The Theory of Anything

In an episode that may (or may not) be his magnum opus, Bruce introduces his term for Karl Popper’s idea that you are only allowed to solve problems with your (scientific) theory by making it more empirical, not less empirical.

Bruce makes the case that this is one of Karl Popper’s least appreciated ideas, as all of us are tempted by ad hoc saves that move our ideas in the direction of vagueness.

Bruce also considers where conjectures come from and if Popper thought there existed a scientific method.

Bruce sympathetically critiques David Deutsch’s concept of “easy to varyness” as a way to judge our explanations.

Are our best theories about reality truly hard to vary? Bruce makes the case that Popper’s concept of “ad hocness” may be a strangely interwoven concept.

Along the way we get deeper into whether Popperian epistemology is best seen as an attitude or a methodology.

Is human creativity algorithmic? What is the difference between an Inspiration and a perspiration algorithm? Can mechanical processes ever create knowledge? What is the relationship between creativity and explanation? If we had the 'inspiration' algorithm today, would it use perspiration? Here Bruce continues his exploration of these issues and more.

Do animals create knowledge? Deutsch claims they don't because all their knowledge is in their genes. Yet he admits that animals do have memes! But aren't memes, by definition, knowledge outside the genome? How does Deutsch attempt to deal with these problems with his theory of knowledge? And how well do his arguments hold up?

Bruce continues to consider what our best theories tell us about knowledge. Is there something special (or even physically different) about the knowledge created by nature through biological evolution and human minds (i.e. the 'two sources hypothesis')? How should we think about knowledge created in human minds that could take us to the moon and beyond or divert an asteroid? Is it physically different from the kind of adapted information created by animals or the immune system? Or does it merely a broader and deeper search for solutions?

Along the way, he delves into machine learning, animal behavior, the immune system, trade secrets, robots, and many other concepts related to David Deutsch’s ideas about knowledge but are outside the 'two sources' and thus not considered 'knowledge' by David Deutsch.

In the previous episode, Bruce pointed out an apparent contradiction between Deutsch's criteria for knowledge as 'adapted information that causes itself to remain so' and his example of the 'walking robot algorithm' which is a case of adapted information causing itself to remain so but that Deutsch doesn't consider to be knowledge.

This time we consider if we can eliminate the 'walking robot algorithm' from being considered 'knowledge' using Deutsch's and Marletto's Constructor Theory of Knowledge.

Does the Constructor Theory of Knowledge save the 'two sources hypothesis'? (i.e. the hypothesis that there are only two sources of knowledge: biological evolution and human ideas)

What is the “two sources hypothesis,” or the idea that there exist only two sources of knowledge in the known universe: Darwinian natural selection and human minds? Does a “genetic programming algorithm” used to make a robot walk create knowledge?

Thus begins our deep dive into Deutsch's Theory of Knowledge and particularly his "Two Source Hypothesis." Bruce hints that this is leading towards an investigation into the difference between a non-testable (or philosophical) explanation and a bad explanation as our series on knowledge continues.

Here we move three arguments from social media to the podcast. 1. Given Deutsch’s universal explainer hypothesis, does it make sense to say that men commit more crimes due to testosterone? Are humans only 'approximately' Universal Explainers? 2. Can anything in reality be simulated? What exactly does it mean to be simulated? 3. Is “heat death” a bummer? What would Conan the Cimmerian say?

With guest Ivan Phillips, we discuss and debate subjective vs objective morality. Does the concept of objective morality ever make sense given “Hume’s guillotine”? Can humans ever really live as though morality is subjective? Along the way, we take detours into Bayesian epistemology vs critical rationalism.

This week we have criminologist Brian Boutwell on again for part 2 of our discussion on critical rationalism and social science. Does all science share the same structure? How do you apply Popper's epistemology to social sciences? Are there laws of human nature? If humans are universal explainers, what does it mean to study our behavior?

See episode 68 for a summary of Caldwell's "Clarifying Popper" that we discuss.

Though our guest Mark Biros is clearly immersed in critical rationalism and the worldview of Popper and Deutsch, he also has some fairly strong criticisms of some of the ideas popular in what could be called the CritRat community. Here we try to work out our differing ideas on environmentalism, epistemology, quantum mechanics, social media, optimism, monarchies, cults, human extinction, and more.

Historian Matt Bowman discusses his new book, The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America. Betty and Barney Hill were one of the first and most famous persons who claimed to be abducted by aliens. Aside from being a story about UFOs, their life story hinges on a complicated relationship with religion, race, politics, science, and psychology in America in the 50s and 60s.

What did David Deutsch get right and wrong in chapter 11, “Time: The First Quantum Concept,” from his first book, Fabric of Reality? Is the flow of time real or an illusion? What does it mean to have free will in a deterministic world? And what are the implications of Bruce’s “Turing world within a Turing world” thought experiment?

What did Karl Popper really mean by refutation? How are empirical theories special? How do objective criticisms differ from subjective criticisms? What is the difference between a theory and an explanation? We consider these questions with a tangent into the theory that animals don’t have feelings.

What did Popper say about corroboration in science? Can a theory NEVER be supported with evidence in any sense at all? Is the Popperian “war on words” justified? Are the positivists, Bayesianists, verificationists, and inductivists really wrong about EVERYTHING?

