ToKCast

Ep 240: AI 2027 Reaction Part 4

Note that Part 3 is episode 239 or can be found here: https://youtu.be/7P-UlHiTins Part 2 is here: https://youtu.be/o3Rdj37UJjw Part 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_txKy-XMQ I react to the contents of this article https://ai-2027.com

Ep 239: AI 2027 Reaction Part 3

Episode 238 contains Part 2 of this podcast and Episode 237 is Part 1. Also all parts are available on Youtube as almost always. Eg here for part 2: https://youtu.be/o3Rdj37UJjw Part 1 is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_txKy-XMQ
 
I am reacting to the contents of this article https://ai-2027.com

Ep 238: AI 2027 Reaction Part 2

Note that Part 1 is found in Episode 237 or can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_txKy-XMQ
 
I react to the contents of this article https://ai-2027.com with some further general comments on ‪@DwarkeshPatel‬ 's interview with two of the authors here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htOvH12T7mU

Ep 237: AI 2027 Reaction. Part 1

I react to the contents of this article https://ai-2027.com with some further general comments on ‪@DwarkeshPatel‬ 's interview with two of the authors here:    • 2027 Intelligence Explosion: Month-by...  
 
Youtube version of this podcast is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq_txKy-XMQ

Ep 236: Max Velthoven, legal science, AI and epistemology.

Max is a tax lawyer who is applying Popperian epistemology to legal science and issues in AI. Links to some more of his work, and the slides to accompany part of this video are below. Slides for Max's talk(s):
https://www.bretthall.org/popper-and-legal-science.html
Max’s journal article on AI with Eric Marcus (in NLFiscaal TaxTech): NLFiscaal | Problems in AI, their roots in philosophy, and implications for science and society:
https://www.nlfiscaal.nl/nlfiscaal-doc/BEEAD89DD9E44E81B23811716258A4C4
Slides to accompany: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7290619876879028225/
Made possible with support from, and In association with, https://nav.al

Ep 235: The Simulation Hypothesis

This is a "megasode" combining two episodes from Youtube all about the Simulation Hypothesis. In the first part I provide the philosophical basis for the simulation hypothesis as explained especially by Nick Bostrom and compare it to other "ultimate" explanations of reality. In part 2 I discuss and evaluate the arguments made by Scott Adams and Joe Rogan who endorse some version of Bostrom's argument.

Ep 234: On the Evolution of Reason

I recently had the opportunity to participate in "Spectrum Street Epistemology" with  @drpeterboghossian  and a number of others including  @destiny  . This episode was inspired by both that event and the many other conversations I had with Peter, Reid, David, Evan, Mia and Travis across the days I spent in Florida with those excellent people engaged in the important work of defending the Enlightenment. This is a sort of disjointed episode as I have in mind a particular audience of sophisticated thinkers on epistemology so I meander through my own worldview, take a historic look at why it is "belief" and "degrees of belief" or "strength of feeling", "confidence" and so on arose and became an important improvement on more primitive ways of thinking about the world. I compare all of that to what I argue is the most rational way of conceiving of "critical thinking". I end with some personal reflections. If you go to Peter's channel I imagine the many conversations we recorded together will be gradually released in the coming days and weeks. Compared to what I do here: their's is a very professional production! The videos accompanying the audio are a mixture of my own poorly shot camera work and stock footage - just so the viewer does not have to stare at nothing but my head for ~40 minutes.
00:00 Introductions
01:00 Are humans unique…just like every other species?
03:45 We are 98% the same as chimpanzees?
07:00 Was there an “Adam” - a first person?
09:00 The first creative minds
10:10 The evolution of authoritarianism
12:30 Medieval societies vs primitive tribalism
13:20 Early individualism, empiricism, rationalism and reason
16:10 Empiricism, rationalism and inductivism as “appeals to authority”
18:25 Belief and the weight of evidence
21:00 “Updating one’s priors”.
22:20 The God of the Subjectivism
23:30 Fossils
26:04 Better ways of thinking
29:00 Knowing and believing
31:00 Moving beyond “degrees of belief” and subjectivism
32:00 Knowledge: what it is
34:00 Knowing is binary
36:00 Reason is more than feeling
36:55 Reflecting on Spectrum Street Epistemology
41:05 Gratitude and acknowledgements

Ep 233: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 13 ”The Four Strands" Part 1

The first part of my discussion of the differing visions of science and how scientific knowledge "grows" (or not) according to Thomas Kuhn vs Karl Popper as outlined in this chapter of "The Beginning of Infinity". Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" explains the concept of a "paradigm" and "paradigm shifts" comparing "revolutionary" and "normal" periods of science. Kuhn's work remains the most cited in the social sciences and so far more people - especially in academia - are familiar with his work that Popper's. What explains this? What does Kuhn have to say? And what does a "critical rationalist" perspective on the growth of knowledge have to say in response to Kuhn?

