Bold Conjectures with Paras Chopra artwork

Bold Conjectures with Paras Chopra

38 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratings

My name is Paras Chopra and in the Bold Conjectures podcast, I interview experts from a variety of fields, asking them about unsolved questions in their field and what’s their conjecture for such open questions. Conjectures are ideas that are thought to be true but we neither have proof or disproof for them. Karl Popper, the famous philosopher of science, famously wrote the following in his debut book: “Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her.” All new groundbreaking ideas when initially proposed are in the form of a bold hypothesis. I love speculative thought which points to the direction of potential new knowledge. So, this is why I chose to focus on exploring what we don’t yet know for sure (rather what’s already settled consensus).

Science science physics consciousness reality economy psychology evolution
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Episodes

#37 Patri Friedman - How To Start a New City

November 02, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MB

I’m with Patri Friedman who is a General Partner @ Pronomos Capital, the world's first charter city VC fund. Before this, he founded The Seasteading Institute, a non-profit that explores the creation of sovereign ocean colonies. What is a charter city? What does a sovereign ocean colony mean? We will explore all these ideas in detail with Patri pretty soon. For now, you should know that Patri is a champion for innovation in governance. Our economy thrives because there’s continuous innov...

#37 Patri Friedman - How To Start a New City

November 02, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MB

I’m with Patri Friedman who is a General Partner @ Pronomos Capital, the world's first charter city VC fund. Before this, he founded The Seasteading Institute, a non-profit that explores the creation of sovereign ocean colonies. What is a charter city? What does a sovereign ocean colony mean? We will explore all these ideas in detail with Patri pretty soon. For now, you should know that Patri is a champion for innovation in governance. Our economy thrives because there’s continuous innov...

#36 Stephan Guyenet - Why We Get Fat

August 18, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour - 56.2 MB

I interview Dr Stephan Guyenet, who is a researcher and science communicator in the field of neuroscience of obesity. He has written an excellent book on the same topic - The Hungry Brain. In his book, he explains how the brain is the central organ responsible for gaining weight and body fat. Stephan finished his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Washington, and then spent 12 years as a full time researcher exploring the science of obesity and its link to the brain. Stephan is a...

#35 Jerry Neumann - Startups Succeed When There's Uncertainty

June 24, 2022 06:00 - 1 hour - 44.2 MB

In a world dominated by big companies with billions of dollars in investible capital, why should tiny startups be successful with anything? After all, startups are less capitalized, have a non-existent brand, and often the products they release are basic. Our today’s guest, Jerry Neumann, spends his time thinking about why startups are able to grow despite being surrounded by big companies. Without giving out too much, his ideas revolve around the concept of “uncertainty” and how, counte...

#34 Gregory Zuckerman - How Covid-19 Vaccine was Made in One Year

May 31, 2022 03:00 - 56 minutes - 38.9 MB

I interview Gregory Zuckerman, who is a journalist with The Wall Street Journal and author of several award-winning non-fiction books. His book on The Man Who Solved the Market profiled Jim Simmons of Renaissance Technologies which is perhaps the most profitable quant fund ever. The book was the #1 best-seller on the NY Times list and won the 2019 FT/McKinsey book of the year award. His most recent book - A Shot to Save the World is a behind-the-scenes account of how covid-19 vaccine was...

#33 Brian Naughton - Mining Fungi DNA for New Drugs

May 08, 2022 11:00 - 57 minutes - 39.5 MB

In this episode, I talk to Brain Naughton who’s the founder and head of data at Hexagon Bio. He is a Ph.D. in biomedical informatics from Stanford University and before starting Hexagon Bio, he was the founding scientist of 23andMe - the company that brought genetic testing into mass awareness. At Hexagon Bio, Brain and the team are taking a refreshing new approach to discover new medicines. They’re sequencing the DNA of thousands of microbes and then using machine learning to predict whic...

