theories.
I would say that it is philosophy which has lost its way in our modern world

Interesting feature of quantum mechanics is that something can conceivably come from nothing, as we understand it. Matter and antimatter interact in such a way that both particles are totally annihilated, and mathematically the opposite is theoretically true. A quantum event may randomly occur that generates both matter and antimatter from seemingly nothing.

Big Bang doesn't come from nothing.

Great video. Thanks

Thank you for the Spinoza lessons. They are detailed enough and well structured.

The saying "nothing can come from nothing" is disproved by quantum mechanics, particles pop in and out of existence randomly and this has been proven by experimental evidence. Sadly the ancient Greeks were wrong on that one!

This exposition of Spinoza's Ethics is brilliant - so rare to see someone who can use words (especially on a philosophical topic) with such care and precision (but without pedantry). Extraordinary insight and clarity and simplicity of explanation.

apparently the big bang is not something from nothing.
cosmologists say the first thing in our universe was a field of some sorts, like a pond say, from which one of the little ripples in the pond (it was 'always' rippling) inflated into a big wave (the 'bang')
it's hard to avoid time-bound language with these things so it's not even right to say 'the first thing' and, as far as I can tell, cosmology considers the big bang just one of an eternal cycle of such events
energy is not conserved in such scenarios either (just look up conservation of energy in quantum cosmology) but the really interesting thing is that 'our' universe really does seem to be composed of tiny but finite packets of space of time at the Planck scale, i.e divisable
could even call it pixelated

I totally agree: Science and philosophy should remain linked because they need each other to efficiently grow,. I speak as a scientist. However this video presentation is superbly done: the topic is made easy to understand by the speaker . The same subject taught at colleges and universities is far from being so fascinating. Thank you!

This is a very insightful & accurate telling of Spinoza’s philosophy & understanding of reality, but there are things that stood out to me as nonsensical in your presentation.
First, when you speak of the Big Band theory - you incorrectly claimed that the Big Bang theory states “everything came from nothing” this is not true at all. The Big Bang Theory does not claim that, it claims that in a time ridiculously close to the beginning of time, all of existence was condensed into an infinitely small point, and as the four unified forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong & weak nuclear forces began to separate from each other - a rapid expansion of the universe began taking place. So you’re claim “something from nothing” is a complete misinterpretation o the theory which is usual of common ignorance towards physics.
Secondly, you end the video by saying “you don’t believe science can lead man to understanding a time so close to the beginning of existence as we know it,” and that is such a nonsensical point to make. You can be skeptical of any discovery man makes if you are ignorant to the tool that led to it. To simply deny the findings of physics because you, a man who already displayed a misunderstanding in one of the fundamental findings in physics, don’t know how they got there is genuinely unwise. It is the same as a physicist saying “ I don’t believe a man could rationally come to a philosophical theory about reality” and use that logic to deny the contributions of Spinoza, it would be foolish in that hypothetical case & it is foolish in this real life case. Denying science because you don’t understand it is nonsensical & it is what you did in this video.

I wanted to start spinoza long time ago. Thanks!

I have learned more from this professor in 21 minutes than I have from my current professor in 75 minutes, 2x a week for 4 months.

You are fantastic

Great video! You should do more on philosophy.

The big bang doesn't mean everything came from nothing, it means that the universe was at some point infinitely or incredibly dense before it started expanding.

Why don't you believe in the big bang? Haley proved it I believe and it seems perfectly logical. Please let me know what you think. Ty. Good class

Easy, fluent speech about Spinoza. I am enjoyed it.

Thank you for the very accesible introduction to Spinoza

Thank you-- first video on Spinoza that I could actually understand ( a bit).. I guess I'm a Spinozan!

This actually helped me understand Spinoza’s Ethics a lot! I was getting stuck on the first few sentences lol thanks man!

im currently studying the works of spinoza and ur lesson has been great for me to digest. ❤

I found a gem here. I really understand everything about Spinoza's ontology in this video in a pretty short time. Thanks for the brilliant content ✨

It just blows my mind how the concept of Pantheism isn't obvious to everyone. I came up with this idea completely on my own years ago and never knew it wasn't an unoriginal idea until yesterday. Anyone I spoke to about my beliefs looked at me like an alien but I was only describing God by THEIR metrics! You want omni-presant? Omni-potent? The universe is exactly that. Nature is everywhere for all of time and nature/universal laws cannot make objective mistakes. Sure we may see genetic mutations as a "defect" but is it really perfect overall when considering the whole of what the evolution actually is. I believe 100% we exist within the mind of God. Its thoughts expressed through elegant, perfect, even sacred mathematics.

An amazing video, really admire it! Thanks for those clean explanations 🧎🏻‍♀️

I am re reading the ehtics and your explanation is absolutely correct. You are a great teacher. Thank you. Greeting from Spain!

saving all philosophy majors' asses across the world :,)

Overall great video but I think your understanding of the Big Bang theory is a bit flawed. The way you described it—as the universe springing into existence from nothing—would imply that that there was a time “before” the Big Bang, during which there was nothing. However, time is part of the universe which began with the Big Bang, which of course means there couldn’t have been a time before the Big Bang during which a state of nothingness could exist.

Instead of saying “there was nothing before the Big Bang”, we should say “there wasn’t anything before the Big Bang”. In fact, there wasn’t a “before the Big Bang” at all. The universe has a beginning in the same sense as a string has a beginning; this beginning is simply a starting point, not a spontaneous moment of creation. The universe is finite in the past, but it did not come into existence.

I don’t know how good that explanation was but that’s how I see it.

My most sincere gratitudes sir! Now I can comeback to "Ethics" and continue reading after giving it up 6 years ago. Many thanks for your simplified and rather genuine method.

Are we divisible because we are a finite thing and not Substance?
Thank you for your time, Professor.

I'm from India. I wanted to read ethics book. But my english comprehension skill is pretty average. I wanted a good explanation after reading each chapter. Found you channel. Grateful! Thank you very much 🙏

Excellent ! thank you.

You forgot to mention that Spinoza spent most of his youth studying the Talmud.

Excellent!

I really want to read Spinoza's work. Do you have any recommendations for the runes version of Ethics, and where that could be found? Thank you.

I spent all of last night reading and Re-reading Spinoza ethics on god, and while I got some stuff, it really wasn’t clicking. This video helped me out so much

Thank you

Thank you soo much 🙏😀 you are Absolutely amazing!. Love the way you lecture with passion and simplicity. I got a much firmer grip on the subject, and am feeling less scared sitting for my exam after the Christmas period🤓💪.

Wonderfully explained! thank you!

Excellent explanation. It is a shame that humanity was taken off this path of wisdom by our natural tendancy to be anthropocentric. What we call "nothing" may actually be something which is not immediately tangible by our human senses, i.e quantum fields. This would allow "Big Bangs".

Whenever I study early-modern philosophers I get this feeling that I understand them yet I also don't understand them. Videos like these give me the credence and confidence I need. Thank you.

Thank you.

Beautiful

brilliant! thanks for the help!

He starts "I. By that which is self—caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent." That isn't the simplest thing that has ever been said.

Great lesson, thank you

Thank you for the explanation. The guy writes in a really strange way that makes it difficult to understand. Thanks !

Excellent presentation of Spinoza's ideas.

The Big Bang, in my limited understanding of that theory, does not claim our Universe came out of nothing. It claims the Universe came out of the Vacuum. But the Vacuum is not the same as Nothing.