ToKCast
215 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 84 ratingsThis 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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Episodes
Ep 212: Livestream 3, June 28 2024
June 28, 2024 12:49 - 2 hours - 270 MBMore questions, more lengthy and more verbose than ever. Enjoy, or drift of to sleep with me ;)
Ep 211: Livestream 2, June 26 2024
June 27, 2024 02:19 - 1 hour - 145 MBFear not! ToKCast is not becoming a pure Q&A "show". This is literally a kind of "break" for me that I find easy and I note the listeners find fun. Today's a little shorter and - here's some of the topics covered! 00:00: David Deutsch mentioned on Lex Fridman 04:15: Dennis Noble debates Richard Dawkins on the selfish gene 16:47: The goal driven life and AI 27:51 Self similarity - minds and universes 34:39: The hard problem of consciousness and Popperian epistemology 41:30: Wave part...
Ep 210: Livestream - Question, Answer and repeat for 2+ hours
June 25, 2024 08:14 - 2 hours - 252 MBI 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.
Ep 209: Rational Decision Making
June 17, 2024 08:35 - 1 hour - 117 MBRiffing on Karl Popper and David Deutsch (especially). A broad overview, covering lots of the basics of "social" or "rational" choice theory, Bayesianism (again!), misconceptions, good ideas and bad. Errors my own as always.
Ep 208: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 11 ”Time: The First Quantum Concept” Part 3
June 04, 2024 11:38 - 39 minutes - 72.8 MBHere we explore the distinction between classical notions of time (including spacetime physics) as approximations to how time is understood in the multiverse. How perfectly deterministic laws lead to subjective unpredictability. Consequences for free will, questions about what happened before time began (or after it ends), new discoveries since the publication of The Fabric of Reality was published in 1997 and David's subtle alterations to phrasing between The Fabric of Reality and The Begin...
Ep 207: Variations on a Conjecture
May 21, 2024 12:11 - 26 minutes - 49.9 MBIf you are distracted by, or simply prefer a version without, the background music - you can find that here: https://youtu.be/xSbqTTs1nl0 My preferred version is here: https://youtu.be/2IneL4VpShE as there are some helpful (though not essential) visuals. This is about knowledge creation and the the commonalities between the two forms known (evolution (by natural selection) and explanatory) and the differences between them. It teases out and synthesises some of the work of Darwin, Popper...
Ep 206: Sam Kuypers (Time: The First Quantum Concept Part 3 - and more).
April 12, 2024 14:14 - 1 hour - 195 MBSam Kuypers is a theoretical physicist who specialises in the physics of time. If you have the time, Sam can take up as much of it as you like telling you about how our ideas of time have changed…over time. As Sam will reveals: times, they are not a-changing. But there is change! Newtonian physics has a notion of time (or at least Newton himself did), Relativity as discovered by Einstein in the early 1900s radically transformed our notion of what time is and now, in the 21st Century, Sam Kuy...
Ep 205: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 11 ”Time: The First Quantum Concept” *Part 2*
March 18, 2024 03:17 - 53 minutes - 99.5 MBPart 2: Time is in the instant. The instant is not in time. More on the quantum theory of time and how the "spacetime" view of time, and the flow of time are false. How time relates to the "block universe" model and how the multiverse fixes the paradoxes at the heart of our common sense (and classical physics) ideas about time - more readings from "The Fabric of Reality" chapter 11 and in addition: A couple of acrostics about David Deutsch in terms of "Popper". David's changing view of fre...
Ep 204: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 11 ”Time: The First Quantum Concept” Part 1
February 28, 2024 22:45 - 1 hour - 112 MBThis is really "episode 0" but not quite because we do indeed get to some readings and unpackings of the chapter. But in the overall scheme, that forms a minor part of a longer introduction to the "common sense" understanding of time and then to some relativity (of simultaneity) and reflections on the work of other physicists and popularisers. Note clips from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Spaceballs" movies are owned by their respective copyright holders.
Ep 203: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 10 ”The Nature of Mathematics” Part 4
February 16, 2024 12:18 - 1 hour - 144 MBSome more long introductory remarks and commentary throughout readings of the closing pages of the chapter culminating in the explanation of the "punchline" conclusion of the chapter which is: "Necessary truth is the subject matter of mathematics. It is not the reward we get for doing mathematics". This is a good exploration of fallibility, the relationship of physics to mathematics and how science is, in a sense, logically prior to mathematics (and logic for that matter!)...all because proo...
