How to Count All the Objects in the Universe – Philosophy Tube
Metaphysics! How would we count all the objects in the universe?
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Suggested Reading:
VSauce On How Many Things are There? http://tinyurl.com/m5ucup6
SEP Entry on Objects: http://tinyurl.com/m5rug6s
David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds,
Keith Hossack, “Plurals and Complexes,” in British Journal for Philosophy of Science
Cian Dorr, “What We Disagree About when We Disagree about Ontology,” in Fictionalism in Metaphysics
Peter van Inwagen, Chapter 2 of Material Beings
James Van Cleve, “The Moon and Sixpence: A Defence of Mereological Universalism,” in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics
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@guybolt
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
'simples' can be arranged to form 'systems' as a new class of object
@SuitedAJ
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Shouldn't the ship of Theseus beg the question whether names are objects? I feel like that's often glossed over. If "the ship of Theseus" is being treated as a de facto concept to preserve or restore, that implies that its name holds objective properties. I know you've done videos on names and I wonder how you would tie these concepts together!
@veggienugnugs
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
And a topologist would ask how many holes does the ship have 😅.
@dirtyduck6987
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Whoever helped you with the maths doesn't know much more maths than you do
When having three objects you don't count n! or 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, 321 you count 2^3 =8 or (), (1), (2), (3), (12), (13), (23), (123) since you don't count the subsets not the diffrent arrangements so the number of collections of simples in the universe is 2^10^80
however that would't either give you the complete answer since there is a diffrence between a set of simlles arranged in the shape of a ball or a cube even if they are the same set of simples
@rekall76
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
in an episode of numberphile, john conway (inventor of the 'game of life' algorithm) admits awe-struck befuddlement at the fact that the number of symmetries of the 'monster group' is composed of exactly 196,833 dimensions
@beginanewt
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
There are two objects the top and the bottom
@kiancuratolo903
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
It comes full circle when Vsauce eventually makes a video on Mereology years later
@DogBehaviorGuy
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I love looking through these comments and seeing how many other people thought "1." I'll add to that that what we perceive as objects are subsets of the one continuous object that is the visible universe. We arbitrarily tend to draw lines based on electrostatic field manipulations, but our distinction is disallowed from being arbitrary.
@bassem500
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
According to quantum theory as I understand it an "object" in our universe would be a quantum.
A quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. ( wikipedia )
@orgabriel100
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I don't get how you refuted all the answers apart from universalism/nihilism. It seems to me that you just said "my answer needs to be a number" without offering any proof of so, like begging the question
@HungryHungryShoggoth
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Well, if you favor nihilism AND believe the one-electron universe postulate, then there is only a single object in the entire universe
@Reddles37
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Your argument at 6:00 about objects being indeterminate is bad. You say there's nothing vague in the sentence "N things exist", but if the definition of objects is indeterminate then 'things' is vague. All you've really done is assert that objects should be well defined, but you didn't give any real reasons.
@asunder6797
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
In a larger frame as an artist I would view the entire material universe as one object and everything included in it as parts.
@joachimbramson1991
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
can't we just say +∞ ? We don't even know if the universe is infinite or not, or if there is a second anti universe! if it's antimatter, can you say it cancels out and say there are 0 objects in the universe?
@felixeleutheria
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
The first (but perhaps not only) time that Marvel has introduced me to a philosophical concept BEFORE PhilosophyTube
@besacciaesteban
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Did you just used the Rome: Total War soundtrack?
@oddjob5589
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
for more on the Adams view, I recommend Oolon Culoophid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters: Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Just Who is This God Pesron Anyway…………..I really enjoy your channel keep up the good work
@oddjob5589
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I will facetiously counter with some philosophy from the late, great Douglas Adams. Objects take up a specific three dimensional space in, well….space. The universe is infinite, and most of space is empty of any matter, therefore only a finite portion of space contains objecst. That finite space divided by infinity is as close to zero as one can get, therefore the universe contains no objects. Any objects or beings you may meet are obviously figments of your own imagination.
@MartinHatchuel
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Surely the answer is: One?
@malteeaser101
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
What about abstract objects?
@spikemaw
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Why is there not only one object: the universe? We cannot talk about objects outside of the universe, it is one unit, within which all things and concepts reside, including the concept of the universe, which cannot exist outside of itself. If there is only one object within the universe, itself, then all objects within it are just subsets of the one object in various configurations. Given that even the "empty void" of space is just a very low concentration of particles, and has properties itself, are objects really separate at all?
If nothing is separate, then there CAN BE ONLY ONE!
@kokojo2691
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
This is why I drink.
@dadefrost2059
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Alternatively, there is one object in the universe. The universe.
@dadefrost2059
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
If you fully dismantle the camera, and send the parts away separately, you converted the object "camera" into many individual objects, which could if you so chose be converted back. If you break the camera in half with the hammer, you have converted the object "camera" into the new objects "half of broken camera" which likely could not be converted back.
@1996Pinocchio
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I like to think of the whole universe including our experiences as one multidimensional object.
@tesali9554
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Are simples objects?
