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ToKCast

ToKCast

Brett Hall

This is a podcast largely about the work of David Deutsch and his books ”The Beginning of Infinity” and ”The Fabric of Reality”.
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Top 10 ToKCast Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best ToKCast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to ToKCast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite ToKCast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

This is an advertisement more than a regular ToKCast episode/video. I will sometimes publish some rough and ready material (compared to what appears here on the actual podcast and so forth) on Substack. If you don't know what Substack is - it's just a place where people write stuff (normally). Usually it's journalists who do most of the stuff there. I am choosing a format where I can write and/or also do audio. Go here to see https://bretthall.substack.com/p/manners-and-marketing?r=3r9kb&s=w&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web and sign up. I won't publish everything that I produce there here as well. As I say the purpose of Substack, for me, will be to produce less polished material and perhaps stuff that is less "timeless" - so I can comment on cultural issues and perhaps topics of the day. I mention a few things in this episode and links to those things are: Science Historian criticises Neil Tyson: https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2022/04/13/nil-degrasse-tyson-knows-nothing-about-nothing/ Astronomical Disdain: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/astronomical-disdain

Penn Jillette on the funding of libraries: https://youtu.be/nGAO100hYcQ?t=280

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"Slides" are referred to in this episode. Their absence will not hinder understanding for audio-only listeners - enjoy!

This is a "talk about a talk". Back in 2015 David Deutsch gave a lecture titled "Physics without Probability" which ranged over the history of probability, it's uses and misuses and essentially concluded there was no way in which probability featured in the real world - according to known physics. This is a shocking (for most) conclusion and something many will baulk at. The original talk can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfzSE... and I strongly commend it to all listeners/viewers. Over the years since I have found myself over and again referring to this talk and pointing others to it on the topics of quantum theory or Bayesianism or simply risk assessment.

I do not understand why that talk does not have 10 times the number of viewings. Or 100. It is ground breaking, useful, compelling stuff. It is neither too technical nor too subtle. So this is my attempt to re-sell that talk and provide a slightly different phrasing of what I think is a clear articulation of those important ideas.

People claim to think in terms of probabilities. Physicists speak in terms of probabilities. Philosophers and those who endorse Bayesianism speak in terms of probabilities. How can we do away with it? As an instrument probability might work well. But then so can assuming that your local land is flat even though we know that - strictly - the Earth is curved. Does this matter? If you care about reality and explaining it and hence genuine rationality then you should. Especially when it comes to risk assessment. Towards the end of the podcast I go beyond David's talk into my own musings about various topics - including the notion of risk which has been a request on ToKCast. As always errors herein are my own. If you enjoy this podcast, consider supporting me on Patreon or Paypal. The links for donating can be found on the landing page right here: https://www.bretthall.org

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ToKCast - Ep 104: Are We Running Out Of Resources?
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12/26/21 • 17 min

This episode explores the issue of the finiteness of our “natural resources”, taking an optimistic view of our place in the cosmos and hence where we can expect to find resources. We must first explain what a resource is. Is the notion of a "natural resource" an oxymoron? I explain some of that in a Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/ToKTeacher/status/1473642761676988418?s=20:

I then go on to explain this position in this short podcast.

I expect to be making more podcasts of about this length or shorter in the coming months and years.

I know some would prefer with this style of podcast that I did not have music underneath the speech. It would be possible for me to release both a music and a non-music version. Let me know if this is something that would appeal to you. Either on Twitter @ToKCast or email me at: [email protected]

Music in order of appearance is:

Dark Sky - Ketsa

Solstice Sighing - Ketsa

Vibration - Ketsa

Boats - Ketsa

Gloomy - Ostin

We know - Ketsa

Dark Sky - Ketsa

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Drawing on Chapter 15 "The Evolution of Culture" from "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch and then applying it to some special cases.

Come and chat to me about this or anything else at https://www.getairchat.com/brett

Timestamps:

00:00 Speech, Trade and Democracy

02:39 Is Democracy under attack?

07:05 Free Speech as Error Identification

09:14 Limits on Free Speech?

