A long "ask me anything" episode live and off the cuff. Apologies for the audio quality.

Julian Barbour is an independent British Physicist and the author of technical and popular books including the best selling "The End of Time" and most recently "The Janus Point: A New Theory of Time". In this lecture, Julian shows just how interesting Newtonian Mechanics can get. Can it be a fundamental theory of space, time and physical reality? This is a tour de force of the history of ideas in physics by an iconoclastic scientists working at the deepest foundations of his subject.   The video version of this lecture can be found at https://youtu.be/VzZbjL_Jvwk which may be helpful.    This is not a regular ToKCast episode - it is highly technical in places. We will return to regular programming for episode 225 when we will have passed 1 million downloads. Thankyou to all fans! If you would like to support ToKCast, go to my Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/c/tokcast or paypal via https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=qyzc2PwQaXf2XNAZS8g5Ke9eRfYfUs73xlBzXNfM8Bnjdm__ETUCyw86HKQ9wd1jBQ4zVKLsW0uRmB53

After a short introduction by me, the remainder of this episode is a reproduction of "The Deutsch Files IV" the latest in a series of conversations between myself, Naval Ravikant and David Deutsch about a wide variety of topics including, and sometimes going far beyond the contents of "The Fabric of Reality", "The Beginning of Infinity" and Constructor Theory. Go to https://nav.al to access all the other "Deutsch Files" as well as earlier content Naval and I produced about all the Big Questions of Life, the Universe and Everything and, helpfully, the transcripts to all our discussions.  

Is time travel into the past and the future possible? What is time dilation? Subjective and objective senses of "time travel". David Deutsch's own documentary on Time Travel from the BBB (192) https://youtu.be/C6_gxoLwrWw?si=8vw8cwbP49XkY6e8

Here I present a "positive vision" of the kind I complained was absent in the episode right before this ("Criticism is never enough"). Here I am riffing off a line which contains a deep truth out of the Beginning of Infinity where Socrates is speaking with the god Hermes. In that passage David links a moral injunction "Do not" to an epistemological concept (error). From this stepping stone I explore some of the institutions which emerge from such a commitment, but which themselves can also be regarded as fundamental features of a dynamic society.

Another response episode. This time to Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson. Douglas and Jordan are seeking a way to construct a positive vision for society, but they seem at a loss for what in fundamental terms, this might include. Part 1 of 2.

Parts 1 and 2 were, admittedly, long. So if you could not persevere through those, this gets the major points out serving both as an appendix to tie up some loose ends and as a summary of parts 1 and 2.

Here I get to the part of the discussion Peter has about my own "airchat" explanation of "anyone can understand anything". I go through arguments based on the Church-Turing Principle, computational universality and how denials of explanatory universality are appeals to the supernatural and other topics.

The great epistemologist, Peter Boghossian, created a video on Youtube that responded to me, in part. It's to be found in full here: https://youtu.be/5Vf-T8K0_zE?si=T2XkG8h8iNj1ZXGR This first part is largely a response to Richard Dawkins on his notion of "Middle World" and Michael Shermer's notion we are not evolutionarily capable of understanding anything.

Part 2 in a series about the work of researcher Charley Lineweaver. In this episode, a targeted focus on the one thing we did not discuss out of all of Charley's scientific interests in my interview with him in Ep 215: his recent work with Paul Davies on "The Atavistic Model" of Cancer. For the peer reviewed paper on The Atavistic Model by Lineweaver and Davies see: https://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDaviesVincent2014.pdf For more recent work on the theory see: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014APS..MARF14002L/abstract and https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PNAS..114.6160B/abstract  