#32 Richard Watson - Evolution Requires More Than Natural Selection

April 01, 2022 06:00 - 1 hour - 52.8 MB

The dominant view of evolution is that of natural selection. But is it enough to generate all the complexity we see around us? Natural selection suggests that those organisms who outcompete others survive and end up passing their genes to the next generation. According to our today's guest, Richard, there is another mechanism at play which is something he calls Natural Induction. This view explains how adaptions can arise in biological systems without natural selection. Evolution is the re...

#31 Mark Humphries - Most Neurons in Our Brain are Silent

March 11, 2022 09:00 - 1 hour - 51.4 MB

Out of the 90 billion neurons in your brain, how many are active right now? Mark Humphries is the Chair in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Nottingham. His group interrogates how the joint activity of many neurons encodes the past, present, and future in order to guide behavior. He’s recently authored a book called “The Spike”, which details what really happens in our brain from an information flow perspective. In this podcast, I’m going to ask Mark how information flows i...

#30 Patrick Mineault - Understanding How Brain Works Via Artificial Neural Networks

February 23, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 43 MB

What can artificial neural networks teach us about our own brains? I interview Patrick Mineault, an independent scientist working at the intersection of neuroscience and deep learning. On his famous blog xcorr.net, he writes about the rapidly accelerating merger of techniques in AI and neuroscience. This field - neuroAI - aims to study how the brain works by studying artificial neural networks. Patrick did his PhD in visual neuroscience from McGill University. He has worked at Google as ...

#29 Ladan Jiracek - The Future of Neural Implants

February 10, 2022 13:00 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MB

Neuralink has made brain-machine interfaces cool, but what's beyond it? I talk to Ladan Jiracek about the kinds of neural implants available in the market today and what we should expect in the future. Ladan is a graduate student at the University of Florida and the host of the most famous (and perhaps the only) podcast dedicated to brain-machine interfaces called the neural implant podcast. == What we talk about == 0:00 - Introduction 1:19 - What is a brain-machine interface (BMI)? 3...

#28 Robin Hanson - Aliens Exist and They're Coming Towards Us

January 27, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 48 MB

Do aliens exist? Robin Hanson has developed a mathematical model called "Grabby Aliens" that not just predicts that they exist also suggests that they're rapidly expanding in the universe. Robin is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. Personally, I’m a fan of his book “The Elephant in the Brain”; it had a major impact on how I view the world. What Robin says in this episode is b...

#27 Jeff Lichtman - Mapping Human Brain at Nanometer Resolution

January 11, 2022 08:00 - 1 hour - 51.3 MB

What can we learn about the brain if we map it at a nanometer resolution? This is what I discuss with Jeff Lichtman, who is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. The holy grail of brain science is to understand the human brain and towards that Jeff Litchman and his collaborators recently finished a project where they mapped 1 mm cubed of human brain tissue using an electron microscope at a nanometer resolution. The project revealed a goldmine of 1.6 petabyt...

#26 Nick Chater - Mental Depth is an Illusion

November 23, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 49.5 MB

Does our subconscious exist? Today, I’m with Nick Chater, who is the author of the popular book “The Mind is Flat. In the book, he talks about how our mind is an imaginative storyteller making up things as it goes along in life. What we perceive as deep thoughts or emotions are not views into our deep self but rather a shallow, surface-level interpretation of whatever situation we find ourselves in. Nick is a Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School and works on ration...

#25 Chris Fields - Fundamental Reality Can Never Be Understood

October 29, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB

Is there a limit to how much we can know? I talk to Dr. Chris Fields who is an information scientist interested in physics, developmental biology and cognitive neuroscience. He is a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Colorado. Currently, he’s an independent scientist. His recent publications include work in the foundations of quantum theory, morphology, and information systems. His research spans fields that aren’t traditionally overlapping which allows him to come up with unique a...

