Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Episode 105: Michael Levin's Unseen World of Cell Cognition
Season 1 Episode 105
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 …
Published on 8 months, 1 week ago
Episode 104: 3rd Way Evolution vs the Critics
Season 1 Episode 104
How well do the collection of assertions called “3rd way evolution” stand up to criticism? Here, in our second of at least 3 episodes on this topic, Bruce considers the criticisms of Denis Noble and …
Published on 8 months, 4 weeks ago
Episode 103: Neo-Darwinism vs Post-Darwinism
Season 1 Episode 103
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…
Published on 9 months, 3 weeks ago
Episode 102: Is IQ a Bit Scientifically Valid?
Season 1 Episode 102
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…
Published on 10 months, 1 week ago
Episode 101: Wolfram, Rucker, and the Computational Nature of Reality
Season 1 Episode 101
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 natu…
Published on 11 months ago
Episode 100: Interview with David Deutsch
Season 1 Episode 100
Our Christmas gift to you this year is episode 100: an interview with The Man (TM) himself!
Bruce stumbles over himself fan-boying as he asks all his burning (but geeky) questions about cosmology, th…
Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago
Episode 99: Critical Rationalism and Solipsism
Season 1 Episode 99
AKA "David Deutsch DESTORYS the Simulation Hypothesis"
Bruce take a deep dive into solipsism in the form of the brain in a vat thought experiment, Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, and related i…
Published on 1 year ago
Episode 98: Objectively Beautiful Flowers?
Season 1 Episode 97
This week we discuss the chapter “Why are Flowers Beautiful?” from the book Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. Through our discussion we consider: Does relativism make any sense? Is preferring …
Published on 1 year ago
Episode 97: Karl Popper On Conservatism in Music (w/Chris Johansen)
Season 1 Episode 97
We take a deep dive into Karl Popper’s philosophical ideas about music that he outlines in four chapters in this intellectual autobiography Unended Quest:
“Music,” Speculations about the Rise of…Published on 1 year, 1 month ago
Episode 96: Kenneth Stanley on the Pursuit of What’s Interesting
Season 1 Episode 96
Here we interview AI researcher Kenneth Stanley, who makes the case that in complex systems, pursing specific objectives can actually be counterproductive. Instead, whether in machine learning, busin…
Published on 1 year, 1 month ago