Ep 232: Karl Popper's "The Myth of the Framework" Sections IV to VI. "The Critical Method": deep dive

The second in the series on "The Myth of the Framework" paper.
Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction with some reflections on Joe Rogan and Gad Saad
05:14 Section IVa reading - on “Confrontations”
06:32 Section IVa reflection
09:48 Section IVb reading
10:17 Section IVb reflection
12:14 Section IVc reading - tolerance and respect
13:26 Section IV c reflection on Herodotus and tolerance
15:08 Section IV d reading. When should a discussion reach agreement?
16:39 Section IV d reflection. Quibbling with Popper? True Theories or Best Explanations?
28:54 Section IV e reading Goodwill
30:00 Section IV e Reflection on Goodwill, courtesy and politeness. And an anecdote about “professors”.
36:54 Interlude: Popper’s Introduction to “The Myth of the Framework” - expertise and authority 40:00 Section V a Reading Clash of civilisations
40:56 Section V a Reflection (including remarks on Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson)
44:00 Section V b “Culture Clash” the impact on Greek Philosophy and Rationality - Reading and reflection interleaved.
57:15 Section VI a Reading - How we make the world understandable to ourselves 57:55 Section VI a Reflection on the task of “reason”.
59:23 Section VI b Reading: The invention of explanations and the two components of rationality. 1:00:13 Secton VI b Reflection on rationality
1:03:40 Section VI c Popper’s conjecture on the origins of the critical method I
1:05:08 Section VI c Reflection on Hesiod’s Theogony.
1:07:05 Section VI d Reading Popper’s conjecture part II 1:08:08 Reflection on Popper’s Conjecture 1:09:04 Section VI e Reading on Anixmander’s theory
1:10:12 Section VI e Reflection on Anixmander’s theory
1:11:25 Section VI f Conjecturing about conjectures and “The Critical Tradition I”
1:12:52 Section VI f Reflections on “The Critical Tradition”
1:13:16 Section VI g The Critical Tradition II
1:14:33 Section VI g Reflections on “The Critical Tradition II” and “schools” of philosophy.
1:15:30 Section VI h The Ionian School
1:16:36 Section VI h Reflections on the modern critical method and thoughts about Aristarchus and Parallax measurements
1:20:50 Section VI I Conclusion

Ep 231: Karl Popper's "The Myth of the Framework" Sections I to III. Discussing discussions: deep dive

I take another deep dive into a deeply insightful and original lecture by Karl Popper: The Myth of the Framework. In this first part (of 4) I spend most of the episode unpacking our motivations, Popper's own thoughts on his success in combating bad ideologies and the purposes of discussion. Indeed this piece can be considered an instruction manual for discussions: how to have them and why. Below: timestamps for this episode: 00:00 Purpose of this new series 05:41 Woke, DEI and Popper 10:47 Popper in his own words on his “success” 12:23: Marxism and Relativism as “ideas that survive” 19:47 Popper in the modern day 22:30 Frameworks and “echo chambers”. 26:05 Some personal anecdotes and reflections 32:43: Defending an idea is different to explaining one. 35:00 Personal anecdotes. 47:47 Discussions 49:33 Why do we talk to each other? :) 59:13 The Myth of the Framework. Section 1 1:01:04 Commentary Section 1 1:03:33 The Myth of the Framework Section 2 1:04:29 Commentary Section 2 1:06:15 The Myth of the Framework Section 3a 1:07:07 Commentary Section 3a 1:12:12 The Myth of the Framework Section 3b 1:13:40 Commentary Section 3b 1:16:39 Should we “talk” to North Korea? 1:26:12 The West and its enemies 1:28:42 The Myth of the Framework Section 3c 1:29:59 Commentary Section 3c 1:32:25 The Myth of the Framework Section 3d 1:33:24 Closing Reflection

Ep 230: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 12 ”Time Travel” Part 3