#24 Jamie Harris - How to Expand Our Moral Circle Beyond Humans

October 14, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 54.7 MB

Over the course of history, we've expanded our moral circle to arrive at equal rights for all humans in most countries in the world. Can we go beyond it and expand to include animals and other sentient beings? == What we talk about == 0:00 - Introduction 1:38 - How did you get interested in effective altruism (EA) and what made you focus on animal advocacy? 10:27 - The concept of replaceability, its connection with the EA community, and importance of scale of impact 20:08 - Why do yo...

#23 Visakan Veerasamy - Kindness is More Important than Winning

September 23, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 56.8 MB

Winning feels great. But kindness feels even better. Visakan Veerasamy is the Internet's child. I call him that because he jokes that The Internet is his mum. In 2018, he quit his job in software marketing to write full-time. Today, he writes and tweets extensively on a variety of topics, which all converge on recurring themes around friendships, life, love, ambition, and nerdiness. Having interacted with Visakan before on Twitter, I reached out to him for a conversation after someone re...

#22 Ethan Perlstein - Decentralized Biology and Indie Scientists

September 10, 2021 12:00 - 55 minutes - 38.4 MB

DeFi is all rage these days, but have you heard of DeBi? DeBi stands for decentralized bio. In this podcast, I talk to Ethan Perlstein who is the founder and CEO of Perlara, a biotech startup that runs in a completely decentralized fashion. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:27 - Who is an indie-scientist? 2:59 - How did you go from being in academia to being an indie-scientist? 7:03 - While moving away from academia, what concerns did you have? 8:30 - As an indie-scient...

#21 Antti Revonsuo - Dreams are a Gateway to Understanding Consciousness

September 01, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 57.6 MB

Why do dreams feel so real? It's because the same mechanisms that generate are waking reality also generate our dreams. However, unlike the awake state, during dreams, we're disconnected from sensory input and locomotor actions. This isolation from the real world makes dreams a perfect model system for investigating the nature of consciousness. I talk to Antti Revonsuo who is a philosopher and a scientist investigating dreams and their relationship with consciousness. == What we talk a...

#20 Jeff Booth - Deflation is the Key to Creating a Paradise

August 17, 2021 08:00 - 1 hour - 44.1 MB

What if everything continuously gets cheaper? Common sense suggests that is what paradise looks like. It's a world where everyone is able to afford more and more using less and less money. But why isn't our world like that? I talk to Jeff Booth, author of the popular book "The Price of Tomorrow", how to create a deflationary world. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:21 - As a tech entrepreneur, how did you get interested in economics? 4:33 - The game of inflation and defla...

#19 Varun Deshpande - Alternative Proteins Can Fix the World

July 23, 2021 05:00 - 52 minutes - 36 MB

Can there be a single solution to all of the following problems: malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and animal suffering? Varun Deshpande thinks so. In this podcast, he makes a compelling case that alternative proteins (such as those derived from plants, fungi, or those that are cultivated in labs) can fix all these problems in one go. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:29 - Journey of starting Good Food Institute (GFI) India 6:01 - Decision of making a lever...

#18 Ganesh Bagler - Designing Food Using Machine Learning

July 14, 2021 09:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MB

The tastiest food hasn't yet been invented. With the diversity of ingredients available to us for making dishes, the number of possible recipes is gigantic. Human chefs have only explored a fraction of this food-space. Perhaps computers can step in here. I talk to Ganesh Bagler who's pioneering a new field called computational gastronomy that aims to utilize machine learning techniques to understand food and create new recipes that don't yet exist. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introd...

#17 Alpha Lee - Crowdsourcing Discovery of a COVID-19 Drug

July 01, 2021 10:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MB

Can you crowdsource your way to discovering a new drug? Alpha Lee's startup PostEra launched a crowdsourced effort (called Covid Moonshot) to discover drugs that are effective in treating covid-19. This was the first of its kind effort that combined research efforts from several groups across the world to design a drug that treats covid-19, is free from patents and can be made cheaply and easily anywhere in the world. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:28 - What does your c...