A conversation with physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, polyglot and polymath - Charley Lineweaver. 00:00 - My introduction 08:57 - Charley’s fascinating early years 12:14 - From an English/History degree to physics 13:53 - Charley’s historic work on the Cosmic Microwave Background 17:34 - Methods of probing deep space 19:51 - Our accelerating universe 22:15 - Dark Matter Candidates 23:20 - The Fermi Problem and the “Planet of the Apes” Hypothesis 28:37 - Natural experiments in the evolution of intelligence 33:38: What can the early appearance of life on Earth tell us about aliens? 37:31: Non-intelligent alien life. 38:06: Deep homology and misconceptions about convergent biological evolution 44:31 The Shadow Biosphere 48:53 The significance of extremophiles 50:23 Does life arise from non-life easily or not? What do we know? 53:32 What is life? 55:56 A “debate” about people? 1:10:20 - The Potato Radius 1:15:00 - What Charley is working on now

The title is long enough so you look for more here? ;) This one is largely, in truth about energy and what it can do for us. Across the almost 90 minutes I cover how the concepts in the title logically cohere and depend one upon the other and we take a look at "the universal constructor" and compare the possibilities for an optimistic distant future with the reality of our situation now. Fair warning: many Australian examples are employed here. A tiny bit of Trump, a dashing of Deutsch, a yard of Yaron, morsels of Musk, some of Australia's mining magnates for better or worse and plenty of physics, philosophy and even politics. Those on my livestream may have heard a less polished (more profanity stricken) version of some of this material. This is me back to being polite even if there are reasons for frustration...   (See Youtube version for graphs, data and so on: https://youtu.be/ovs18b10d4Q )

This is a recording (with a brief introduction first) of a keynote address I gave to open the 2024 "Naturalistic Decision Making Association" conference. People from business, government and academia came together for 3 days to talk about how to make better decisions under pressure. It was an opportunity for me to share the work of David Deutsch and Karl Popper with everyone from people working in international militaries and government defence organisations, through to leaders in business and university academics and students. Regular listeners will notice this is an adaptation of another recent episode - but I think this live version is better as I say in my introduction.

More questions, more lengthy and more verbose than ever. Enjoy, or drift of to sleep with me ;)

Fear not! ToKCast is not becoming a pure Q&A "show". This is literally a kind of "break" for me that I find easy and I note the listeners find fun. Today's a little shorter and - here's some of the topics covered!   00:00: David Deutsch mentioned on Lex Fridman 04:15: Dennis Noble debates Richard Dawkins on the selfish gene 16:47: The goal driven life and AI 27:51 Self similarity - minds and universes 34:39: The hard problem of consciousness and Popperian epistemology 41:30: Wave particle duality 53:53 The fun criterion - and some reflections on responsibility and “toil”. 1:05:44 - Communication and the difficulty thereof between people 1:07:13 - Roger Penrose and the universality of (quantum) computation (or Taking Theories Seriously…) 1:13:35 Book recommendations.

I put out a call on Twitter/@X for questions and got a deluge. Between those and more from YouTube itself - this is the result ranging over predicting the future, through to theories of learning, AGI and AI, optimism and epistemology - many of the major hits and more.

Riffing on Karl Popper and David Deutsch (especially). A broad overview, covering lots of the basics of "social" or "rational" choice theory, Bayesianism (again!), misconceptions, good ideas and bad. Errors my own as always.

Here we explore the distinction between classical notions of time (including spacetime physics) as approximations to how time is understood in the multiverse. How perfectly deterministic laws lead to subjective unpredictability. Consequences for free will, questions about what happened before time began (or after it ends), new discoveries since the publication of The Fabric of Reality was published in 1997 and David's subtle alterations to phrasing between The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity (in particular with reference to identical vs fungible and how tossing "fair" coins in our universe isn't 50/50 heads and tails. If you would like to discuss any of the content in this video with me at length, sign up to Airchat at https://www.air.chat where I am active daily answering people's questions and engaging with those interested in the work of David Deutsch and associated thinkers and ideas explored in his work, wider physics, philosophy and everything.

