The inverse hierarchy effect and Humanities influence on Astrophysics

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The hierarchy rule states that massive and energetic things strongly affect less massive and less energetic things, but not vice versa. However, this rule was broken by the emergence of life, specifically through photosynthesis, which transformed the entire Earth. This violation of the hierarchy rule can be observed from the other side of the galaxy through the presence of oxygen. While biological evolution is limited in its ability to create knowledge, humans possess creative imagination that allows them to invent and innovate. Humans can violate the hierarchy rule by defying natural selection and creatively imagining advantageous changes. As humans continue to violate the hierarchy rule on an enormous scale, astrophysics will increasingly become the history of what people do, and understanding astronomical events will require knowledge of human actions.

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David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf) is a visiting professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, a part of the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, and an honorary fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He works on fundamental issues in physics, particularly the quantum theory of computation and information and especially constructor theory, which he is proposing as a new way of formulating laws of nature. He is the author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity, and he is an advocate of the philosophy of Karl Popper.

Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the co-founder of Airchat and AngelList. He has invested in more than 100 companies, including many mega-successes, such as Twitter, Uber, Notion, Opendoor, Postmates, and Wish. You can see his latest musings on Airchat and subscribe to Naval, his podcast on wealth and happiness, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find his blog at nav.al.

For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020.

Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon.

Please enjoy!

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[08:03] The impact The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity have had on Naval.

[10:07] The four strands.

[13:04] Dispelling common misconceptions about science.

[19:26] How does knowledge grow?

[24:26] The benefits of understanding the four strands.

[32:47] How quantum computing arose from trying to test a multiverse theory.

[37:40] What a good explanation looks like.

[42:43] How do conjecture and criticism give us a basis for optimism?

[48:38] Translating knowledge into action.

[51:20] Artificial intelligence (AI) vs. artificial general intelligence (AGI).

[56:54] AGI is people! But how do we ensure it’ll be good people?

[1:03:03] What’s taking AGI so long to get here?