ToKCast

I did a livestream on Youtube and this is the audio taken from that. Questions were taken from Twitter and Youtube. The first 20 mins or so of this episode is a response to a question about Sam Harris' recent "Making Sense" podcast featuring Stuart Russell and Gary Marcus called "The Trouble with AI". Then there are questions from all over the place :)

This is the second part of a two part series. Here we focus exclusively upon "It from Qubit" (2002) by David Deutsch as found here: https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-co... I read and comment upon the paper, unpacking its significance for physics, epistemology (i.e: the search for good explanations), metaphysics (ultimate reality beyond what science tells us) and compare this vision of reality to alternatives (for example as presented in the "It from Bit" thesis by Wheeler. The Simulator Hypothesis makes an appearance as does some of the mechanics behind quantum computation itself. But, overall, this is a work stranding physics and philosophy namely: what the former can tell us about having an informed explanation of the latter. To that end both Einstein and Popper are quoted by Deutsch herein.

This is the first in a two part series unpacking, breaking down, reading, reflecting and commenting upon David Deutsch’s paper “It from Qubit” available here: https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/ItFromQubit.pdf or here https://philpapers.org/rec/DEUIFQ or even as the chapter of a Barrow and Davies book here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/science-and-ultimate-reality/it-from-qubit/BA7B507C25C37B180FC34802555D4423 I will be referring to the Chapter of the book (that matters as you will hear!). This, the first part, lays the groundwork for discussing “It from Qubit” by first discussing the thesis that went before, coined and explained by John Wheeler: It from Bit. Wheeler, as you will hear in this episode, had an absolutely astonishing “life in physics”. Here we discuss that man, his view and the science and philosophy of “It from Bit”. As a teaser recognise that Wheeler supervised both Richard Feynman and Hugh Everett, collaborated with Einstein and Bohr and is named as one of the two biggest professional influences upon David Deutsch by David Deutsch (references herein).

Here we discuss the inherent differences between classical and quantum physics. Systems representing both can exhibit "unpredictable" behaviour - so what is the difference? In classical physics chaos theory is a genuine phenomena - but only in theory. The real world does not obey classical physics. It obeys quantum theory and there, that kind of "chaos" simply does not happen. The Butterfly effect is therefore false in reality for reasons explained herein. Those classical effects cause classical systems to be unpredictable due to the sensitivity of systems to initial conditions which cannot be specified, or known, with perfect precision. But quantum systems can be "intractable" making them unpredictable for different reasons. Rather than being a barrier to knowledge and computation this is an opportunity. We discuss Feynman and then Deutsch's own contribution to the field of quantum computation.

I strongly recommend this episode be watched on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r15jeZaNBHs However audio only listeners should still be able to follow along.   This, the first in a new series is "science news" from a critically empiricist and rationalist perspective. Have the first generation of stars - usually known as Population III stars, been observed by the James Webb Space Telescope? More background and context than you can poke a spectroscope at.

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