#15 Gaige Clark - Psychedelic Drugs May Treat Schizophrenia

June 16, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 47.2 MB

Schizophrenia affects 20 million people worldwide and there's no treatment for it. There is growing evidence that psychedelic drugs like psilocybin (as found in "magic mushrooms") could help treat it. I explore this fascinating topic with Gaige Clark who writes a popular blog https://mad.science.blog detailing the science of mental illnesses and their potential treatments. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:13 - How did you get interested in the science of psychedelics and ...

#16 Lee Cronin - How To Create Life From Scratch

June 16, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 53 MB

The best way to understand how life arose on Earth is to try to create it in a lab. But can we do it? Lee Cronin at the Glasgow University is trying to do make the simplest life possible using nothing but inorganic chemicals. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:16 - How did you become interested in the origin of life? 5:37 - How close are we to finding out the origin of life? 10:22 - The definition of life 17:47 - Low & high information objects 21:05 - Is the process of ...

#14 Michael Levin - Our Body is a Collection of Intelligent Organisms

May 25, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 54.7 MB

How do our bodies know what to become? There are no instructions in our genes that code for the exact 3D structure of our bodies. There's no tiny human contained in our DNA. So, what powers the transformation of the first cell in the embryo to a full-blown organism? Dr Michael Levin is attacking this problem and, in the process of answering it, his lab is uncovering an entirely new way of looking at biology. == What we talk about == 0:04 - Introduction 1:20 - You were a software engi...

#13 José Luis Ricón - Grand Narratives of Progress are Flawed

May 12, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MB

Hinting at the perceived sluggish rate of innovation in recent decades, Peter Theil famously said that “we were promised flying cars and all we got is 140 characters”. Today, I’m going to pick Jose’s brain on whether technological and scientific progress is indeed slowing down, and what that suggests for our society’s future. == What we talk about == 0:04​ - Introduction 0:50​ - What does being an independent researcher mean for you? 2:50​ - How did you become an independent researche...

#12 Philip Goff - Everything Is Conscious

May 01, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 44 MB

How does our consciousness arise? In this episode, I and Dr Philip Goff explore the increasingly popular view that everything in our universe is conscious (panpsychism). == What we talk about == 0:04​ - Introduction 1:02​ - How did you get interested in the problem of consciousness? 5:10​ - The role of philosophy in understanding consciousness 10:30​ - How can philosophy and science come together to help understand consciousness 13:40​ - What is your definition of consciousness? 22:35​ ...

#11 Balaji Srinivasan - Crypto is the Future of Our Society

April 12, 2021 07:00 - 1 hour - 64.1 MB

Balaji is a deep thinker on crypto and its implications. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he’s seen how technologies evolve over time, which ones change the world and which ones fizzle out as a fad. He believes crypto technologies such as bitcoin represent the former. To him, crypto will emerge as something that’s as important as the Internet and influence our society for decades to come. What we talk about 0:04​ – Introduction 1:28​ – How did you ...

#10 Kevin Gross - We Should Explore New Ways of Funding Science

March 31, 2021 07:00 - 59 minutes - 41.1 MB

The way science is funded today is broken.  Writing grant proposals for raising funds takes a significant amount of time and, unlike papers, they aren’t published in journals or valued for their scientific contribution. With grant rates now in single digits in many fields, scientists are spending more time raising funds than doing actual science. Is there a better way?  Kevin Gross, professor at North Carolina State University, urges us to explore alternative ways of funding science. One s...

#9 David Pearce - Technology Can Replace Suffering With Bliss

March 19, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 45.2 MB

Can we eliminate suffering?  David Pearce thinks so. He is a British philosopher who has played a key role in defining and promoting transhumanism – a movement that challenges humans to explore what it means to go beyond our biological evolved limitations and constraints.  He is most known for Hedonist Imperative, a manifesto he wrote in 1995 which outlines how modern technology can and should be used to eliminate all suffering in all sentient life, replacing it with bliss. David calls thi...

