Deus Ex Machina: A Man, Machines, and God

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Sep 26, 2024

Lou Bohan, a passionate host known for exploring technology and culture, interviews a guest with a rich background in physics and finance. They discuss growing up in Iowa and navigating cultural challenges, the misconceptions of China's reality, and the surprising migration of talent from academia to finance. The conversation probes into the implications of genomic predictions and questions of free will, diving deep into the philosophical realms of quantum mechanics and personal identity. It's a stimulating blend of personal stories and profound insights!

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Intro

00:00 • 3min

Athletics and Identity: An Asian American Perspective

02:34 • 13min

The Complexity of Understanding China

15:13 • 20min

Bridging Academia and Finance: A Talent Quandary

35:00 • 18min

Exploring Industrial China: A Personal Journey and Transformative Story

52:43 • 3min

Ethnicity, Genetics, and Free Will

55:49 • 20min

Challenging the Consensus: Quantum Mechanics and Interpretation

01:16:10 • 2min

Exploring Belief, Identity, and Parenting

01:18:11 • 12min

This is a crossover episode in which https://x.com/loubohan interviews me for his podcast Deus Ex Machina.

I was obviously in an exuberant mood for this interview - it's one of my favorites!

Deus Ex Machina podcast:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7mXUfNJdNnOjGfu6VGactr?si=Y3j1OZG4QsGdPhXd8dKsrw…

Timestamps:

(00:00) - Growing up in Iowa. Athletics, Chinese culture. KMT and military family background.
(11:48) - Hearing about the Cultural Revolution from my dad: his family experienced it firsthand in Zhejiang. Meanwhile, US experts and academics were entirely deluded about reality in PRC
(20:55) - "Experts" are often miscalibrated
(35:03) - Physicists and finance. Was Charlie Munger right to say it's a waste of talent to channel top brains into finance?
(45:15) - Hedgehogs, Foxes, and Eagles. Polymathy.
(48:41) - Development of modern China as the greatest story of the last 50 years. My first visit to China: the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in 1992. US-China competition and the future of Asian Americans.
(56:52) - Genomic Prediction. Genomics of cognitive ability. Leftists holding back genetic science. PING = NIH-funded Pediatric Imagining, Neurocognition, and Genetics study. Stephen J. Gould was a fraud. Asian culture (pragmatic realism) and resistance to woken...
(01:05:20) - Physics and Free Will. Meat machines programmed by evolution to have an illusion of self?
(01:10:04) - Copenhagen Interpretation of QM: Is there true randomness in Physics? Many Worlds, Foundations of QM, and groupthink in modern physics.
(01:19:09) - Christianity, raised as a Methodist by my mother, whose family has been Christian since the 19th century. Religious Experience vs Physics viewpoint. Meat machines programmed by evolution to have mystical religious feelings?
(01:21:28) - Raising children, family, happiness, the meaning of life in view of my father's life
(01:24:34) - The meaning of life, "All is Vanity" (Ecclesiastes), Religion

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.