ToKCast

Latest Episodes:

Ep 221: Do Not Destroy The Means of Error Correction Sep 27, 2024

Show notes

Here I present a "positive vision" of the kind I complained was absent in the episode right before this ("Criticism is never enough"). Here I am riffing off a line which contains a deep truth out of the Beginning of Infinity where Socrates is speaking with the god Hermes. In that passage David links a moral injunction "Do not" to an epistemological concept (error). From this stepping stone I explore some of the institutions which emerge from such a commitment, but which themselves can also be regarded as fundamental features of a dynamic society.

Ep 220: Criticism is never enough Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

Another response episode. This time to Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson. Douglas and Jordan are seeking a way to construct a positive vision for society, but they seem at a loss for what in fundamental terms, this might include. Part 1 of 2.

Ep 219: Response to Peter Boghossian Part 3, Appendix Sep 25, 2024

Show notes

Parts 1 and 2 were, admittedly, long. So if you could not persevere through those, this gets the major points out serving both as an appendix to tie up some loose ends and as a summary of parts 1 and 2.

Ep 218: Peter Boghossian Response PART 2 Sep 24, 2024

Show notes

Here I get to the part of the discussion Peter has about my own "airchat" explanation of "anyone can understand anything". I go through arguments based on the Church-Turing Principle, computational universality and how denials of explanatory universality are appeals to the supernatural and other topics.

Ep: 217 Peter Boghossian Response Part 1 Sep 22, 2024

Show notes

The great epistemologist, Peter Boghossian, created a video on Youtube that responded to me, in part. It's to be found in full here: https://youtu.be/5Vf-T8K0_zE?si=T2XkG8h8iNj1ZXGR

This first part is largely a response to Richard Dawkins on his notion of "Middle World" and Michael Shermer's notion we are not evolutionarily capable of understanding anything.

Ep 216: Astrobiology and Cancer Sep 13, 2024

Show notes

Part 2 in a series about the work of researcher Charley Lineweaver. In this episode, a targeted focus on the one thing we did not discuss out of all of Charley's scientific interests in my interview with him in Ep 215: his recent work with Paul Davies on "The Atavistic Model" of Cancer. For the peer reviewed paper on The Atavistic Model by Lineweaver and Davies see: https://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDaviesVincent2014.pdf

For more recent work on the theory see: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014APS..MARF14002L/abstract

and https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PNAS..114.6160B/abstract

Ep 215: Charley Lineweaver Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

A conversation with physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, polyglot and polymath - Charley Lineweaver.

00:00 - My introduction

08:57 - Charley’s fascinating early years

12:14 - From an English/History degree to physics

13:53 - Charley’s historic work on the Cosmic Microwave Background

17:34 - Methods of probing deep space

19:51 - Our accelerating universe

22:15 - Dark Matter Candidates

23:20 - The Fermi Problem and the “Planet of the Apes” Hypothesis

28:37 - Natural experiments in the evolution of intelligence

33:38: What can the early appearance of life on Earth tell us about aliens?

37:31: Non-intelligent alien life.

38:06: Deep homology and misconceptions about convergent biological evolution

44:31 The Shadow Biosphere

48:53 The significance of extremophiles

50:23 Does life arise from non-life easily or not? What do we know?

53:32 What is life?

55:56 A “debate” about people?

1:10:20 - The Potato Radius

1:15:00 - What Charley is working on now

Ep 214: Resources, Wealth, Technology, Error Correction and Knowledge Creation Jul 24, 2024

Show notes

The title is long enough so you look for more here? ;) This one is largely, in truth about energy and what it can do for us. Across the almost 90 minutes I cover how the concepts in the title logically cohere and depend one upon the other and we take a look at "the universal constructor" and compare the possibilities for an optimistic distant future with the reality of our situation now. Fair warning: many Australian examples are employed here. A tiny bit of Trump, a dashing of Deutsch, a yard of Yaron, morsels of Musk, some of Australia's mining magnates for better or worse and plenty of physics, philosophy and even politics. Those on my livestream may have heard a less polished (more profanity stricken) version of some of this material. This is me back to being polite even if there are reasons for frustration...

(See Youtube version for graphs, data and so on: https://youtu.be/ovs18b10d4Q )

Ep 213: ToKCast in Auckland - live Jul 11, 2024

Show notes

This is a recording (with a brief introduction first) of a keynote address I gave to open the 2024 "Naturalistic Decision Making Association" conference. People from business, government and academia came together for 3 days to talk about how to make better decisions under pressure. It was an opportunity for me to share the work of David Deutsch and Karl Popper with everyone from people working in international militaries and government defence organisations, through to leaders in business and university academics and students. Regular listeners will notice this is an adaptation of another recent episode - but I think this live version is better as I say in my introduction.

Ep 212: Livestream 3, June 28 2024 Jun 28, 2024

Show notes

More questions, more lengthy and more verbose than ever. Enjoy, or drift of to sleep with me ;)

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