ToKCast

I strongly recommend watching the video version of this podcast which is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_2tOxitykU&t=1s&ab_channel=BrettHall   What could we say to the people of the year 3025 that might be of use to them? Given they should know everything we know and far, far more I see only one situation where any knowledge we possess would be found insightful to them. So here is my discussion of all that.

Some random thoughts about random tweets. Ok, so not entirely random. Actually on physical law: not random at all). Better: some thoughts on some interesting tweets.

A personal recollection about how even the better schools can, with all the best intentions, undo some of the value they do provide in spite of themselves, over the course of years...in less than a day.

This is the conclusion of Popper's grand lecture "On the sources of knowledge and of ignorance". We reach part 13 and move all the way through to part 17 - the conclusion. This is a celebration of Popper's epistemology. He summarises his outlook on how other views are mistaken and what it really takes to generate knowledge. He speaks of his vision as a critical rationalism and a critical empiricism - a form of knowledge creation that corrects the errors in advances made nearer to the beginning of the Enlightenment but also in the mould of some of the ancients like Xenophanes. Popper explains how truth is real and objective and why the idea that anyone can possess the truth causes knowledge to become subjective, rather than objective (in short because anyone claiming to possess the truth is themselves a subject claiming authority over truth). Popper explains in this part of the lecture how we are all equal in our infinite ignorance - and so his philosophy reaches into humanism - a celebration of fallibility and of our capacity to come to understand reality.

I refer to three other articles I have written related to this piece: 1. "Free Will, Consciousness, Creativity, Explanations, Knowledge and Choice" - https://www.bretthall.org/free-will-consciousness-creativity-explanations-knowledge-and-choice.html 2. Humans and Other Animals: https://www.bretthall.org/humans-and-other-animals.html 3. The idea we have thoughts but are not identical to any particular thought or even set of thoughts: https://www.bretthall.org/critically-creative-3.html   The article/script related to this piece can be found here: https://www.bretthall.org/creativity-and-consciousness.html  

This is a podcast in 2 parts. I begin with a 10 minute introduction with some very broad remarks on the year and response to a question from a Patreon. Then the audio from my most recent livestream which went for around 2 hours and covered a wide variety of topics. Enjoy!

Here we set the scene for an explanation of the functioning of quantum computers and their significance. What are the problems that quantum computation might solve? What is the fundamental advantage of computation and hence quantum computation for humanity and for an understanding of "the fabric of reality". We connect quantum computation to the technologies that preceded it - indeed back to the use of hammer, chisel and water wheels. Understanding reality and the laws that govern it enable technology which enables automation and increased time to work on the next problems allowing solutions that continue this ratcheting up of objective progress in the world. This chapter could very well be a book on its own as we mount the argument that not only is computation, life and thought significant in this world but that the laws of physics mandate the existence of all three in a deep way. How can we explain this apparent providence? Answers in this episode :)

In this episode I respond to an article in the Science Journal “Nature”. Here is the link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x  Nature is among the highest tier of journals in the world - highly respected and the place every scientist would love to have their work published at some point in their career. Nature has editorials as well as journal articles and they have effectively a letters to the editor section and commentary. Nonetheless, although this article is labelled as “comment” it has 8 authors all claiming expertise in disciplines from environmental science through to ecological economics and sociology. I refute the article paragraph by paragraph and point by point providing analysis, opinion and reflections. This is a clash of worldviews: that of decline and degrowth and pro-environment and that of progress, growth and pro-people. This was something of a “straw that breaks the camel’s back” moment. Just as around the world many people are struggling to pay energy bills and governments persist in implementing policies that will only see the cost of living due to energy policy increase further while the overall wealth of households decreases, Nature sees fit to publish a defence of strong-socialism. This piece refers to “science” and yet it is not science. It is not even economics. It is an ideology screed. And a screed of this kind needs to be answered because, as I conclude - this is dangerous. This is literally life, livelihood and liberty threatening. The brakes are presently on the economies of the world because of the misconception that rapid progress and growth are a bad thing. That population increase is a bad thing. That cheap reliable energy is a bad thing and the prescription for this is to coerce people into using forms of energy that are not yet shown to have worked reliably anywhere (in other words entirely untested in even one place before being mandated on all places) and in many places simply not available yet, while coal and fossil fuel supplies are decommissioned too early. This is a threat to nation states and to the globe. This is my defence of humanity against anti-rational memes, prosaic “bad ideas” and stasis.   Enjoy! :)

This is an out-of-the-box episode. 2 hours and 20 minutes of me discussing some Tweets. It was an experiment of sorts: with Elon Musk taking over ownership of the platform people have been complaining (among other things) that Twitter is worse than usual. Granted some are saying it's better. But some have quit or are threatening to quit. But why? I tried to find out by Tweeting more than normal and to see what came back. Could I find the trolls? Did I become addicted? Was the experience terrible? These are my reflections. Followers of mine from Twitter may hear themselves mentioned. I still discuss many of the usual issues about knowledge and science as I often do - but this is a fun approach to it. I might try to add timestamps to this at some point.

Here we delve more deeply into the ways our senses and our reason might go wrong in the creation of knowledge. There are no authoritative inerrant sources of knowledge and yet we can nonetheless come to knowledge...by creating it. Unusually for ToKCast we take a left turn into visual arts as Popper refers to some art history and remarks by the British landscape artist John Constable. Constable makes the claim his paintings are like scientific experiments. How? We get through parts 11 and 12 of Popper's lecture and provide further critique of the linguistic approach to philosophy and why this cannot help with the solving of problems either in philosophy or science.