13:02 Case Study 1: North Korea

14:18 Case Study 2: Afghanistan and Iraq

17:30 Case Study 3: South Korea

19:43 Case Study 4: China

24:43 The Evolution of Culture by David Deutsch 1

29:43 Protecting liberty in Western Nations

30:30 Bringing Liberty to nations without it.

32:25 Case Study 5: Japan

35:01 Immigration: Why worry?

35:58 The Evolution of Culture by David Deutsch 2

39:01 Preserve the means of error correction at all costs

Support me at www.bretthall.org

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ToKCast - Ep 100: David Deutsch
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12/01/21 • 86 min

This is the complete and unabridged discussion I had with David Deutsch largely about "The Beginning of Infinity". It contains all my "Questions for David" - which were published separately - AND much more content too.

00:00 Introduction

12:51 Why aren’t testable theories enough?

14:37 Predictions vs Explanations

18:33 Verisimilitude

23:54 Are people a “chemical scum”?

25:43 The Earth is uniquely suited to life?

30:22 What does “provable” mean?

33:44 Undecidability

37:45 Classifying abstractions

41:29 The nature of physical laws.

47:06 Direct Observation

50:29 The nature of mind

55:40 The Supernatural

59:52 Epistemology and Morality

01:02:00 The physical limitations of knowledge?

01:09:24 Some history of quantum computation

01:16:44 Tic Tacs, UFOs and aliens

01:19:01 Dark Energy

Support the podcast by following the links to Patreon or Paypal here: www.bretthall.org

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ToKCast - Ep 22: The Logic of Experimental Tests
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02/11/20 • 75 min

This is not a regular ToKCast (about a chapter from "The Beginning of Infinity"). Instead it will serve in part firstly as a stand alone episode about an esoteric piece of epistemology: what is the function of the experiment in the natural sciences? (As explained by David Deutsch in his paper "The Logic of Experimental Tests particularly Everettian Quantum Theory"). I make many remarks - including many new remarks. The final third or so of this episode is largely devoted to a defense of Popper broadly and his criterion of demarcation in particular.

Secondly this episode is like an "episode 1a" of Chapter 11 "The Multiverse". This episode contains some useful material for anyone interested in "the quantum multiverse" and its testability. Spoiler alert: it's testable, no matter what others say.

Sources:

You can find David's Paper "The Logic of Experimental Tests" here

My exposition of that paper is here: http://www.bretthall.org/philosophy-of-science.html

You can download a free pdf copy of Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" here

(it's well and truly out of copyright, so feel no guilt about the download!)

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ToKCast - Ep 173: Brett Talks Twitter 2
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01/29/23 • 49 min

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.

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This is part 1 of part 4 (if you take my meaning) of my "Things that make you go mmmmm?" series. It's called "Minds" and when recording I was unable to anticipate how long it would go for - so I've needed to split it into 2 parts. This is the first.

I discuss what a mind might be, and what intelligence could be thought of as. What, then, is super intelligence? What is supernaturalism? What is creativity? What is the moral status of a person? What are the hazards of guessing at the problems our descendants will have? What are the moral dangers of a false epistemology? Is "super intelligent" and "super unintelligent" a strict contradiction? Does Google plan on test driving their self-driving cars? Yes: all this is discussed and more - hopefully in a somewhat fun way.

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I put out a call on Twitter/@X for questions and got a deluge. Between those and more from YouTube itself - this is the result ranging over predicting the future, through to theories of learning, AGI and AI, optimism and epistemology - many of the major hits and more.

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ToKCast - Ep 212: Livestream 3, June 28 2024
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06/28/24 • 144 min

More questions, more lengthy and more verbose than ever. Enjoy, or drift of to sleep with me ;)

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FAQ

How many episodes does ToKCast have?

ToKCast currently has 225 episodes available.

What topics does ToKCast cover?

The podcast is about Society & Culture, Podcasts, Science and Philosophy.

What is the most popular episode on ToKCast?

The episode title '(Ep 112) The 3Rs: Reality, Reason and Rationality. Newsletter 1' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on ToKCast?

The average episode length on ToKCast is 54 minutes.

How often are episodes of ToKCast released?

Episodes of ToKCast are typically released every 5 days, 14 hours.

When was the first episode of ToKCast?

The first episode of ToKCast was released on Dec 19, 2018.

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