If you are distracted by, or simply prefer a version without, the background music - you can find that here: https://youtu.be/xSbqTTs1nl0   My preferred version is here: https://youtu.be/2IneL4VpShE as there are some helpful (though not essential) visuals. This is about knowledge creation and the the commonalities between the two forms known (evolution (by natural selection) and explanatory) and the differences between them. It teases out and synthesises some of the work of Darwin, Popper and Deutsch on these matters of what creativity means. I also consider the place of prediction and prophecy and the "urge" to know what the future will hold. This is sometimes the dividing line between optimism and pessimism. You can support this ongoing exercise in optimism, exposition and encouraging rapid progress by following the links here: https://www.bretthall.org/ Thankyou for any and all support. Know it is much appreciated.

Sam Kuypers is a theoretical physicist who specialises in the physics of time. If you have the time, Sam can take up as much of it as you like telling you about how our ideas of time have changed…over time. As Sam will reveals: times, they are not a-changing. But there is change! Newtonian physics has a notion of time (or at least Newton himself did), Relativity as discovered by Einstein in the early 1900s radically transformed our notion of what time is and now, in the 21st Century, Sam Kuypers and others are beginning to develop a quantum theory of time. And this is why Sam joins me for this episode as we unpack time as a quantum concept: the very topic of Chapter 11 of “The Fabric of Reality” and go deep on Sam’s more recent contributions to our understanding of the reality of time. Appropriately, time stamps are below.   You may have to take your time with some of this.     00:00 - Introduction to this episode 05:04 - Introduction to Sam Kuypers 06:30 - The day-to-day of a theoretical physicist 10:30 - What led Sam to Oxford University 12:10 - What was Sam’s doctoral thesis about? 15:20 - The importance of Everett 16:30 - “Classical” Time and “universal time”. 27:00 - Julian Barbour and time as a series of instants 30:35 - Spacetime and the timeless view of physical reality. 33:35 - The clash of General Relativity and Quantum Theory I 37:20 - The clash of General Relativity and Quantum Theory II 40:40 - c-numbers and q-numbers 42:30 - The significance of (non) commutability (i.e the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). 46:05 - The Page-Wooters Construction (Quantum Time I). 53:15 - Can there be change if nothing is ever changing? (Quantum Time II) 55:31 - The Heisenberg vs Schrödinger “Pictures” of Quantum Theory. 57:35 - What is “locality” in physics? 58:40 - Entanglement and: "Does Quantum Theory allows for faster than light communication?”  1:00:48 - Unitary Quantum Theory (vs: Everettian Quantum Theory) 1:05:33 - Philosophical Realism, Physics 1:06:40 - Does Time Exist? 1:07:58 - Is Time Travel Possible? 1:11:30 - How did Sam find his way into physics? 1:14:30 - The Dutch Enlightenment vs The British Enlightenment 1:20:50 - The Netherlands, international trade, tolerance and specialisation 1:23:08 - The Invention of Free Trade and misconceptions with long lifetimes. 1:16:30 - The peculiar rivalry between European Allies 1:28:40 - Prosperity and Pessimism: Are both on the ascendency? 1:32:19: Why are people special? 1:37:14: Liberalism, Authoritarianism and Climate Change 1:40:25: Science, Morality and (eg: Dutch) Innovation 1:43:30 - Concluding Remarks         

Part 2: Time is in the instant. The instant is not in time. More on the quantum theory of time and how the "spacetime" view of time, and the flow of time are false. How time relates to the "block universe" model and how the multiverse fixes the paradoxes at the heart of our common sense (and classical physics) ideas about time - more readings from "The Fabric of Reality" chapter 11 and in addition: A couple of acrostics about David Deutsch in terms of "Popper". David's changing view of free will. Readings on "free will" from "A Science of Can and Can't" by Chiara Marletto. A summary of a paper by Marletto and Vedral on the "Page and Wooters" construction. Brief remarks on Marietto's "Constructor Theory of Thermodynamics" Kuyper's thesis "Developments in Unitary Quantum Theory" The paradoxes involved in trying to picture time using diagrams. Machian Dynamics (Ernst Mach's idea about absolute space and time being false and instead how the universe has dynamics of its own). The Schrödinger vs Heisenberg Pictures The Kuypers and Deutsch paper on "Everettian Relative States in the Heisenberg picture" "And other topics" as Sam Harris says. Reference: Mentions of Sam Kuypers paper on "q number time" throughout: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspa.2021.0970

