The Theory of Anything

In this video upload available on Spotify (we'll try this once and see how it's received), we revisit Reinforcement Learning ( from way back in episode 28 ) and this time discuss how to turn it into Deep Reinforcement Learning by swapping out the Q-Table and putting a neural network in its place. The end result is a sort of 'bootstrapping intelligence' where you let the neural net train itself.&nb...

Over the years Bruce collected a series of 'problems' with the Popperian concept of refutation. Or so he thought. A chance encounter with Popper scholar Danny Frederick led to him re-evaluating Popper's writings and realizing that Popper sometimes uses terms (such as 'refutation', 'falsification', and even 'theory') in idiosyncratic ways that aren't quite how most people would understand those ter...

Over the years Bruce collected a series of 'problems' with the Popperian concept of refutation. Or so he thought. A chance encounter with Popper scholar Danny Frederick led to him re-evaluating Popper's writings and realizing that Popper sometimes uses terms (such as 'refutation', 'falsification', and even 'theory') in idiosyncratic ways that aren't quite how most people would understand those ter...

In this (mostly) standalone episode, we cover how Deutsch and Byrne each interpret Byrne's theory differently. Deutsch emphasizes the micro-level actions and gestures of great apes and the clear lack of understanding of what each gesture does. Byrne emphasizes the macro-level and the flexible intelligence required to come up with a program of action to accomplish a novel goal. Byrne's theory of 'a...

Richard Byrne has spent his whole career trying to determine when animals learned to 'think.' We discuss Richard Byrne's methodology for determining which animals have what he calls 'insight' (the ability to utilize mental models) and why his methodology is awesomely Popperian. Then we go over many examples of animal behavior that can't be explained via genetic programming or trial-and-error learn...

Karl Popper has a radical theory of 'dualistic evolution' where behavior had to evolve first before physical evolutionary changes could be taken advantage of. As part of his theory, Popper pointed out that an animal's ability to learn would be paramount to making evolution work at all -- similar to the Baldwin effect discussed in the last episode, but now for physical adaptions. This means evoluti...

How intelligent are animals? I n this episode, we introduce our series on animal intelligence rooted primarily in the research of Richard Byrne. Richard Byrne (mentioned in Beginning of Infinity ) is a first-class Popperian researcher (though he doesn't realize it). We first talk about how Bruce got interested in this subject after reading Fabric of Reality (but before reading Beginning of Infinit...

In this episode, we discuss the value of failure and how businesses have yet to fully embrace the Popperian notion that we learn from our failures, so we should want to fail more, not less. 

Sadia, in her four episodes on unsolved problems in physics ( first episode here ), was clearly heavily inspired by the work of Julian Barbour. So we invited Julian to join us for an episode and got a chance to ask him questions about his theories. Julian is a world-renowned physicist and author of several books on physics including The Janus Point, The End of Time, and The Discovery of Dynamics....

When Alpha Go beat Lee Sedol, the world Go champion, it came up with creative new moves never previously seen before and even invented a whole new style of play unknown to humans. IBM's Deep Blue, the champion chess algorithm, failed to do either of these. What was the difference? In this podcast, we review Alpha Go the Movie . Warning: Spoilers abound! Please go watch the movie first! This is an...

We wrap up our discussion with Sadia Naeem covering possible solutions and criticisms of those solutions. 

Sadia Naeem continues the discussion about unsolved problems in physics. This time we talk about (among many other things) symmetry and novelty. 

Sadia Naeem joins us again, this time to explain clocks, block universes, and eternalism. 

Sadia Naeem joins us to discuss her own research and musings into the problems and mystery presented by time.

In this episode Cameo, Tracy, and Bruce geek out over how good the Marvel TV shows are and how much they really get right. Spoilers abound, so be warned. 

Reinforcement Learning is a machine learning algorithm that is a 'general purpose learner' (with certain important caveats). It generated a lot of excitement with its stunning victory of Alpha Go against Lee Sedol the world Go champion.    In this podcast, we go over the theory of reinforcement learning and how it works to solve any Markov Decision Problem (MDP).    This episod...

In this episode, we interview Chiara Marletto about her recent book The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist's Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals as well as discussing Constructor Theory in general and how it might help us form a new mode of explanation in physics. We ask her some tough questions about constructor theory and she fields the questions very well.  For those interested...

Donald Campbell made the bold prediction that all expansions of knowledge will be found to require the Universal Darwinism algorithm of variation and selection. In this episode, we're going to test that prediction and see if it holds up against what we currently know about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.    For example, does (apparent) knowledge created by Gradient Descent...

In The Beginning of Infinity , David Deutsch claimed that no existing evolutionary algorithm has yet created knowledge. But Karl Popper and Donald Campbell beg to differ and have argued that knowledge-creating evolutionary algorithms are ubiquitous, common, and easy to implement. Who is right?  In this episode, we look at both arguments and assess them using Popper's epistemology. And along t...

The popular media confuses Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence. All the progress is in the first while all the interest is in the second. But what is Artificial Intelligence? In this episode, we explain the umbrella term and its subfields. Plus we introduce how Artificial Intelligence actually ties to all four of David Deutsch's four strands. That makes it an exciting field...

Many Worlds Quantum Mechanics is the only current explanation we have of quantum physics. Yet most scientists today still prefer to not have an explanation at all rather than accept it.  Sam Kuypers joins us to discuss his paper "Everettian relative states in the Heisenberg picture" that he co-authored with David Deutsch. He explains why the Heisenberg picture of quantum physics lends itself...

"Intuitive Eating (A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach)" by RDN Evelyn Tribole and RDN Elyse Resch is a book about how to use the natural signals in your body instead of a self coercive diet. It's a strong example of what David Deutsch calls "The Fun Criteria" where you align the implicit information in your mind and body rather than coerce yourself because 'you know it's what's best.' Julene Niels...

In this episode, we discuss how the work of Michael Levine intersects with the work of Raymond and Denise Noble's as well as Donald Campbell's. Levine recently did a TED talk on how the bioelectrical system between the cells is itself an evolutionary error correction process that determines the phenotype. This is a strong example of both Campbell's 'hierarchy of evolution' and the Noble's "purposi...

Our discussion with Bart Vanderhaegen finishes with a discussion about why businesses prefer to tell their employees what to do and why this is preferred to chaos. Yet if they want to survive in the modern era, this is no longer the best way to lead your company because it doesn't lead to knowledge creation. We also discuss the difference between a good and a bad compromise as well as male and fem...

Bruce, Cameo, and Bart Vanderhaegen continue their conversation about implementing Karl Popper's theory of knowledge in a work environment. In this episode, Bart continues to explain his company's process. We also discuss why Karl Popper's philosophy is so little known and why, even when good error correction processes come along (like Agile Development), it's more an accident than intentional whe...