Alex O'Connor

speaker

2,073 appearances 2 recordings 2 series first heard Sep 2025 last heard 25 May

Alex O'Connor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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And Feynman's like, what do you mean what's happening there?

And there's this sort of moment of confusion, and the interviewer says, I've got to say, I think this is a reasonable question.

And Bynum goes, oh, no, no, it's a very reasonable question, but what do you mean?

Because if you ask a question like why, well, it depends on your level of explanation.

Like, why is Aunt Marie in the hospital?

Well, because she slipped and fell on the ice.

For most people, that would satisfy.

But if you were like an alien who didn't know anything, you'd need to know why slipping on ice sends you to a hospital.

So you'd have to explain that.

And then you'd have to explain, like, why is ice slippery?

Well, because when you step on ice, it evaporates the top level, which turns into water.

Notice we're just describing what's happening.

So why does that happen?

Well, now we're talking about the molecular composition of water and its chemical interactions.

But why does that happen?

Feynman's just basically pointing out that if you ask the why question,

you are sent into this regress down into the most fundamental questions of reality.

And in fact, Feynman then says, and if you want to know why Aunt Marie fell over, you'd have to know about gravity.

And why does gravity work?

And that's where we just were a second ago, right?

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