This is really "episode 0" but not quite because we do indeed get to some readings and unpackings of the chapter. But in the overall scheme, that forms a minor part of a longer introduction to the "common sense" understanding of time and then to some relativity (of simultaneity) and reflections on the work of other physicists and popularisers.   Note clips from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Spaceballs" movies are owned by their respective copyright holders.

Some more long introductory remarks and commentary throughout readings of the closing pages of the chapter culminating in the explanation of the "punchline" conclusion of the chapter which is: "Necessary truth is the subject matter of mathematics. It is not the reward we get for doing mathematics". This is a good exploration of fallibility, the relationship of physics to mathematics and how science is, in a sense, logically prior to mathematics (and logic for that matter!)...all because proof is a physical process.

The nature of proof and mathematics as a creative enterprise. Not all that is true can be proved as such, the high hopes of David Hilbert for placing the entirety of mathematics on a "firm foundation", the mathematical world-shattering results of Kurt Gödel which frustrated that project, a history of proof and finally Roger Penrose and whether human brains are computers in the Turing sense. And some very long remarks by me, especially in the introduction. Become a subscriber at https://patreon.com/tokcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Drawing on Chapter 15 "The Evolution of Culture" from "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch and then applying it to some special cases. Come and chat to me about this or anything else at https://www.getairchat.com/brett Timestamps: 00:00 Speech, Trade and Democracy 02:39 Is Democracy under attack? 07:05 Free Speech as Error Identification 09:14 Limits on Free Speech? 13:02 Case Study 1: North Korea 14:18 Case Study 2: Afghanistan and Iraq 17:30 Case Study 3: South Korea 19:43 Case Study 4: China 24:43 The Evolution of Culture by David Deutsch 1 29:43 Protecting liberty in Western Nations 30:30 Bringing Liberty to nations without it. 32:25 Case Study 5: Japan 35:01 Immigration: Why worry? 35:58 The Evolution of Culture by David Deutsch 2 39:01 Preserve the means of error correction at all costs Support me at www.bretthall.org

00:00 Introduction 08:03 Interview Begins 09:42 How Chiara found herself at the foundations of physics 15:30 How Chiara found Everett 19:13 No Special Physics is required for Observers 21:02 What is a counterfactual? How is it linked to a constructor? 29:05 What is (classical) information? How is it different to quantum information? 32:30 Quantum Information is more constrained. This makes it more powerful. 34:08 Is the universe made of information? 38:04 The Simulation Hypothesis 40:33 The second law of thermodynamics 53:16 The AI Apocalypse? 58:02 How do we help a human become passionate about knowledge? 59:39 The Fine Tuning Problem 01:07:48 The Constructor Theoretic Notion of Knowledge 01:10:52 Constructor Theoretic Knowledge as a window on the origins of life. 01:12:16 The links between physics, epistemology and biology 01:14:15 Experimentally testing the quantum nature of gravity 01:26:05 Where to find out more   Support me by following the links at www.bretthall.org

The certainty of mathematics and its place in the supposed hierarchy of subjects (assumed to be above science which is itself above philosophy in turn). Some more remarks on Bayesianism and somehow ghosts and alien life.

