Ep 64 Ch 18 "The Beginning" Part 3
ToKCast11 Mai 2021

Ep 64 Ch 18 "The Beginning" Part 3

The Penultimate “The Beginning of Infinity” episode. Herein we contrast pessimism with optimism - what the conditions are for providing succour to either philosophy and who some of the leaders are. While science writers such as John Horgan, author of “The End of Science” may provide something of an introduction to the ways in which people can conclude “the end is night”, philosophers like Nick Bostrom and Verner Vinge take things further providing academic papers on “the singularity” and “the doomsday argument” and “the simulation argument” - all of which regard people as being but a prelude to something else: a time without or beyond people. The arguments are summarised and countered. I provide my own spin on things, and invoke the work of computer scientist Jaron Lanier, who (while at times writing of a bleak *now*) exhaults people in the same way as David Deutsch via a different method and looks forward to a future where people are ascendant. What does our best science tell us about what is to come? If we are to take seriously our best theories - is there hope? And is there an opportunity to even find fun and funniness in what we are promised for the future? I have some ideas.

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Episoder(270)

Ep 270: The Gradient Descent into Doom.

Ep 270: The Gradient Descent into Doom.

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Ep 269: The Quantum Observer Effect?

Ep 269: The Quantum Observer Effect?

Youtuber Warren Smith of https://www.youtube.com/@SecretScholars made some remarks about the double slit experiment. I assess his claims.

22 Sep 15min

Ep 268: AGI has arrived podcast

Ep 268: AGI has arrived podcast

Today CEO of the world's most valuable company, Nvidia, Jensen Huang, announced "AGI has arrived". https://x.com/JensenHuang/status/2096700264569090384?s=20 Some reflections on all that.

7 Sep 34min

Ep 267: The Orthogonality Thesis is Moral Relativism. (Response to Sam Harris on AI).

Ep 267: The Orthogonality Thesis is Moral Relativism. (Response to Sam Harris on AI).

This is in response to episode 489 of Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast - in a section only available via subscription. I have clipped the approximately 60 seconds worth of material I am narrowly res...

26 Aug 27min

Ep 266: Facts, Fantasy and Critical Thinking

Ep 266: Facts, Fantasy and Critical Thinking

A analysis in Popperian style of Candace Owens' "mode" of debate and discussion, approach to evidence and thinking and a comparison to the more mainstream evaluations of this debate.

20 Aug 32min

Ep 265: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 14 "The Ends of the Universe" Part 2 The Omega Point

Ep 265: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 14 "The Ends of the Universe" Part 2 The Omega Point

All about the distant future. What does cosmology tell us about the fate of the universe, life and intelligence in some ultimate sense? Frank Tipler's The Omega Point Theory is the primary focus, but ...

15 Aug 1h 28min

Ep 264: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 14 "The Ends of the Universe" Part 1

Ep 264: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 14 "The Ends of the Universe" Part 1

What do our best explanations tell us about the ultimate ends of the universe? What is the difference between forming a world view about any one of the four strands (evolution, epistemology, quantum p...

30 Jul 44min

Ep 263: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 13 "The Four Strands" Part 4 - and final.

Ep 263: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 13 "The Four Strands" Part 4 - and final.

How do the Four Strands of the Fabric of Reality - Quantum Physics, Computation, Epistemology and Evolution by Natural Selection hold together? What does taking them each seriously and all of them tog...

4 Jul 1h 30min

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