ToKCast22 Heinä 2022

Ep 128: Steven Pinker’s ”Rationality” Chapter 5 ”Beliefs & Evidence (Bayesian Reasoning” Remarks & Analysis

This chapter continues the themes from Chapter 4 as well as my episode all about probability, risk and Bayesianism found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOK5aiASmKM which is an exploration of another talk given by David Deutsch on the nature of probability given what we know about physics. So this chapter of Pinker's book Rationality - being centrally concerned about the use of what is called "Bayesian Reasoning" is compared in this episode to alternative explanations of what rationality and reason amount to. More than previous episodes so far that I have published on the book "Rationality" this one is very much a critique. There is much to recommend the book "Rationality" for two reasons (1) it does summarise and explain some common misconceptions about how to reason or common mistakes people make when reasoning - and these are worth knowing (2) it works as an excellent summary of the prevailing intellectual/academic perspective on these matters for people who are interested in what the truth of the matter is. Knowing what "academic experts" think about this stuff means knowing what gets taught and what filters eventually into culture itself via the "top down" education system we presently have. All that is worth knowing. But here, in this chapter, we encounter the fundamental clash of epistemological worldviews: the mainstream intellectual *prescription* of what they think should be the way people think as against Karl Popper's *description* of the reality as to how knowledge is generated and progress made through incremental identification of errors and their correction. Have fun listening!

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Jaksot(270)

Ep 270: The Gradient Descent into Doom.

A spontaneous set of comments on the ongoing AI scare of 2026. What's happening in the media right now, on social media, in culture and at the highest levels of government. Why the pessimism and catas...

22 Syys 1h 43min

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 Syys 15min

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 Syys 34min

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 Elo 27min

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 Elo 32min

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 Elo 1h 28min

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 Heinä 44min

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 Heinä 1h 30min