This week Bruce puts Popper on trial. Specifically, through the lens of Michael Stevens’s book, The Knowledge Machine, which argues that science works because it follows the “iron law of explanation” where scientists must (at least in public) put aside philosophy, politics, and theology and only follow empirical evidence. Bruce asks, how compatible is this view with the epistemology of Karl Popper?And does Strevens' critique of Popper ring true? Or is it a strawman?
This week we interview Logan Chipkin. Logan is a writer and author of several books. Recently he co-authored and published The Sovereign Child about raising children without coercion, and The Lords of the Cosmos, which tells the story of progress through the lens of good philosophy.
Logan is also the president of Conjecture Institute, which is a brand new organization dedicated to promoting the worldview of Karl Popper and David Deutsch. (Follow on X)Here we discuss the New Right vs libertarianism.
We consider: What is the core difference between liberalism, conservatism, and libertarianism? Why are so many libertarians into conspiracy theories? How are we to think about Popperian arguments against utopianism applied to libertarians? Does it make sense for an anarcho-capitalist to be hawkish on military intervention in places like Ukraine? And why have mainstream conservatives strayed so far from making intellectual arguments for their positions as they may have in the days or Milton Friedman?
What criticisms can be correctly leveled against the Right today, especially economically but also in terms of their methods. And what does the New Right 'get right' according to Logan?
Right wing resources suggested by Logan:
This week we talk to Micah Redding, the host of the Christian Transhumanist podcast. We discuss: What is the significance of a singularity? What is free will from a many worlds perspective? Does Omega Point cosmology solve the problem of evil? And most importantly, will my sweet dog Jojo join me in the afterlife?
This week we had the absolute honor of interviewing Jonathan Rauch. Rauch is an extremely influential public intellectual (journalist and author) who is also a Popperian. His 1993 book, Kindly Inquisitors, makes the epistemic case for free speech. It is a stone cold classic that will be with us for a long time. In his 2021 sequel, The Constitution of Knowledge, he considers how society collectively produces knowledge and the dangers of misinformation. He has also written a book that provided the “intellectual framework” for the case for same sex marriage. (link)And though he says he's a Jewish atheist, his latest book, Cross Purposes, is a critical, yet reverential, book on Christianity making the case that our society needs more and not less Christianity.
This week Bruce take a deep critical rationalist dive into Michael Strevens’s book, The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, which is an attempt to describe how science is a self-correcting system designed to create knowledge based on explanation.
The book is somewhat critical of Popperian falsification, though the reading of Popper presented may be a superficial reading.
Bruce describes how Strevens’s “iron rule of science” or the idea that we should settle science based on empirical tests overlaps with what Bruce calls “Popper’s ratchet,” or the idea that we should strive to move our theories to be more testable and avoid ad hoc saves designed to make our theories less testable.
Is there anything we can learn from a (semi) Bayesian / Inductivist like Strevens that we Popperians don't already know?
Perhaps more interestingly, Strevens' theory is meant to explain why we got stuck in static societies for so long. How does his theory compared to Deutsch's?
This week we consider: Is falsification falsifiable? Was Popper a “naive falsificationist”?
Why do so many people think he was? (Including at least one of his own students!)
Is falsification itself a philosophical theory that makes it immune from falsification? Does the Duhem-Quine problem, or the assertion that theory exist in an interwoven web of other theories, create a problem for falsification?
What exactly is falsification anyhow? It's about showing that a theory is false, right? Right? Popper?
Bruce considers these questions and more as our infinite journey into epistemology continues.
Starting in the 1950s, Popperian Donald Campbell developed a theory of "evolutionary epistemology" (coining that term in the process) that expanded Karl Popper’s ideas about scientific knowledge and learning into the natural world.
Campbell intended a universal theory of how 'all increases in fit of system to environment' work based on a meta-algorithm (or class of algorithms sharing certain features) he called blind-variation-and-selective-retention. Could it be that nature creates knowledge through processes analogous to biological natural selection? How far reaching is Popper’s theory? Could this be how cultures create knowledge? Perhaps this even has cosmological implications. Is this just how the universe works?
And what did Karl Popper think of Campbell's evolutionary epistemology?
This episode attempts to summarize two of Campbell's less available papers on the subject as a resource for critical rationalists.
In future podcasts we'll challenge Campbell's views and also discuss the myriad of possible interpretations of his theory as well as the CritRat communities response to his theory.
This week Bruce takes a deep dive into anthropologist Joseph Henrich’s book: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter.
Bruce outlines Henrich's hypothesis that human evolution occurs at the level of culture as much as genes and that this collective mind may be far superior to any individual. Bruce considers ways this theory may or may not be consistent with David Deutsch’s ideas on static and dynamic societies. What we can learn about the details of life in a static society from Henrich's evidence? How might this evidence change our perceptions of Deutsch's theory?
Bruce first explains the difference between arguing over concepts vs arguing over words.
Then Bruce examines assertions about probability and randomness in the critical rationalist community. Why does David Deutsch insist that there is no such thing as 'randomness'? What does the many worlds interpretation really say about this? Is all 'randomness' really just pseudo-randomness? Is this really a conflict between concepts or just an argument over words?
What precisely is a static vs dynamic society? It is possible to take this down to the level of machine learning? Could this distinction turn into a testable theory? What are the alternatives to what Deutsch proposes? Is Deutsch's theory of static societies testable? What exactly is a culture or criticism and how is this intertwined with the Enlightenment? Which came first: the Enlightenment or the Scientific Revolution?
