Episodes
Published 02/17/24
Proving something about AGI is inherently impossible 0:00 Creativity is not just mixing things together 3:05 The superiority of explanatory knowledge 7:48 Knowledge laden information is more resilient than any physical object 12:36 The problems of cloning people 15:05 Objections to Taking Children Seriously 19:23 “Do what you like” is bad advice 38:17 Creativity versus nature 41:57 Deutsch’s “fanciful” conjectures 47:52 We must give up on the idea of an ultimate explanation 53:06 — ...
Published 02/17/24
The universality of computation and explanation 0:00 The growth of knowledge begins with problems 4:56 Problems are clashes between ideas 9:57 Evolution is not the survival of the fittest 14:50 Bad philosophy in quantum theory 26:46 Free will is intimately connected with knowledge-creation 33:41 Wealth is not a number, it is a set of transformations 49:03 The principle of optimism 53:27 Constructor Theory 57:21 How to make a better world 1:10:05 — Transcript...
Published 01/26/24
Good Science Fiction is Hard to Vary 2:08 ChatGPT is Not a Step Towards AGI 5:36 Creativity is Fundamentally Impossible to Define 13:35 The Binary of Personhood and Non-Personhood 23:41 David Deutsch’s Life Philosophy 32:06 The Clash of Civilizations 44:03 — Transcript http://nav.al/deutsch-files-i Discuss on Airchat http://getairchat.com/arjun/deutschfilesdiscussion
Published 01/11/24
Popper’s Impact 0:00 Creative Guesses 2:18 Experiments, Demonstrations, and Measurements 4:25 Taking Theories Seriously 10:25 New Paradigms 15:58 Foundations of Science 23:30 The Enlightenment 25:39 Misinformation 29:45 — Transcript http://nav.al/david-deutsch-2
Published 08/11/23
Introduction 0:00 The Human Race 2:11 Knowledge Creation 12:34 AGI 15:50 Taking Children Seriously 23:30 Good Explanations 27:49 Quantum Computers 36:35 — Transcript http://nav.al/david-deutsch
Published 02/11/23
The elder statesman of smart contract blockchains 0:00 The Ethereum community 1:22 The DAO hack 2:34 Vitalik’s finest and worst moments in protocol politics 5:18 Becoming a Twitter memelord 7:45 Vitalik’s influence on Eth today 8:59 It’s getting harder to do big things in Eth 10:38 Goals outside Ethereum 12:17 Crypto needs the good-natured 15:00 Russia 18:06 Vitalik’s lifestyle 19:51 Closing thoughts 22:06 — Transcript http://nav.al/vitalik-2
Published 04/14/22
Introduction 0:00 Haseeb’s background 0:22 Vitalik’s background 2:43 A blockchain you can build any app on top of 7:02 Eth trades efficiency for transparency 10:18 Like plain text, Eth is simple and efficient 12:41 Only high-value transactions can afford the blockchain 13:08 Doing away with ‘trusted’ third parties 14:09 Trading performance for security 14:43 ‘Impregnable castles made of math’ 16:23 Ethereum’s limitations are latency and privacy 16:56 There are ways to get back your...
Published 04/08/22
Transcript http://nav.al/infinity-1
Published 12/22/21
There was a time when coal wasn’t a resource
Published 12/13/21
We’re going to keep creating new knowledge and new resources
Published 12/10/21
What happens is you get a schism instead
Published 12/08/21
Science’s biggest breakthroughs came from unpopular people
Published 12/06/21
The alternative is who has more guns
Published 12/03/21
Compromise tests ideas no one ever thought were correct in the first place
Published 11/29/21
Technology has swung us towards centralization in the last decade
Published 11/24/21
The generation-long shift from institutions to individuals will be messy
Published 11/22/21
Creativity goes from 0 to 1 and bodies aren’t going to solve the problem
Published 11/19/21
New fortunes are created with ideas
Published 11/17/21
The only thing they will lack is the knowledge they don’t have
Published 11/15/21
We may not be alone in the universe, just too far apart
Published 11/12/21
Evolutionary algorithms don’t produce living beings
Published 11/10/21
From an evolutionary standpoint, it’s near impossible
Published 11/08/21
Creative intelligence wasn’t inevitable
Published 11/03/21
The universe should be teeming with aliens
Published 11/01/21