ToKCast

Rational and anti-rational memes. Static and dynamic societies. Diversity of ideas and individuality. Credit: "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch

Minds are the makers of memes; ideas that survive. But how is it memes are replicated and transmitted through a culture? What counts as a meme?

The crucial differences between AGI and regular AI: minds vs the mindless. Is "competency" at completing tasks what makes a system "intelligent". I explain why that is, in a deep sense, the opposite to what intelligence may be - or at least the kind of intelligence that is interesting in the I in AGI.

What is a mind? Can we pin it down? To what do the pronouns "I" and "you" really refer? Is the mind different to its contents? What do we know and what are we struggling still to understand?

Stability under rapid change - progress - has happened rarely in history. It has been sustained only once. In any case it began in Britain? Why? We cannot articulate all the reasons, much of that content remains inexplicit. But we cannot ignore systems of governance - and in that case the constitutional monarchy. ER II 1926-2022

What is metaphysics? Is there a point in subscribing to one? Some think believing in certain theories about the way ultimate reality must be is helpful. How is a metaphysical stance consistent with both realism and fallibilism? 

In his book "Our Mathematical Universe" Max Tegmark claims we occupy 4 different kinds of multiverse and that ultimate base reality is made of mathematics. I analyse these claims and his 4 levels of multiverse distinguishing between scientific and metaphysical claims by describing possible experimental tests of some of the multiverses - and remark on this desire many express for an ultimate, final...

This continues the theme about fallibilism and is a brief recount of David Deutsch's insightful talk given at the award of the 2017 Dirac Medal - found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7HeDX_7Heg&t=10096s  (cued up to just before David begins speaking) or the transcript available here: http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/MathematiciansMisconception.pdf  This is a very "...

What is mathematics? Does it provide us with "epistemological bedrock" - a finally, once and for all certainly true foundation?  What does fallibilism say about any of this? Is mathematical knowledge not immune from error?

This is the first in the series of "Things that make you go mm?" (Get it - shorter!). Minisodes getting to the fundamentals of each of the Mmmms I've been discussing recently. Theories are misconceptions. All our knowledge contains misconceptions - as well as truth.

This is the second part of "Minds" which is the 5th part of the "Things that make you go mmmmm?" series. In this we encounter some deep misconceptions. What is intelligence? Is it about setting and achieving goals? Can a system be intelligent and yet only obey its instructions? What is the relevance of disobedience? What are the practical moral implications of misunderstanding epistemology? This i...

This is part 1 of part 4 (if you take my meaning) of my "Things that make you go mmmmm?" series. It's called "Minds" and when recording I was unable to anticipate how long it would go for - so I've needed to split it into 2 parts. This is the first.  I discuss what a mind might be, and what intelligence could be thought of as. What, then, is super intelligence? What is supernaturalism? What is cre...

Yes, that's plural. Multiverses. I have spoken many times before on this podcast about "the multiverse". Indeed it is a central theme of ToKCast and a thread running through both the Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. But here we discuss other kinds of multiverse - Max Tegmark's 4 species of multiverse. To what extent do they count as science? Are they testable? Does that matter? I f...

This episode is an interlude for the "Things that make you go mmmmm?" series. It provides, I hope, some helpful advice for "spotting errors" motivated by my recent readings of certain other "popular science" books where I kept spotting certain errors, mistakes and misconceptions. My conclusion: the writer lacked something like a more coherent worldview. I present a very brief exposition of an alte...

Here I discuss the "mathematician's misconception" from a number of angles: the confusion between mathematical reality - and our knowledge of that mathematical reality. We also discuss why it is mathematics is effective in the natural sciences, like physics and whether and to what extent physics must reduce to mathematics in some ultimate sense. In the discussion between Sam Harris and Max Tegmark...

This is the first episode of a new series about the multiverse, mathematics, morality, mind, metaphysics, M-theory, misconceptions, mistakes and much more. It is prompted by an episode of "Making Sense" where Sam Harris' spoke with physicist Max Tegmark. I am using that more as a prompt than anything else to give my own views on the wide range of topics they cover there and present a different per...

Here, we get to the conversation itself. We draw a line with some laughs along the way from early Popper, to later Popper, early Fabric of Reality, through to The Beginning of Infinity and to "The Logic of Experimental Tests" - what I regard as the current best known explanation of explanations and science in particular. We can see an evolution - a refinement of Popperian epistemology which, of co...

This is part of "The Fabric of Reality" series of podcasts, working as a supplement to material in Chapter 7 "A Conversation about Justification". In this episode I am beginning to draw a line from where Popper was, what epistemological worldview he was trying to (philosophically!) escape from - where he began in that journey, what he passed through, where Deutsch took off from and where we are no...

This chapter continues the themes from Chapter 5 and purports to be an exploration of the use of so-called "rational choice theory". I discuss this "theory" and how well it applies to the "real life process of the same name". How do we make rational choices? By assigning probabilities? By weighing our options? Something else?

This serves as an introduction to the chapter proper. I cover what justification is, David's stated ways in which he might revise the wording chosen in parts of this chapter, inductivism, Bayesianism, "God Shaped Gaps" and "Induction shaped gaps". This episode links well with the episode immediately prior to this one - episode 128 about Pinker's chapter on Bayesian Reasoning from his book "Rationa...

This chapter continues the themes from Chapter 4 as well as my episode all about probability, risk and Bayesianism found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOK5aiASmKM which is an exploration of another talk given by David Deutsch on the nature of probability given what we know about physics. So this chapter of Pinker's book Rationality - being centrally concerned about the use of what is calle...

A quick reaction video to the first 10 minutes of Sam Harris' "Making Sense" episode number 288 "The End of Global Order" - found here https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-bwjew-145a8d0b?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share or anywhere podcasts can be found (as of writing this it was not yet on Youtube). This video/podcast is more fun than anything else.

I strongly recommend watching this episode on Youtube as it is heavy on the visuals. That video can be found here: https://youtu.be/s3tMRgAHXgw A version of this podcast/video without the music can be found here:              https://youtu.be/7Ay300_ZjVI            This is a video/podcast both about the book "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch and the July 2022 release of images by NASA f...

These is the audio from knitted together livestreams conducted on YouTube recently. Lots of new questions and common topics discussed. A special introduction for the podcast version of this at the beginning to explain what’s going on. Audio listeners should feel free to submit me questions: find me on Twitter @ToKteacher or else find me on YouTube and leave a comment under any video at all - I rea...

This chapter traverses a terrain of "computers" - the abstract ideas of Turing and Church, the physical computers envisaged by Deutsch and hence quantum computation, the relationship between what computers can do and what mathematics makes possible and ultimately what people can explain and why the universe and reality broadly is comprehensible. We look at the science, the physics and the philosop...