Ep 202: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 10 ”The Nature of Mathematics” Part 3
February 11, 2024 05:36 - 45 minutes - 84.6 MBThe nature of proof and mathematics as a creative enterprise. Not all that is true can be proved as such, the high hopes of David Hilbert for placing the entirety of mathematics on a "firm foundation", the mathematical world-shattering results of Kurt Gödel which frustrated that project, a history of proof and finally Roger Penrose and whether human brains are computers in the Turing sense. And some very long remarks by me, especially in the introduction. Become a subscriber at https://patre...
Ep 201: Progress: Conserving the means of Error Correction. Free Speech, Free Trade and Democracy.
December 14, 2023 07:39 - 43 minutes - 80.6 MBDrawing 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:...
Ep 200: Chiara Marletto
November 30, 2023 05:49 - 1 hour - 162 MB00:00 Introduction 08:03 Interview Begins 09:42 How Chiara found herself at the foundations of physics 15:30 How Chiara found Everett 19:13 No Special Physics is required for Observers 21:02 What is a counterfactual? How is it linked to a constructor? 29:05 What is (classical) information? How is it different to quantum information? 32:30 Quantum Information is more constrained. This makes it more powerful. 34:08 Is the universe made of information? 38:04 The Simulation Hypothesis ...
Ep 199: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 10 ”The Nature of Mathematics” Part 2
October 11, 2023 06:32 - 50 minutes - 94 MBThe certainty of mathematics and its place in the supposed hierarchy of subjects (assumed to be above science which is itself above philosophy in turn). Some more remarks on Bayesianism and somehow ghosts and alien life.
Ep 198: Bayesianism
September 12, 2023 02:39 - 1 hour - 178 MBEverything and more one might ever want to know about the topic...that other epistemology people often talk about. The central project is to distinguish between 4 "species" of what is often called "Bayesianism" 1. Bayes' Theorem. 2. Bayesian Statistics. 3. Bayesian Reasoning 4. Bayesian Epistemology. Actual timestampes and chapters are: 00:00 - Introduction to this podcast 02:55 Epistemology 11:30 Substrate Independence 12:30 Inexplicit Knowledge/Knowledge without a knower ...
Ep 197: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 10 ”The Nature of Mathematics” Part 1: Introduction
September 10, 2023 02:45 - 1 hour - 158 MBThis episode is an introduction to the chapter. Although there are some readings, they are limited and I provide context by diving deep into David's more recent work on all this. Specifically we go through the connection of Chapter 10 here (published in 1997) and Chapter 5 "The Reality of Abstractions" from "The Beginning of Infinity" (published in 2011) and then also in light of David's recent speech given at his Dirac Medal award ceremony (published in 2017) - here is the timestamped link ...
Ep 196: The Mother Military
August 29, 2023 11:33 - 43 minutes - 80.3 MBCommentary (and Explainer) This podcast is largely an op-ed about the "feminisation" of Western militaries and the effect of so-called "diversity, equity and inclusion" ideologies on modern defence forces. I look at what the purpose of a military is and the tension between its aims and the ways some arms of some defence forces are "marketing" themselves to their own people. Of chief concern to some has been the way the US army has chosen to attempt to recruit people into its ranks. Timestamp...
Ep 195: Knowledge, Wealth and Constructors
August 23, 2023 02:11 - 35 minutes - 65.4 MBVery brief readings from and lengthy reflections upon David Deutsch's paper "The Philosophy of Constructor Theory" published here https://link.springer.com/article/10.... and available in full here: https://www.constructortheory.org/por... #physics #knowledge #philosophy #epistemology #daviddeutsch #science Also available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMCx2Com7LU Discuss this or any episode of ToKCast on ToKChat: a channel on "Airchat" available here for download for iPhone...
Ep 194: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 9 ”Quantum Computers” Part 4: Shor’s Algorithm
July 26, 2023 10:19 - 1 hour - 175 MBThis is a "return to regular format" episode in one respect - readings from and reflections upon "The Fabric of Reality" but also a departure from regular formatting in another respect: I teach a bunch of simple mathematics. This is for those who might think "quantum computation" and "quantum algorithms" will be forever beyond me. They are not! I begin with (quite literally) primary school mathematics level stuff (what's a prime number, what is the "fundamental theorem of arithmetic") and ve...
Ep 193: Effortless Stoicism
July 17, 2023 19:39 - 25 minutes - 48 MBI recommend the version found here that contains visuals and music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlvgxEBekP4 However the same message will come through on this audio only podcast. Full Credit for all ideas to: James (Jim) Pierce Naval and Nivi and David Deutsch With mistakes all my own See also James' website (and relevant article) here: https://www.james-pierce.com/writings/effortless-stoicism His instagram account including the original "Effortless Stoicism" video here: h...
Ep 192: Where do ideas come from?