@comradekenobi8146
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Philosophy Tube, you missed one crucial option — Monism, my current position, which states that every object is part of a bigger object, and that ultimately every perceivable object can be encapsulated into a single universal object. So the correct way to think of the ship is not as a unique, individual thing, but as a part of a thing that is a part of a thing (and so on and so forth) that is part of the universe as a singular object. So, essentially, the answer to the question, how many objects exist in the universe, is "1."
@jizburg
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I am still in the experience machine from the hedonism episode so there are no things in my universe.
@autodidacticartisan
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Michael Stevens has joined the chat
@recurse
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Objectification is called into existence by intent. The universe doesn't need objects to "work out" the results of physical processes, but things with intent like us do, and the use of objects can allow us to predict the outcome of physical events, *as they matter to us*, with stunning precision when done well. The definition of an object should therefore be viewed as a utilitarian problem, and I think that's why we're struggling with it philosophically, the definitions really can't withstand scrutiny.
@booboodadfool8015
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
An object is anything treated like an object…like how daddy Ollie treats me.
@adammorris9494
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
At 3:35, shouldn't Olly be talking about 7 objects and not 6? There is: bottle 1, bottle 2, bottle 3, bottles 1 and 2, bottles 1 and 3, bottles 2 and 3, bottles 1, 2 and 3. The confusion comes from Olly using 3!, which is the number of ways the bottles can be ordered, but we are looking for the number of non-empty subsets of the set of three bottles, with no care for how we arrange them, and the number of such subsets is 2^3-1. Same problem at 7:30, though you'll have to take my word for it because you'll be there for quite a while if you try to enumerate all objects from the set 1, …, 10^80.
@gepisar
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
i know this is an oldie, but in ref to pleasure and the matrix machine: and, as the novice Zen student would say, "I desire to desire less". Ah, but the zen master asks, would that make you happy? Or the other catch, "for what purpose?" Of course, any response is a trap. In this, the zen master has provide the context for this discovery ? How would the virtual simulator do this? (I presume, manifest a zen master?
@quicksanddiver
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
As a mathematician I am in strong favour of universalism.
Set theory is widely used as the foundation of mathematics these days and it's basically formalised universalism and once you get used to it, you feel comfortable with defining all sorts of weird objects. In fact, the notion of a trout-turkey as an object consisting of a trout and a turkey did not even remotely feel weird or counterintuitive to me, simply because I'm used to objects like that.
@muaadtamtam7299
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Great video! But the maths is awfully wrong.
Firstly (10^80)! is not equal to 10^3240. In fact the former is almost unimaginably greater than the latter.
Secondly and most importantly, (10^80)! is equal to the number of permutations possible (i.e. the number of ways we can organise 10^80 atoms) which is not what you're trying to calculate.
As some have pointed out in the comments, if we want to calculate the number of subsets of 10^80 atoms we need to calculate it's powerset (minus the empty set), which is equal to 2^(10^80) -1.
However, the order of elements in these subsets (for this case the order in which the atoms are arranged) does not matter, which I believe not to be what you're trying to calculate.
So we need to account for all the permutations of all elements in each subset.
Using binomial coefficients we can work that out to be equal to :
the sum ∑
[from k=1 to 10^80] of [(10^80)!/((10^80) – k)!]
I believe this is the answer you wanted
Feel free to show this to Marissa 🙂
I'm personally a maths student
@sythersight
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I define objects subjectively. It's similar to Egoism, but not defined by my need or use of them – more as what I regard as an object. What feels/seems to be a singular thing to me and that which I can surmise would seem that way to others.
@nnnn65490
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
I’m guessing this philosophy began before set theory
@Nulono
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
It seems to me that if whether something is an object is indeterminate, it doesn't make sense to make a list of all the objects.
@evelienheerens2879
March 10, 2026 at 8:50 am
Objects are created by the mind in neuro-typical humans. They are a mental construct because our minds like to arrange things in useful ways. The definition of an object therefore is, whatever the mind groups together in a specific time from the viewpoint of a specific individual. There is no implied continuity and no truth to the concept. Just a useful assumption
The reason I specify neuro-typical here is that some people, for instance some people suffering from specific forms of autism, do not perceive an object as a whole. Rather as a collection of details.
So objects are subjective names of collections of matter, categorized intuitively by the mind. So a plate of food can be either considered, a meal, a collection of ingredients, or a set of groups of food or a number of bites of food, etc. And if the meal is eaten, then another portion is cooked, then that 'object' has a catagorical similarity to its predecessor, relevant to the person experiencing it, but no real relation to it.
As for identity, that is also a construct of the mind. We are only continuous because we experience ourselves to be. There is no scientific basis for this, the neurons firing in our brains convince our consciousness that we have a continuous identity even as that identity changes over time. Memories fade or are edited, behaviors and beliefs change and our bodies recycle themselves and have only a causal relationship with our past selves. To solve the problem of identity we would have to figure out what consciousness is.
The number of objects in the universe is constantly changing. As quantum particles generate and are whisked out of existence, or fuse in the hearts of stars. Quarks combine to form new subatomic particles or break apart into energy. Combine that with special relativity and you get changing numbers that do not exist simultaneously. This is not a number that can be counted, only approximated.
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