The best part! If you missed the others, don't miss this one. All four strands come together to explain the possibility of time travel and the intrigue that arises when considering travelling to "your" past or future to visit "yourself".
Rough timestamps follow: 00:00 introduction and the significance of virtual reality 04:03 Physically possible renderings and resolving paradoxes 07:30 what does VR time travel tell us about physics?  11:05 Personhood and time travel  13:30 Highly unlikely events, the multiverse and “never”. 15:45 General Relativity and time travel 18:51 David’s 70th birthday online acknowledgement https://dd70th.weebly.com/ 20:14 Past directed time travel: the consensus 25:25 Black holes, wormholes and time travel 34:10 More on paradoxes and quantum gravity 38:00 The unpredictability of the growth of knowledge . 42:05 Visitors from the future 45:50 Time travel, BoI and Fungibility 56:00 Knowledge Paradoxes? 1:00:40 Creation ex nihilo and “recombination”. 1:06:39 Biological and explanatory knowledge 1:11:32 Useless information and the resolution of knowledge “paradoxes” 1:15:23 The knowledge “crystal” - structure across the multiverse. 1:22:18 The entire biosphere as a computation. 1:26:20 Civilisations as virtual reality renderings. 1:30:00 The four main strands and time travel.

Ep 229: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 12 ”TimeTravel” Part 2

An outside broadcast as you will hear. Image generation and virtual reality provide a window on the physics of time travel. Why is that? And what about all those time travel paradoxes? The resolution to all is found herein.

Ep 228: Knowledge Beyond Belief

An assortment of topics looking forward to 2025.
Timestamps:
 
00:00 Truth is indispensable
04:06 The “search for truth” is error correction
08:11 Remarks on selflessness and personhood. How can we square the two?
09:14 Decisions and free will and creativity
10:46 Truth and the two senses of “believe”.
13:30 Belief, epistemology and psychology
17:16 “Popperian” knowing.
18:07 Newtonian Gravity I
23:53 Why GR and QM do not mesh.
26:57 Newtonian Gravity II
27:43 Knowledge is…
29:11 Knowledge creation, reason, rationality and reality.
31:11 Reason, Creativity, Fun and Flow States
36:13 Learning is knowledge creation
39:06 Selfishness and having fun
42:53 Fun, innovation, wealth and value
43:51 Wealthy people create value
48:17 Creativity, Wealth and energy
52:27 Optimism about 2025

Ep 227: "What is Capitalism?" - an encounter between Objectivism and Critical Rationalism.

Live from Sydney, Yaron Brook and Nikos Sotirakopoulos join me on stage to discuss capitalism, liberty, personhood, energy policy, Israel and antisemitism and much more. Rough timestamps are here:
00:00 Brett’s welcome and introduction
02:32 Nikos on “What is Capitalism?”
04:21 Yaron on “What is Capitalism?”
07:33 Brett on the relationship between personhood and capitalism.
10:02 Nikos on why progress is not inevitable.
12:06 Yaron on humans vs other animals
15:14 Yaron on why capitalism is retreating in the West.
19:56 Brett on the self similarity of the mind
25:40: Yaron on Israel and her allies
32:33 Brett on protectionism and nationalism
33:17 Nikos on defending your allies and nihilism.
37:01 Yaron on faith, collectivism and nationalism.
42:13 Brett on “concentrated losses, dispersed gains”.
43:50 Yaron on free trade and tarrifs
49:52: Yaron’s iPhone
54:52 Brett invokes Deutsch’s pattern, anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism.
56:01 Nikos on Marx’s role as an antisemitic anticapitalist and “secondhandedness”.
1:02:21 Brett on environmentalism and anti humanism
1:05:22 Nikos on energy policy
1:07:25 Yaron on saving the planet.
1:11:21 Brett on the death trap that is planet Earth 
1:13:15 Question 1: What is an Objectivist foreign policy?
1:18:21 Question 2: Is democracy necessary for protecting individual human rights?
1:25:31 Question 3: What explains the anti-ANZAC phenomenon in Australia?
1:30:01 Question 4: Should the government protect individual property rights? Remarks on “the minimum wage”.
1:32:53 Question 5: Should we be pessimistic about “woke”, “DEI” and the state of universities?
1:41:33 Question 6: Has China managed to achieve a beneficial separation of their political and economic systems?
1:47:02 Question 7: What is the role of the Fed in the USA? Is it necessary?

Ep 226: Realism and the purposes of philosophy.

I discuss the point of philosophy and how "concrete" the work of Karl Popper and David Deutsch are in marshalling examples taken directly from science in order to illustrate how philosophy solves problems in other areas. Then I have some lengthy remarks on some recent criticism of Popper and Deutsch which is found here: https://substack.com/home/post/p-152605209

Ep 225: Livestream from November 27, 2024

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

Ep 224: Shapes, Time, and Holism - by Julian Barbour

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

Ep 223: The Deutsch Files IV (ToKCast version)

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.  

Ep 222: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 12 ”TimeTravel” Part 1

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

Ep 221: Do Not Destroy The Means of Error Correction

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.