#8 Michael Corballis - Language Evolved Before Humans Did

March 11, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 42.1 MB

What are the origins of language? What role did evolution play in it? In this episode, Micheal Corballis backs up the idea that languages evolved gradually and some version of it existed much before Homo Sapiens arrived on the scene. About the guest Michael Corballis is an emeritus professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Auckland. His research interests intersect cognitive neuroscience with language and evolution. He is deeply interested in big questions such as how...

#7 James Evans - How We Do Science Determines What We Discover

March 03, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 51.4 MB

Ever heard of meta-science? It’s the science of science. In this episode, I interview the meta-scientist James A. Evans who explains how science happens, why smaller teams do big scientific breakthroughs, similarities between startups and scientific endeavors, and what research shows about the path to success. His research shows how science is not an automatic machine that keeps on generating truth, but is rather a system where social dynamics of how scientists interact with each other det...

#6 Lyn Alden - The Future of US Dollar is Bleak

February 24, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 49 MB

What is the long-term future of the US dollar? In this episode, I talk Lyn Alden who is an engineer in love with finance. She runs an investment research service for individuals and institutions at her website where she covers value investing with a global macroeconomic view. As a big theme, she has been exploring the strength of the US dollar in the rapidly evolving world order and what the future holds for the world’s reserve currency. She claims that the 2020 decade will see a weakening...

#5 Connor Leahy - Artificial general intelligence is risky by default

February 17, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 53.5 MB

Should we worry about AI? Connor Leahy is an AI researcher at EleutherAI, a grass-roots collection of open-source AI researchers. Their current ambitious project is GPT-Neo, where they’re replicating currently closed-access GPT-3 to make it available to everyone. Connor is deeply interested in the dangers posed by AI systems that don’t share human values and goals. I talked to Connor about AI misalignment and why it poses a potential existential risk for humanity. What we talk about 00:0...

#4 Kunal Shah - Status drives us

February 09, 2021 06:00 - 1 hour - 57.2 MB

How important is status-seeking? Kunal Shah is the founder of CRED, a fintech company in India that’s raised over $225mn. Previously, he started and sold Freecharge, one of the few fintech companies in India with a successful exit.  He’s a philosophy graduate by education and today probably more people know him for his insights into human behavior and philosophy than for being a founder of two famous startups. His fundamental belief is that we’re driven primarily by status and even though...

#3 Donald Hoffman - Reality is an evolved illusion

February 01, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 63.7 MB

Do we see reality as it is? I discuss this question with Donald Hoffman who is professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. He studies consciousness and perception from an evolutionary point of view. His research has led him to make a bold claim that while we do not yet know what the underlying reality could be like. Rather, reality as we know it now – including space, time, and objects – is a useful fiction that evolution invented for us. His TED talk on our perception of ...

#2 Ian Harris - Most surgeries are ineffective

January 20, 2021 09:00 - 55 minutes - 38.4 MB

Do surgeries work? Most of us assume they do, but is there any scientific evidence that they do? In this episode, I talk to Dr Ian Harris who is a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of New South Wales in Australia. He is a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing in trauma surgery. Outside his practice, his research interests broadly cover the topic of surgical effectiveness and clinical research. 1:38 – Science as a way of knowing things 9:15 – Why medical professionals ...

#1 Anders Sandberg – We may be alone in the universe

January 09, 2021 11:00 - 58 minutes - 40.1 MB

In the first episode of Bold Conjectures, I talk to Dr Anders Sandberg who is a Senior Research Fellow at Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.  His academic collaborators include nanotechnology pioneer Eric Dexler and the philosopher Nick Bostrom. The audio quality isn't perfect in this one as this is my first podcast. It should get better from here :) == We talk about == - Why intelligent life may be rare in the universe - What should we do as humans if that's indeed the ca...

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