Everything and more one might ever want to know about the topic...that other epistemology people often talk about. The central project is to distinguish between 4 "species" of what is often called "Bayesianism"  1. Bayes' Theorem. 2. Bayesian Statistics. 3. Bayesian Reasoning 4. Bayesian Epistemology.    Actual timestampes and chapters are:   00:00 - Introduction to this podcast 02:55 Epistemology  11:30 Substrate Independence 12:30 Inexplicit Knowledge/Knowledge without a knower 21:30 Explanatory Universality and Supernaturalism 24:30 When we lack good explanations 29:00 Rational Decision Theory  33:39: Bayes’ Theorem 41:40 Bayesian Statistics 1:07:50 Bayesian Reasoning 1:16:00 Bayesian “Epistemology” 1:20:13: Quick Recap 1:20:49 A question from Stephen Mix 1:21:50 “Confidence” in epistemology 1:26:13 Measurement and Uncertainty 1:31:50 Confidence and experimental replication   Join the conversation https://getairchat.com/s/p3ql7kNB

This episode is an introduction to the chapter. Although there are some readings, they are limited and I provide context by diving deep into David's more recent work on all this. Specifically we go through the connection of Chapter 10 here (published in 1997) and Chapter 5 "The Reality of Abstractions" from "The Beginning of Infinity" (published in 2011) and then also in light of David's recent speech given at his Dirac Medal award ceremony (published in 2017) - here is the timestamped link to that https://www.youtube.com/live/J7HeDX_7... and the text of that speech is online here: https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-co... None of that is essential reading (or listening) for this episode - but it can help. As always - buy "The Fabric of Reality" and read along as I never read the entire chapter - just excerpts!

Commentary (and Explainer) This podcast is largely an op-ed about the "feminisation" of Western militaries and the effect of so-called "diversity, equity and inclusion" ideologies on modern defence forces. I look at what the purpose of a military is and the tension between its aims and the ways some arms of some defence forces are "marketing" themselves to their own people. Of chief concern to some has been the way the US army has chosen to attempt to recruit people into its ranks. Timestamps/Chapters and references below. 00:00 Introduction secs: concerns of late about military decline/changes in standards 00:25 Concerns about politicising the military 1:23 - Should physical standards be lowered to accommodate “diversity” in the military? 2:18 The Military as a deterrent (as nuclear weapons are a special case of) First Pass 3:08: The “Mutually Assured Destruction” trope is a lie 5:01 - Chinese/Russian tech (military & other) is a stolen, poor imitation of Western innovation 6:20 - A comparison of military forces in terms of numbers (expenditure, land/air/manpower, materiel, capabilities) 10:30 The difference in Military Cultures (Jocko Willink on decentralised command). 12:14 - Gandalf’s cameo 12:18 - raw soldier numbers vs army cultures and capabilities 12:31 Case Study: North Korea “the world’s 4th largest army”. 13:54 - Case Study: The Russia Ukraine war 14:24 Case Study: The First Gulf War - The Tank Battle 16:18 Case study: the 6 day Israeli war 17:46 The Military as a deterrent (Second Pass) 19:08 Gratuitous Holiday Snap 19:56 The Mother Military Thesis 21:56 North Korea/Communism and Cancel Culture 22:51 Contemporary Western Nations and Cancel Culture 23:27 Woke Culture and Toxic Masculinity 26:23 Is there sexism in custody proceedings? 27:54 - Toxic “Father” Masculinity vs A Feminist “Mother” Military 28:39 The US Army recruitment advertisement controversy 30:53 Alan Watts on “Prickles and Goo” 31:21 Masculine and Feminine traits: some comparisons 33:50 James Damore and “the Google Memo” - commentary 34:19 The function and public face of the military 35:46 Pathological Goo: Jordan Peterson and The Devouring Mother 37:14 Early Signs of military culture rot? 39:04 Exclusive Clubs, Bouncers and Gay Culture 39:57 The Military as a Deterrent (Third Pass) 40:34 - Comparison of Recruitment Tactics - US Army vs US Marines or US Army vs Russian/Chinese Army. 41:24 Conclusions 42:11 Credits, How to support the channel, podcast and me References: 1. https://youtu.be/MIYGFSONKbk?si=C8mFqnObEburxXqz 2. A recent article from Australian media about coercion of "LGBTQIA+" ideologies on cadets: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-27/adf-academy-cadets-claim-they-were-pressured-to-remove-uniforms/102780562 3. US Marine corps recruitment ad for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9gTAjbiQEM 4. Humorous Aussie analysis of US vs Russian & Chinese army recruitment commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXmyWdZfdgk 5. Ex-Marine comments on US Military Matters (Jameson's Travels) - https://www.youtube.com/@UC-N44TadAniwC7v8Zj858nQ #woke #feminism #military #transition #army #philosophy "Like" my video and "subscribe" to my channel :)