We interview Bruce’s nephew, Brendon Nielson, who is a well-known electronic music artist under the name Dvddy. We discuss how he uses AI as a tool to create music and how this technology is changing how we work and learn. Could AI liberate us from menial labor and education? Along the way, Cameo makes an AI-generated comic book about David Deutsch.

A deep dive into David Deutsch’s “principle of optimism” featuring Sam Kuypers, Vaden Masrani, Hervé Eulacia, Micah Redding, Bill Rugolsky, and Daniel Buchfink. (Plus, of course, Peter and Bruce). Are all evils due to a lack of knowledge? Are all interesting problems soluble? ALL the problems, really?!?! And what exactly is meant by interesting? Also, should “good guys” ignore the precautionary principle, and do they always win? What is the difference between cynicism, pessimism, and skepticism? And why is pessimism so attractive to so many humans?

Back in 2012, David Deutsch wrote an article called "Creative Blocks: How Close are we to Creating Artificial Intelligence?" This article inspired Bruce to go back to school and study Artificial Intelligence and get a Master's degree in the field.

A decade later, a lot has changed in the field of AI, and the field has never seemed so exciting. But are we really any closer to the goal of true universal intelligence?

We take a look back at the article and assess it from the vantage point of what we know now, a decade later. How much did Deutsch get right and how much is on less solid ground?

Does every one of us live forever in the multiverse? Is death a solvable problem? What is “quantum suicide”? Is quantum torment a concern? Does every fantastical thing we can imagine occur somewhere in the multiverse? What are “Harry Potter universes? Are we Boltzmann brains? Bruce, Cameo, and Peter consider these questions in this week’s episode.

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Special guest, Lulie Tanett, asked me if she could come on my podcast and interview me about religion. Lulie and Peter ask me numerous religion-related questions such as:

• How is the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (i.e. Mormon church) similar and different from Deutsch's Four Strands worldview?
• What might the Deutsch Four Strands worldview learn from religion?
• In a modern world, what (if anything) can religion still teach us?
• Is religion an ally or a foe of a rational worldview?
• For what matter, what is the most widely accepted rational worldview?
• What about supernatural truth claims of religion? Can they be reconciled with a rational worldview?
• How was the Omega Point theory (from the final chapter of Fabric of Reality) informed by religion?
• What is the Omega Point theory? Why did Deutsch abandon it (in Beginning of Infinity)? What did he replace it with?
• Is Frank Tipler (creator of the Omega Point theory) a nutter or a mad genius?

In our previous episode, we asked if Karl Popper was Dogmatic. We also introduced the idea that Karl Popper wasn't convinced that dogmatism was always bad. In this episode, we further explore Karl Popper's idea that dogmatism is sometimes a good thing. We also ask difficult questions like 'How can you tell when you are being dogmatic?' and 'Is it possible to overcome your own dogmatism?'

Blake Lemoine, the ex-Google engineer, claims LaMDA -- Google's language model -- is sentient. Is he right?

Alan Turing is perhaps most famous for his "Turing Test" which is a test of intelligence. David Deutsch has some interesting things to say about the Turing Test in "The Beginning of Infinity." Unfortunately, Deutsch's critique of the Turing Test is often misunderstood and it has led to some of his fans disparaging the Turing Test in ways that don't make sense. 

The key question is why can humans so easily -- with a high degree of accuracy -- tell if they are talking to an intelligent being or not by merely having a conversation with the person? What is special about conversation that allows it to be used as a highly accurate test of general intelligence? 

We also present a Turing Test 2.0 that improves upon the original Turing Test by removing the element of deception and formalizes the test better. 

Along the way we answer the following questions:

1. Is Blake Lemoine right that LaMDA is sentient? How can we know?
2. Under what circumstances can a chatbot pass the original Turing Test 1.0?
3. Will we ever have a chatbot that can pass the Turing Test 2.0?
4. What can we learn from the Turing Test about intelligence?

Is Elon Musk right that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research is like 'summoning the demon' and should be regulated?

In episodes 48 and 49, we discussed how our genes 'align' our interests with their own utilizing carrots and sticks (pleasure/pain) or attention and perception. If our genes can create a General Intelligence (i.e. Universal Explainer) alignment and safety 'program' for us, what's to stop us from doing that to future Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs) that we create? 

But even if we can, should we?

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence. Increasingly scientists think there should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon." --Elon Musk

Tracy leads a discussion about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). We discuss various other mental disorders as well. We sadly admit that some disorders are currently so serious that there is little hope of helping those that have them. (And they may not even be aware that they have a disorder!) But will this always be true? If all problems are soluble and human beings are universal explainers, then the answer should be a resounding "no!" But Tracy asks 'if we're all universal explainers, then why can't we help people today?' as well as 'does this have any relevance to AGI safety programs?'

What responsibility do the creators of a TV series or movie have to be faithful to the original source material? What risks are involved with either adapting the material too closely or not close enough? The much-anticipated Wheel of Time tv show is finally here and we discuss our feelings about the show compared to the books. Warning: this podcast contains extensive spoilers for both the books and the series.

In this episode, we discuss the value of failure and how businesses have yet to fully embrace the Popperian notion that we learn from our failures, so we should want to fail more, not less.