ToKCast

This is the first in a multipart series where I react to some interviews with  @drmichaellevin  - a biologist who, among other things, specialises in bioelectricity. His research can be found here: https://www.drmichaellevin.org/publications/ and his "explainer articles" for his own professional papers here: https://thoughtforms.life . Although in this first episode I mention the discussion he had with  @timferriss  which is found ...

Comparing Kuhn and Popper on Quantum Theory: Here we go deeper into the differences between Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn's account of how science moves from one theory to another. David applies the theory set out in part 1 of this chapter to the specific case of quantum theory. Did social forces have a major impact on whether quantum theory was adopted as Kuhn would have it, or were rational factors like argument and experiment cruc...

I take a look at these three papers: 1. https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2512.22471 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23752 3. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22473 Collectively titled "The Bayesian Attention Trilogy" along with some other material - in particular an interview with one of the authors "Vishal Misra" - https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/faculty-staff/directory/vishal-misra For those familiar with my output on this you can probably...

This is effectively part 3 in a series of responses to the Prime Minister of Australia about censorship, legislation, policy, philosophy, Bondi and Social Media. The Prime Minister attempted to explain, as best he could, the reasons for banning under-16 year olds from certain social media platforms. I remark on an interview he conducted and make some broader remarks in conclusion to a short series on his response to the Bondi trage...

The Farthest Reaches is a book about "Explanatory Universality". Explanatory Universality is a concept introduced by physicist and philosopher David Deutsch in his book "The Beginning of Infinity".

Links, as mentioned in the audiobook can be found in the ebook available for free here: https://www.bretthall.org/the-farthest-reaches.html

This present work follows the logic of that concept as it applies to education, psychology, mora...

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 ...