Podcast Episodes

Episode 115: Is Falsification Falsifiable?

Season 1 Episode 115

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 …

Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago

Episode 114: Campbell's Evolutionary Epistemology

Season 1 Episode 114

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 …

Published on 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Episode 113: Evolution, Collective Minds, and Static Societies

Season 1 Episode 113

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 …

Published on 4 months, 1 week ago

Episode 112: Words vs Concepts: Does 'Randomness' Exist?

Season 1 Episode 112

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 doe…

Published on 4 months, 3 weeks ago

Episode 111: Static vs Dynamic Societies

Season 1 Episode 111

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…

Published on 5 months, 1 week ago

Episode 110: Brave New World vs. 1984 (round table discussion)

Season 1 Episode 110

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 B…

Published on 5 months, 3 weeks ago

Episode 109: Genes, Emergence, and Platonism (round table with Sadia and Ivan)

Season 1 Episode 109

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…

Published on 6 months ago

Episode 108: AI and Obedience (with Dan Gish)

Season 1 Episode 108

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…

Published on 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Episode 107: Was Popper a Fideist?

Season 1 Episode 107

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 …

Published on 7 months ago

Episode 106: Karl Popper and God

Season 1 Episode 106

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…

Published on 7 months, 2 weeks ago