Very brief readings from and lengthy reflections upon David Deutsch's paper "The Philosophy of Constructor Theory" published here https://link.springer.com/article/10.... and available in full here: https://www.constructortheory.org/por... #physics #knowledge #philosophy #epistemology #daviddeutsch #science Also available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMCx2Com7LU Discuss this or any episode of ToKCast on ToKChat: a channel on "Airchat" available here for download for iPhone and Android: https://www.getairchat.com/ ToKChat is here: https://www.getairchat.com/bretthall/tokchat Timestamps/chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:45 Predictions are not always possible 01:27 The Unpredictable 02:33 The Content of Future Theories 03:36 Better Theories Better Explain What Exists 04:31 The Principle of Testability 04:58 The Negation of an Explanation is Not an Explanation 06:04 Knowledge is the most significant entity in the universe 06:33 The Most Important Kind of Abstract Constructor Is Knowledge (Part 1) 07:22 The Most Important Kind of Abstract Constructor Is Knowledge (Part 2) 07:44 Physics is almost entirely the study of the effects of knowledge 08:40 Knowledge is not primarily about the content of minds 09:20 People are more significant than any religion realises 10:15 Wealth = Knowledge + Resources 11:15 Ultimately, Knowledge is the Only Scarce Resource 12:05 Knowledge determines which physical transformations happen 13:17 Knowledge is Information with Causal Power 14:13 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 1) 15:11 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 2) 16:01 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 3) 16:12 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 4) 17:01 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 5) 17:44 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 6) 18:34 Knowledge is Substrate Independent (Part 7) 19:35 The Role of Emotion in Objective Knowledge Creation 20:31 On Why People are Unique 21:16 Humans Routinely Defy Their Instincts 22:13 People are Universal Explainers 23:16 Human Brains obey the Laws of Physics 23:57 Many “Rationalists” Endorse the Supernatural 24:32 Good Explanations and Decision Making 25:33 Inexplicit Knowledge and Misconceptions 26:38 Quaila: We have them. We cannot describe them 27:42 Intuitions are conjectures 28:51 Either you have a Good Explanation or you don’t 29:45 Vibes can be an indication to investigate further 30:43 Knowledge is not just a “decision engine” 31:31 Obsession with guessing the future is irrational 32:15 A “simulation” of a mind is a mind. 33:08 We cannot predict the output of a creative entity 34:04 Knowledge Rekindles Light When Other Lights Go Out.