June 28, 2023 16:33 - 1 hour - 117 MBThis is a cross-post from my Substack podcast "The 3Rs: Reality, Reason, Rationality" the text of which can be found here: https://bretthall.substack.com/p/where-do-ideas-come-from?sd=pf#details This diagram is also relevant:
Ep 191: Science News 2: Dark Matter, Fusion, JWST Latest
June 16, 2023 09:30 - 39 minutes - 73.3 MBScience news from a "critical rational" perspective. No "believing" in explanations here, no time for instrumentalism and a focus on good explanations of the evidence. Introduction (epistemology in science): 00:00 Dark Matter: 04:32 Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND): 08:12 Statistical confidence in physics: 15:23 Instrumentalism in modern physics: 19:00 Fusion Power 'News': 22:09 "Spinoffs" from fusion research: 24:56 Advice for investors in pure science: 28:26 James Webb Space Tel...
Ep 190: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 9 ”Quantum Computers” Part3
June 13, 2023 07:50 - 34 minutes - 64.7 MBHere in this second-to-last episode on the discussion of Chapter 9 from the Fabric of Reality we discuss some of the key distinctions between the classical and quantum - the philosophical and scientific implications and then some of the current experimental approaches to (and reporting on) the actual engineering of these devices.
Ep 189: Epiphenomena
April 26, 2023 09:24 - 18 minutes - 34.1 MBThis serves as "part 2" of my "Are Consciousness and Creativity the same thing?" podcast, the Youtube version of which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrjY4fR-qMU
Ep 188: Nick Bostrom on AI on ”Talk TV” - analysis
April 21, 2023 08:03 - 40 minutes - 77 MBThis podcast was originally produced on Airchat: https://www.getairchat.com/bretthall/bretthall It is all about an interview that can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fv4Uz_i1iQ
Ep 187: Red Pens and Fallibilism
April 14, 2023 04:20 - 23 minutes - 44.4 MBThis podcast episode is based around two sets of chits (two "chats") found on airchat at https://www.getairchat.com/bretthall/bretthall?t=440630 The articles associated with these chits and in the latter case many links are here: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/the-white-swan-and-red-pen and here: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/the-problem-with-fallibilism
Ep 186: Brett, Naval and more on AI & AGI
April 08, 2023 11:24 - 1 hour - 176 MBThe latest on the philosophy, science and technology of AI and AGI. ChatGPT, Deep Learning, Neural Networks and Large Language Models (LLMs). What do we know? Where is it going?
Ep 185: Possibility and Actuality. Facts and Counterfactuals.
March 31, 2023 06:13 - 1 hour - 114 MBSam Harris and Lex Fridman vs The Multiverse and Constructor Theory. Although this is a reaction video, it's just 10 minutes of Sam with the rest of the time spent me doing some analysis, dissection and "what went wrong" reflection as a vehicle for explaining certain parts of physics and philosophy.
Ep 184: ToKCast Digest - An Overview of Optimism
March 29, 2023 07:04 - 1 hour - 151 MBEverything that we’ve covered on ToKCast so far for those in a hurry or those wanting a refresher. It’s the synecdoche episode. 183 episodes down and David Deutsch has spoken with Naval Ravikant and Tim Ferris, and so begins another cohort of people - a new generation if you like - of people coming to optimism in Deutsch's sense and the infinite potential of people and explanatory knowledge. I begin with some reflections on David’s appearance on The Tim Ferris show. If you watch no other ToK...
Ep 183: St George in retirement syndrome on St Patrick’s day.
March 21, 2023 23:44 - 1 hour - 115 MBWhat is "St George in retirement" syndrome? This and much more in another random livestream about all sorts.
Ep 182: Livestream Science News and AMA
March 17, 2023 06:48 - 1 hour - 117 MBThursday 16 March 2023 Livestream - Patreon and Twitter Questions and Science News Articles discussed: JWST news: https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-star-soon-go-supernova-photos Volcanoes on Venus: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/03/15/venus-is-volcanically-active-right-now-say-scientists-using-32-year-old-images/?sh=7e868b8fd11f Plagues in Africa killing amphibian: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/03/15/a-skin-eating-fungal-plague-is-silently-t...
Ep 181: The Big Bang Livestream ToKCast
March 16, 2023 08:27 - 1 hour - 144 MBReading a short chapter from "What's Eating the Universe?" by Paul Davies titled "The Big Bang" - and adding some exposition and commentary. Also: AMA as time permits. As always I do not monetise anything (there are no ads/I get zero income from youtube) - but if you'd like to support me just go to www.bretthall.org and follow the links to donate. Also the "superchat" feature in Youtube is something that would get to me.
Ep 180: Livestream: ”The Open Hand of Reason”
March 15, 2023 04:47 - 2 hours - 242 MBDefending reason and rationality via a discussion of material at https://www.ecosophia.net/blogs-and-essays/the-well-of-galabes/the-clenched-fist-of-reason/ after a question from a listener.
