ToKCast

This is the extended "director's cut" of a talk delivered for "RatFest 2025" (next year to be "Conjecture Con"). This also serves as a supplement to my "Doom Debates" interview which can be found here: https://youtu.be/koubXR0YL4A?si=483M6SPOKwbQYmzb

It is simply assumed some version of "Bayesian reasoning" is how AI will "create" knowledge. This misconception permeates the https://ai-2027.com paper, as well as Bostrom and Yudkowsk...

Chapters 1 to 4 of a multi-chapter series about the reach of what I argue is one of the most important lessons to learn in order to solve many pressing problems: explanatory universality. This podcast provides an explanation that "explanatory universality" is an idea of such depth it may have among the greatest reach of any idea.

Chapters:

00:12 Chapter 1 - Universality and Reach

09:09 Chapter 2 - The Reach of Explanatory Universal...

We are told by people working in the field, researchers and those who publish academic papers on the topic that artificial intelligence or deep learning or LLMs or Machine Learning or Recurrent Neural Networks - call them what you like - employ some form of inductive reasoning. But do they? What is inductive reasoning? What is deductive or adductive for that matter? Is "new physics" or other new science being discovered by the most...

This episode is a reading of and reflection upon more writing by David Deutsch - an article you can find at https://takingchildrenseriously.com/in-praise-of-ignorance/

Joining me is philosopher and language educator Liberty Fitz-Claridge. Liberty holds Master Degrees in both Philosophy and Applied Linguistics and English Language teaching, as well as a Bachelors in The Philosophy of Science. As well as teaching, Liberty runs the Po...

A summary of some arguments made in the previous 4 parts, and a conclusion to my evaluation of https://ai-2027.com I refer to Daniel Kokotajlo's paper which contained an earlier set of predictions made in 2021 about the 5 years leading to 2026 which is found here https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/6Xgy6CAf2jqHhynHL/what-2026-looks-like Note that Part 4 is here: https://youtu.be/C3jDjuSLBv0 Part 3 is here: https://youtu.be/7P-UlHiTins ...

Max is a tax lawyer who is applying Popperian epistemology to legal science and issues in AI. Links to some more of his work, and the slides to accompany part of this video are below. Slides for Max's talk(s):

https://www.bretthall.org/popper-and-legal-science.html

Max’s journal article on AI with Eric Marcus (in NLFiscaal TaxTech): NLFiscaal | Problems in AI, their roots in philosophy, and implications for science and society:

ht...

I recently had the opportunity to participate in "Spectrum Street Epistemology" with  @drpeterboghossian  and a number of others including  @destiny  . This episode was inspired by both that event and the many other conversations I had with Peter, Reid, David, Evan, Mia and Travis across the days I spent in Florida with those excellent people engaged in the important work of defending the Enlightenment. This is a sort of disjointed...

The first part of my discussion of the differing visions of science and how scientific knowledge "grows" (or not) according to Thomas Kuhn vs Karl Popper as outlined in this chapter of "The Beginning of Infinity". Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" explains the concept of a "paradigm" and "paradigm shifts" comparing "revolutionary" and "normal" periods of science. Kuhn's work remains the most cited in the social scien...

The second in the series on "The Myth of the Framework" paper.

Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction with some reflections on Joe Rogan and Gad Saad

05:14 Section IVa reading - on “Confrontations”

06:32 Section IVa reflection

09:48 Section IVb reading

10:17 Section IVb reflection

12:14 Section IVc reading - tolerance and respect

13:26 Section IV c reflection on Herodotus and tolerance

15:08 Section IV d reading. When should a discussion r...

I take another deep dive into a deeply insightful and original lecture by Karl Popper: The Myth of the Framework. In this first part (of 4) I spend most of the episode unpacking our motivations, Popper's own thoughts on his success in combating bad ideologies and the purposes of discussion. Indeed this piece can be considered an instruction manual for discussions: how to have them and why. Below: timestamps for this episode: 00:00 ...

The best part! If you missed the others, don't miss this one. All four strands come together to explain the possibility of time travel and the intrigue that arises when considering travelling to "your" past or future to visit "yourself".

Rough timestamps follow: 00:00 introduction and the significance of virtual reality 04:03 Physically possible renderings and resolving paradoxes 07:30 what does VR time travel tell us about physics...