Proving something about AGI is inherently impossible 0:00 Creativity is not just mixing things together 3:05 The superiority of explanatory knowledge 7:48 Knowledge laden information is more resilient than any physical object 12:36 The problems of cloning people 15:05 Objections to Taking Children Seriously 19:23 “Do what you like” is bad advice 38:17 Creativity versus nature 41:57 Deutsch’s “fanciful” conjectures 47:52 We must give up on the idea of an ultimate explanation 53:06 — Transcript <a href= "http://nav.al/deutsch-files-ii">http://nav.al/deutsch-files-iii</a>

Proving something about AGI is inherently impossible 0:00 Creativity is not just mixing things together 3:05 The superiority of explanatory knowledge 7:48 Knowledge laden information is more resilient than any physical object 12:36 The problems of...

The Deutsch Files III

The universality of computation and explanation 0:00 The growth of knowledge begins with problems 4:56 Problems are clashes between ideas 9:57 Evolution is not the survival of the fittest 14:50 Bad philosophy in quantum theory 26:46 Free will is intimately connected with knowledge-creation 33:41 Wealth is not a number, it is a set of transformations 49:03 The principle of optimism 53:27 Constructor Theory 57:21 How to make a better world 1:10:05 — Transcript <a href= "http://nav.al/deutsch-files-ii">http://nav.al/deutsch-files-ii</a>

The universality of computation and explanation 0:00 The growth of knowledge begins with problems 4:56 Problems are clashes between ideas 9:57 Evolution is not the survival of the fittest 14:50 Bad philosophy in quantum theory 26:46 Free will is...

The Deutsch Files II

Good Science Fiction is Hard to Vary 2:08 ChatGPT is Not a Step Towards AGI 5:36 Creativity is Fundamentally Impossible to Define 13:35 The Binary of Personhood and Non-Personhood 23:41 David Deutsch’s Life Philosophy 32:06 The Clash of Civilizations 44:03 — Transcript <a href= "http://nav.al/deutsch-files-i">http://nav.al/deutsch-files-i</a> Discuss on Airchat <a href="https://getairchat.com/arjun/deutschfilesdiscussion">http://getairchat.com/arjun/deutschfilesdiscussion</a>

Good Science Fiction is Hard to Vary 2:08 ChatGPT is Not a Step Towards AGI 5:36 Creativity is Fundamentally Impossible to Define 13:35 The Binary of Personhood and Non-Personhood 23:41 David Deutsch’s Life Philosophy 32:06 The Clash of...

The Deutsch Files I

Popper’s Impact 0:00 Creative Guesses 2:18 Experiments, Demonstrations, and Measurements 4:25 Taking Theories Seriously 10:25 New Paradigms 15:58 Foundations of Science 23:30 The Enlightenment 25:39 Misinformation 29:45 — Transcript http://nav.al/david-deutsch-2

Brett Hall and I interview David Deutsch, physicist and author of The Beginning of Infinity. Also see Part 1

David Deutsch: Knowledge Creation and The Human Race, Part 2

Introduction 0:00 The Human Race 2:11 Knowledge Creation 12:34 AGI 15:50 Taking Children Seriously 23:30 Good Explanations 27:49 Quantum Computers 36:35 — Transcript http://nav.al/david-deutsch

I interview David Deutsch, physicist and author of The Beginning of Infinity. Also see Part 2.

David Deutsch: Knowledge Creation and The Human Race, Part 1

The elder statesman of smart contract blockchains 0:00 The Ethereum community 1:22 The DAO hack 2:34 Vitalik’s finest and worst moments in protocol politics 5:18 Becoming a Twitter memelord 7:45 Vitalik’s influence on Eth today 8:59 It’s getting harder to do big things in Eth 10:38 Goals outside Ethereum 12:17 Crypto needs the good-natured 15:00 Russia 18:06 Vitalik’s lifestyle 19:51 Closing thoughts 22:06 — Transcript http://nav.al/vitalik-2

Haseeb and I interview Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum and blockchains

Vitalik: Ethereum, Part 2

Introduction 0:00 Haseeb’s background 0:22 Vitalik’s background 2:43 A blockchain you can build any app on top of 7:02 Eth trades efficiency for transparency 10:18 Like plain text, Eth is simple and efficient 12:41 Only high-value transactions can afford the blockchain 13:08 Doing away with ‘trusted’ third parties 14:09 Trading performance for security 14:43 ‘Impregnable castles made of math’ 16:23 Ethereum’s limitations are latency and privacy 16:56 There are ways to get back your privacy 19:32 Can Eth provide a high level of decentralization and a high level of scaling at the same time? 20:39 Sharding leads to more centralization 21:49 Verifiability at the expense of scaling 24:00 How much decentralization is the right amount? 25:11 What happens when subsidies to join nodes disappear? 27:07 Stateless clients make it possible to verify the chain with very little on your hard drive 28:18 Staking culture is difficult to cultivate 28:52 New blockchain players tend to go for minimum viable decentralization 29:54 People don’t value privacy until somebody goes to jail over it 30:32 Eth is ‘simple at the base’ 31:12 Social recovery wallets make it easier to be your own bank 31:44 Block space is getting expensive 32:41 There’s not a lot of innovation on Bitcoin, by design 33:35 Blockchain’s ‘free-rider effect’ 34:57 Innovation is slowest at Layer 1 35:34 Layer 2 moves faster because it’s permissionless 36:59 What if we froze Layer 1 today? 37:25 Data for computation trade-off 38:57 Benchmarking blockchains apples-to-apples 40:02 Enshrining decentralization 41:43 Tensions between scaling and preserving value 42:27 There will be multiple stores of value 43:54 — Transcript http://nav.al/vitalik

Haseeb and I interview Vitalik Buterin about Ethereum and blockchains

Vitalik: Ethereum, Part 1

Transcript http://nav.al/infinity-1

My interview with Brett Hall about The Beginning of Infinity

The Beginning of Infinity, Part 2

There was a time when coal wasn’t a resource

To a Caveman Very Few Things Are Resources

Transcript http://nav.al/infinite-resources

We’re going to keep creating new knowledge and new resources

Knowledge Makes the Existence of Resources Infinite

What happens is you get a schism instead

Groups Never Admit Failure

Science’s biggest breakthroughs came from unpopular people

Making Something Social Destroys the Truth of It

The alternative is who has more guns

Free Markets Provide the Best Feedback

Transcript http://nav.al/compromise

Compromise tests ideas no one ever thought were correct in the first place

The Poverty of Compromise

Transcript: http://nav.al/decentralization

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