Ep 179: Livestream March 14, 2023
March 13, 2023 23:13 - 1 hour - 176 MBI 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 :)
Ep 178: Its, Bits, Qubits *Part 2*
March 10, 2023 07:51 - 50 minutes - 94.8 MBThis 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 Hyp...
Ep 177: Its, Bits, Qubits. Part 1
March 09, 2023 05:43 - 1 hour - 120 MBThis 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 a...
Ep 176: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 9 ”Quantum Computers” Part 2
March 06, 2023 07:44 - 1 hour - 114 MBHere 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 class...
Ep 175: Science News 1: Population III - The First Generation of Stars in the Universe Observed?
March 03, 2023 23:49 - 58 minutes - 109 MBI 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.
Ep 174: A message for next millennium.
February 13, 2023 22:21 - 28 minutes - 53.2 MBI 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.
Ep 173: Brett Talks Twitter 2
January 29, 2023 12:43 - 49 minutes - 92 MBSome 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.
Ep 172: Talents and Testing
January 26, 2023 05:31 - 12 minutes - 22.9 MBA 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.
Ep 171: Knowledge and Ignorance 6
January 21, 2023 05:38 - 1 hour - 138 MBThis 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 beginni...
Ep 170: Are creativity and consciousness the same thing?
January 10, 2023 03:59 - 17 minutes - 33 MBI 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 ...
Ep 169: Livestream & Happy New Year
December 31, 2022 09:19 - 2 hours - 249 MBThis is a podcast in 2 parts. I begin with a 10 minute introduction with some very broad remarks on the year and response to a question from a Patreon. Then the audio from my most recent livestream which went for around 2 hours and covered a wide variety of topics. Enjoy!
Ep 168: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 9 ”Quantum Computers” Part 1
December 22, 2022 03:33 - 1 hour - 142 MBHere we set the scene for an explanation of the functioning of quantum computers and their significance. What are the problems that quantum computation might solve? What is the fundamental advantage of computation and hence quantum computation for humanity and for an understanding of "the fabric of reality". We connect quantum computation to the technologies that preceded it - indeed back to the use of hammer, chisel and water wheels. Understanding reality and the laws that govern it enable ...
Ep 167: ”Degrowth” - the plan for civilisational decline and disaster.
December 14, 2022 05:31 - 1 hour - 174 MBIn this episode I respond to an article in the Science Journal “Nature”. Here is the link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x Nature is among the highest tier of journals in the world - highly respected and the place every scientist would love to have their work published at some point in their career. Nature has editorials as well as journal articles and they have effectively a letters to the editor section and commentary. Nonetheless, although this article is labelled as ...
Ep 166: Newsletter 18: A weekend of Twitter
December 08, 2022 08:39 - 2 hours - 262 MBThis is an out-of-the-box episode. 2 hours and 20 minutes of me discussing some Tweets. It was an experiment of sorts: with Elon Musk taking over ownership of the platform people have been complaining (among other things) that Twitter is worse than usual. Granted some are saying it's better. But some have quit or are threatening to quit. But why? I tried to find out by Tweeting more than normal and to see what came back. Could I find the trolls? Did I become addicted? Was the experience terr...
Ep 165: Knowledge and Ignorance Part 5
December 02, 2022 09:26 - 51 minutes - 96.7 MBHere we delve more deeply into the ways our senses and our reason might go wrong in the creation of knowledge. There are no authoritative inerrant sources of knowledge and yet we can nonetheless come to knowledge...by creating it. Unusually for ToKCast we take a left turn into visual arts as Popper refers to some art history and remarks by the British landscape artist John Constable. Constable makes the claim his paintings are like scientific experiments. How? We get through parts 11 and 12 ...
Ep 164: Knowledge and Ignorance Part4
November 18, 2022 01:19 - 45 minutes - 85.7 MBJohn Locke, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell are herein credited with advancing the cause of tolerance. Popper makes the case for tolerance following Voltaire who argued from fallibility that we should stand ready to forgive others around us - and therefore be tolerant for humans make errors. We discuss what "interpretation" meant to Bacon (it is quite the opposite to what it means today to most people most of the time) as he speaks of interpreting nature. So does this make hi...
Ep 163: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 8 ”The Significance of Life” Part 2
November 11, 2022 07:23 - 1 hour - 133 MBHere we cover the cosmic significance of life and thought. I begin with some discussion of Stephen Jay Gould's view of aspects of evolution by natural selection - specifically with some analysis of his paper "The Spandrel's of San Marco" which is available here: https://faculty.washington.edu/lynnhank/GouldLewontin.pdf