The Theory of Anything Episode 131: Knowledge as a Concept
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Jan 27, 2026 A brisk tour of “knowledge” treated as a concept rather than a formal theory. Debate over whether concepts can behave like falsifiable theories sparks analogies from sound waves to immune systems. Constructor theory and whether biological systems count as knowledge get challenged. The discussion contrasts fuzzy conceptual thinking with strict Popperian testing and links the idea to machine intelligence.
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Concepts Enable Conjecture
- Concepts are flexible, unfalsifiable tools that aid conjecture and exploration in science and thought.
- Theories are falsifiable and far more valuable for critical testing, but concepts enable creative progress.
Constructor Summary Of Knowledge
- David Deutsch's constructor theory of knowledge summarizes knowledge as information that self-preserves, copies without change, and enables repeated transformations.
- Bruce Nielsen accepts the constructor summary as a useful slice of constructor theory applied to knowledge.
Immune System As Knowledge Example
- Bruce uses the immune system and genetic algorithms as concrete counterexamples to the claim that only human ideas and germline evolution create knowledge.
- He shows these processes meet Deutsch's three constructor properties and thus should count as knowledge.
