ToKCast

Some random thoughts about random tweets. Ok, so not entirely random. Actually on physical law: not random at all). Better: some thoughts on some interesting tweets.

A personal recollection about how even the better schools can, with all the best intentions, undo some of the value they do provide in spite of themselves, over the course of years...in less than a day.

This is the conclusion of Popper's grand lecture "On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance". We reach part 13 and move all the way through to part 17 - the conclusion. This is a celebration of Popper's epistemology. He summarises his outlook on how other views are mistaken and what it really takes to generate knowledge. He speaks of his vision as a critical rationalism and a critical empiricis...

I refer to three other articles I have written related to this piece: 1. "Free Will, Consciousness, Creativity, Explanations, Knowledge and Choice" - https://www.bretthall.org/free-will-consciousness-creativity-explanations-knowledge-and-choice.html 2. Humans and Other Animals: https://www.bretthall.org/humans-and-other-animals.html 3. The idea we have thoughts but are not identical to any particu...

This is a podcast in 2 parts. I begin with a 10 minute introduction with some very broad remarks on the year and response to a question from a Patreon. Then the audio from my most recent livestream which went for around 2 hours and covered a wide variety of topics. Enjoy!

Here we set the scene for an explanation of the functioning of quantum computers and their significance. What are the problems that quantum computation might solve? What is the fundamental advantage of computation and hence quantum computation for humanity and for an understanding of "the fabric of reality". We connect quantum computation to the technologies that preceded it - indeed back to the u...

In this episode I respond to an article in the Science Journal “Nature”. Here is the link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x  Nature is among the highest tier of journals in the world - highly respected and the place every scientist would love to have their work published at some point in their career. Nature has editorials as well as journal articles and they have effectively a l...

This is an out-of-the-box episode. 2 hours and 20 minutes of me discussing some Tweets. It was an experiment of sorts: with Elon Musk taking over ownership of the platform people have been complaining (among other things) that Twitter is worse than usual. Granted some are saying it's better. But some have quit or are threatening to quit. But why? I tried to find out by Tweeting more than normal an...

Here we delve more deeply into the ways our senses and our reason might go wrong in the creation of knowledge. There are no authoritative inerrant sources of knowledge and yet we can nonetheless come to knowledge...by creating it. Unusually for ToKCast we take a left turn into visual arts as Popper refers to some art history and remarks by the British landscape artist John Constable. Constable mak...

John Locke, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell are herein credited with advancing the cause of tolerance. Popper makes the case for tolerance following Voltaire who argued from fallibility that we should stand ready to forgive others around us - and therefore be tolerant for humans make errors. We discuss what "interpretation" meant to Bacon (it is quite the opposite to what it means...

Here we cover the cosmic significance of life and thought. I begin with some discussion of Stephen Jay Gould's view of aspects of evolution by natural selection - specifically with some analysis of his paper "The Spandrel's of San Marco" which is available here: https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf

Here we consider whether when collecting data we are able to distinguish between the signal (hits) and noise (false alarms). I make the case the author early on is doing a good job of explaining "random error" when conducting experiments. However, broadly speaking this is an issue of increasing precision in our measurements. No mention seems to be made, crucially, in understanding the possibility...

This chapter is about just what you get in the title: the significance of life. Is it true we are just a chemical scum? Much of "The Beginning of Infinity" worldview is contained here, in an earlier form, in this chapter. In this, the first part, we primarily consider the question of what life itself is. We conclude that it is best thought of as a kind of resilient information. And that is knowled...

How can we perceive the truth? Was it naive for the ancients to think it was "the Muses" or some such who guaranteed the truth was the truth? Was Descartes way off base to think the Christian God guaranteed what we thought of as certain as indeed...certainly true? Today people still endorse ideas about "not possibly being mistaken" - but what is their basis for thinking this if not "the divine gua...

In this I take things a little slower - but it's well worth the journey through Plato - even Plato's uncle "Critias" makes an appearance - and the great defender of liberalism John Milton who was one of the first to argue against censorship. Milton was one of the first to argue "truth will out" in a battle against falsehood. Popper disagreed - but agreed with Milton that censorship was never good....

Part 1 of a new short series where I am commenting on Karl Popper's lecture "On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance". This paper sets the scene for the link between objective knowledge and fallibilism - refuting, as it does so, the empiricism of the classic British tradition and the rationalism of the Continental Tradition. I make the case at one point that most modern intellectuals (I menti...

This is a preview of a series where I will be commenting on Popper's "On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance". In this part I remark on my own experience encountering Popper as a university student who took some philosophy subjects - how Popper was presented. How he compares to his contemporaries - like Wittgenstein. Popper's style of writing and as I keep emphasising on ToKCast - Popper's t...

This is part 2 of a deep dive into the role of induction in objectivist epistemology as interpreted by an objectivist scholar of Ayn Rand. Thomas Miovas Jr operates a website about Objectivism here: https://www.appliedphilosophyonline.com . The relevant paper can be found here: https://www.appliedphilosophyonline.com/induction-in-philosophy-and-the-special-sciences.html?fbclid=IwAR2cNLVGxyguM5R2TX...

This is an excerpt from a longer episode yet to come. After my analysis of Objectivist Epistemology (so far) I was implored to read a book by objectivist "David Harriman" titled "The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics" (2010). It is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Logical-Leap-Induction-Physics/dp/0451230051/ref=sr_1_1?crid=B5MBF53NNWR0&keywords=The+Logical+Leap&qid=1664073086&qu=eyJxc2MiOi...

Stop Presses. We interrupt regular programming to discuss the announcement of David Deutsch's share in the award of a Breakthrough Prize - one of the highest honours in science. ToKCast does not, as a rule, cover "news" - but this one exception allows me to turn something "timely" into something "timeless". There is a webpage for this episode here: https://www.bretthall.org/breakthrough.html

This is in response to a paper by Objectivist scholar Thomas Miovas Jr who operates a website about Objectivism here: https://www.appliedphilosophyonline.com . The relevant paper can be found here: https://www.appliedphilosophyonline.com/induction-in-philosophy-and-the-special-sciences.html?fbclid=IwAR2cNLVGxyguM5R2TXaYe3OVclhw34lAdIKN0Mp13zTLK-J8dPMmnfNVlOs In this episode I discuss induction bro...

Ayn Rand claims we are "observing the facts of reality" when forming concepts. Here I explain why that is wrong and how facts are things we conclude *only at the end* of a long chain of interpretation. This is an excerpt from an episode to be released after this one, also on "objectivist epistemology", and in addition to the previous episode released about "An introduction to objectivist epistemol...

Here I read from Ayn Rand's work "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology" and reflect upon it by comparing it to actual epistemology (how knowledge is created). We explain the misconceptions in the view that knowledge is all about the goings on in minds and how Rand's epistemology is root-and-branch subjectivist. Ayn Rand is an excellent defender of free trade and capitalism, the inherent value...

The final episode of readings from "The Science of Can and Can't" by Chiara Marietta. This serves as something of a summary chapter with pointers about the future of Constructor Theory.

A version of this on Youtube has music and images as a farewell finale to the "Things that make you go mm?" series. This is about meaning: what is it, is there a meaning for us? Does the question make sense?