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.
Ep 168: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 9 ”Quantum Computers” Part 1
Ep 167: ”Degrowth” - the plan for civilisational decline and disaster.
Ep 166: Newsletter 18: A weekend of Twitter
Ep 165: Knowledge and Ignorance Part 5
Ep 164: Knowledge and Ignorance Part4
Ep 163: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 8 ”The Significance of Life” Part 2
Ep 162: Steven Pinker’s ”Rationality” Chapter 7 ”Hits and False Alarms” Part 1
Ep 161: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 8 ”The Significance of Life”.
Ep 160: Knowledge and Ignorance Part 3
Ep 159: Knowledge and Ignorance Part 2
Ep 158: Knowledge and Ignorance Part 1
Ep 157: (Preview) Popper vs Other Philosophers
Ep 156: Induction under Objectivist Epistemology - Part 2
Ep 155: The Logical Leap - ”Induction in Physics”
Ep 154: Breakthrough (in Quantum Computation) Prize!
Ep 153: ”Induction” under Objectivist Epistemology - Part 1
Ep 152: ”Observing the facts of reality”.
Ep 151: ”Objectivist” ”Epistemology” - The errors of objectivism
Ep 150: ”A Journey There & Back Again” -Chiara Marletto’s ”The Science of Can & Can’t” Ch 6 Readings & Discussion.
Ep 149: Meaning
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