This is a "return to regular format" episode in one respect - readings from and reflections upon "The Fabric of Reality" but also a departure from regular formatting in another respect: I teach a bunch of simple mathematics. This is for those who might think "quantum computation" and "quantum algorithms" will be forever beyond me. They are not! I begin with (quite literally) primary school mathematics level stuff (what's a prime number, what is the "fundamental theorem of arithmetic") and very gradually move up into algebra and some modular arithmetic and present examples using real numbers of what the problem is and then lead us to a place where we can glimpse the solution (which is Shor's Algorithm). I do not promise to bring the listener to a graduate quantum physics-degree-level of proficiency in quantum information theory and cryptography - but you will gain quite some insight. I refer to the following more in-depth expositions of all this and hopefully bridge the gap I think is there between "I know a little bit of maths and physics" and the kind of thing the following more "high level" videos offer (which I present in order of increasing technical difficulty) 1. The PBS Infinite Series on all this stuff is brilliant. In particular this introduction:    • How to Break Cryp...   and this video focussed more narrowly on Shor's algorithm:    • Hacking at Quantu...   2. Here is Peter Shor himself explaining the history of his work:    • The Story of Shor...   3. Artur Ekert's graduate level free online course on Quantum Information Theory: https://www.youtube.com/@ArturEkert/v... in particular his lecture focussed on Shor's Algorithm:    • IQIS Lecture 6.9 ...   (which, aside from "The Fabric of Reality" itself, served as the basis for this episode).

I recommend the version found here that contains visuals and music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlvgxEBekP4 However the same message will come through on this audio only podcast.   Full Credit for all ideas to: James (Jim) Pierce Naval and Nivi and David Deutsch With mistakes all my own   See also James' website (and relevant article) here: https://www.james-pierce.com/writings/effortless-stoicism His instagram account including the original "Effortless Stoicism" video here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CuuDzL9sKOG/ His Twitter and relevant thread here: https://twitter.com/jimmpierce/status/1190810962493788160?s=20   Naval and Nivi's work on "How to get rich" where you can download their podcast from Naval's website here: https://nav.al/rich   Or the Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-TZqOsVCNM   See also Akira The Don's outstanding magical version along with other original music featuring Naval here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nX7x9AzwUTaGMFNVAxrLNXUJrKFotQ84Y   And my new favorite Naval/Nivi/Akira song here: https://www.meaningwave.com/blogs/meaningwave/akira-the-don-naval-ravikant-ft-nivi-you-will-need-to-rent-your-time-to-get-started-single

This is a cross-post from my Substack podcast "The 3Rs: Reality, Reason, Rationality" the text of which can be found here: https://bretthall.substack.com/p/where-do-ideas-come-from?sd=pf#details   This diagram is also relevant:  

Science news from a "critical rational" perspective. No "believing" in explanations here, no time for instrumentalism and a focus on good explanations of the evidence. Introduction (epistemology in science): 00:00 Dark Matter: 04:32 Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND): 08:12 Statistical confidence in physics: 15:23 Instrumentalism in modern physics: 19:00 Fusion Power 'News': 22:09 "Spinoffs" from fusion research: 24:56 Advice for investors in pure science: 28:26 James Webb Space Telescope latest: 31:59 Concluding Remarks: 37:42

Here in this second-to-last episode on the discussion of Chapter 9 from the Fabric of Reality we discuss some of the key distinctions between the classical and quantum - the philosophical and scientific implications and then some of the current experimental approaches to (and reporting on) the actual engineering of these devices. 

This serves as "part 2" of my "Are Consciousness and Creativity the same thing?" podcast, the Youtube version of which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrjY4fR-qMU

This podcast was originally produced on Airchat: https://www.getairchat.com/bretthall/bretthall It is all about an interview that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fv4Uz_i1iQ

This podcast episode is based around two sets of chits (two "chats") found on airchat at https://www.getairchat.com/bretthall/bretthall?t=440630 The articles associated with these chits and in the latter case many links are here: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/the-white-swan-and-red-pen and here: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/the-problem-with-fallibilism

The latest on the philosophy, science and technology of AI and AGI. ChatGPT, Deep Learning, Neural Networks and Large Language Models (LLMs). What do we know? Where is it going?

Sam Harris and Lex Fridman vs The Multiverse and Constructor Theory. Although this is a reaction video, it's just 10 minutes of Sam with the rest of the time spent me doing some analysis, dissection and "what went wrong" reflection as a vehicle for explaining certain parts of physics and philosophy.

