Do Explain with Christofer Lövgren #1 - A Beginning of Infinity, with Charlie Jungheim
4 snips
Oct 4, 2019 AI Snips
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Transcript
Episode notes
Enlightenment As The Start Of Unbounded Progress
- The Enlightenment began a sustained quest for good explanations that enabled rapid progress across science, morality and arts.
- David Deutsch argues that this quest marks humanity being at the "beginning of infinity" where progress can be, in principle, unlimited.
Progress Is Problem Solving
- Progress equals problem solving: problems are conflicts between ideas rather than merely bad events to avoid.
- Deutsch (via Popper) sees problems as inevitable and solvable given the right knowledge, allowing endless improvement.
Humans As Universal Explainers
- Humans are "universal explainers": evolution produced a creativity program that crafts explanations applicable across domains.
- Because the world is explicable, our capacity to create explanations ties human creativity to deep physical reality.