We once again get together some of the smartest people we know for a discussion that gets into foundational issues, this time in the form of the classic battle between the dystopian novels 1984 and Brave New World. But it was really much less of a debate than a discussion in line with Popper’s defining principle of critical rationalism: “I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.”Guests: Vaden Masrani (Increments podcast, X: @Vaden Masrani) Sam Kuypers (X: @Sam_kuyp) David Wainwright
In this round table discussion with Ivan Phillips and Sadia Naeem, we begin by discussing differing viewpoints on “third way evolution,” or a gene-centric viewpoint vs a more holistic view of natural selection. The discussion evolves into a deep dive into emergence and reductionism and many interwoven ideas.Ivan Phillips is author of Textbook Rationality about rationality education, and a new book titled Counterargument from Design that counters arguments for design in evolution. Sadia Naeem, like Ivan, has a PhD has in physics and is interested in the most far-reaching ideas across many domains regarding the fabric of our reality. Both have been on the podcast numerous times before. Support us on Patreon
Ivan's "Probability and Purpose: A Refutation of Divine Intent"
This week we are joined by fellow traveler Dan Gish to discuss LLMs and AGI. Does it really, truly make sense to think that OpenAI or DeepMind are not at least an important stepping stone towards the creation of human-level creativity? What does it mean when CritRats assert that these AI algorithms are the opposite of human intelligence because they are obedient whereas we are disobedient?
Here we discuss fidesim and critical rationalism. Fideism has many definitions, but at least how we are thinking of it, it is the idea that something like faith has validity in the process of moving closer to truth through reason.
Our starting point is a paper written by prominent Popperian Joseph Agassi about how William Bartley, another critical rationalist philosopher closely associated with Popper, had a falling out with Popper after he accused Popper of being a fideist, which Popper apparently did not consider a compliment. But was Bartley perhaps correct?
Note: we decided to cover this paper before we even realized it was about fideism which -- by pure dumb luck -- happened to be part of the topic of our last episode (#106: Karl Popper and God) where Bruce declared himself a Fideist. As such, episode #106 is not required listening, but you might find Popper's views on God and his views on epistemological fideism an interestingly interplay.
This week we discuss a short interview with Karl Popper from 1969 where he discusses God and religion. Specifically, he makes a case for agnosticism, asserts that all men are religious, and discusses the problem of evil. We use this as a starting point to consider if we live in an inherently meaningful universe or one ruled by something like entropy. We discuss arguments for the former related to fine tuning, causation, and beauty.
Bonus: Bruce proclaims himself one of those much hated Fideist! (A group disliked by both rationalists and religionists alike.)
This week Bruce speaks about the work or Michael Levin, who is a biologist know for his work on cell cognition and collective intelligence or the idea that electrical signals between cells influence the formation of biological systems. His work has potentially massive implications in cancer research and other fields.
Though rarely identified with 3rd way evolution, his work has more than a passing similarity to it. Like 3rd way evolutionists, he seeks to expand evolutionary theory beyond the alleged reductionism of a gene-centric or neo-Darwinian approach. Presumably, these bioelectric effects could be considered a kind of epigenetic or evolutionary process existing outside the genome.
However, unlike the 3rd Way evolutionists, he's ready to back up his views with clever and shocking experiments that confront popular interpretations of gene-centric evolution head on.
Can Levin's work possibly help us determine who is more right in the argument between 3rd Way evolutionists like Denis Noble or James Shapiro vs mainstream evolutionary biologists like Zach Hancock?
How well do the collection of assertions called “3rd wayevolution” stand up to criticism? Here, in our second of at least 3 episodes on this topic, Bruce considers the criticisms of Denis Noble and James Shapiro by YouTuber and evolutionary biologist Zach Hancock in his epic video on the subject. Perhaps the role of epigenetics is overstated, Lamarckism is not back, and neo-Darwinism is not dead after all.
This week we discuss neo-Darwinism vs post-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism meaning a gene centric view of evolution, which is also called the great synthesis since it unifies natural selection with genetics and paleontology and perhaps even human psychology.
Post-Darwinism is a view that emphasizes factors outside random mutation, like epigenetics or the assertion that organisms and cells can alter their own genome in a beneficial way.
Here Bruce specifically concentrates on the work of biologist James Shapiro’s critical look at Richard Dawkins’ neo-Darwinism.We consider, does it really make sense to see our bodies and minds as tools governed by our masters DNA? Does post-Darwinism, also called “third way evolution,” offer a meaningful alternative to both neo-Darwinism and the theism of intelligent design? Does this way of looking at biology say something about the very nature of reality and the laws of physics?
This is part 1 of a loose series. Part 2 will cover criticisms of Noble and Shapiro. Part 3 will cover the work of Michael Levin. However, you don't really need to listen to them in order and we provide context each time.
This time we discuss Nassim Nicholas Taleb's article "IQ is Largely a Pseudoscientific Swindle" -- a title whose compliment is that he's claiming IQ is a bit scientifically valid. But which bits does he claim are valid?
We use this article as a springboard to consider: Do the numbers produced by an IQ test say something meaningful or useful about human minds? Would these tests be better off in the dustbin of history? Are they ever useful? And is there overlap between Taleb's take on IQ and the negative view of these tests held by many critical rationalists? What does Taleb agree (or disagree) with CritRats over when it comes to IQ?
Taleb's original article found here.
Bruce takes a deep dive into Stephen Wolfram’s ideas regarding computational universality, which may go further than the Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis in that Wolfram’s theories imply that all of nature could be simulated even by relatively simple systems, so even nature itself may be computational rather than something that can just be simulated on a turning machine or quantum computer. Stephen Wolfram is a renowned physicist, computer scientists, and entrepreneur.
Bruce also talks about the related ideas on philosophy of computation promoted by Rudy Rucker, who is a mathematician, computer scientist, and science fiction author associated with cyberpunk genre. Both thinkers believe, rightly or wrongly, that the complexity of life and the universe can be explained by relatively simple computational rules.