Everything that we’ve covered on ToKCast so far for those in a hurry or those wanting a refresher. It’s the synecdoche episode. 183 episodes down and David Deutsch has spoken with Naval Ravikant and Tim Ferris, and so begins another cohort of people - a new generation if you like - of people coming to optimism in Deutsch's sense and the infinite potential of people and explanatory knowledge. I begin with some reflections on David’s appearance on The Tim Ferris show. If you watch no other ToKCast episodes or don't have the time for complete commitment - this is the one for you. ToKCast is now ranked in the top 1% of podcasts worldwide according to "Listen Notes". https://lnns.co/AwGLfoTRgHZ   Thankyou to all listeners and especially all supporters. You can support ToKCast by following the links here to Patreon or Paypal: https://www.bretthall.org/

What is "St George in retirement" syndrome? This and much more in another random livestream about all sorts.

Thursday 16 March 2023 Livestream - Patreon and Twitter Questions and Science News Articles discussed: JWST news: https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-star-soon-go-supernova-photos Volcanoes on Venus: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/03/15/venus-is-volcanically-active-right-now-say-scientists-using-32-year-old-images/?sh=7e868b8fd11f Plagues in Africa killing amphibian: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/03/15/a-skin-eating-fungal-plague-is-silently-tearing-through-wildlife-across-africa-scientists-warn/?sh=3086d9573f02 ChatGPT4: https://www.forbes.com/sites/gabrielasilva/2023/03/14/the-chatgpt-debate-are-we-intelligent-enough-to-understand-intelligence/?sh=2246e1c684f2

Reading a short chapter from "What's Eating the Universe?" by Paul Davies titled "The Big Bang" - and adding some exposition and commentary. Also: AMA as time permits. As always I do not monetise anything (there are no ads/I get zero income from youtube) - but if you'd like to support me just go to www.bretthall.org and follow the links to donate. Also the "superchat" feature in Youtube is something that would get to me.

Defending reason and rationality via a discussion of material at https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/the-well-of-galabes/the-clenched-fist-of-reason/ after a question from a listener.

I did a livestream on Youtube and this is the audio taken from that. Questions were taken from Twitter and Youtube. The first 20 mins or so of this episode is a response to a question about Sam Harris' recent "Making Sense" podcast featuring Stuart Russell and Gary Marcus called "The Trouble with AI". Then there are questions from all over the place :)

This is the second part of a two part series. Here we focus exclusively upon "It from Qubit" (2002) by David Deutsch as found here: https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-co... I read and comment upon the paper, unpacking its significance for physics, epistemology (i.e: the search for good explanations), metaphysics (ultimate reality beyond what science tells us) and compare this vision of reality to alternatives (for example as presented in the "It from Bit" thesis by Wheeler. The Simulator Hypothesis makes an appearance as does some of the mechanics behind quantum computation itself. But, overall, this is a work stranding physics and philosophy namely: what the former can tell us about having an informed explanation of the latter. To that end both Einstein and Popper are quoted by Deutsch herein.

This is the first in a two part series unpacking, breaking down, reading, reflecting and commenting upon David Deutsch’s paper “It from Qubit” available here: https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/ItFromQubit.pdf or here https://philpapers.org/rec/DEUIFQ or even as the chapter of a Barrow and Davies book here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/science-and-ultimate-reality/it-from-qubit/BA7B507C25C37B180FC34802555D4423 I will be referring to the Chapter of the book (that matters as you will hear!). This, the first part, lays the groundwork for discussing “It from Qubit” by first discussing the thesis that went before, coined and explained by John Wheeler: It from Bit. Wheeler, as you will hear in this episode, had an absolutely astonishing “life in physics”. Here we discuss that man, his view and the science and philosophy of “It from Bit”. As a teaser recognise that Wheeler supervised both Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett, collaborated with Einstein and Bohr and is named as one of the two biggest professional influences upon David Deutsch by David Deutsch (references herein).