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“Wealth is not a number. I don’t think it can be characterized very well by a number. It is the set of all transformations that you are capable of bringing about. That is your wealth. And if optimism is true, then there’s no limit to wealth.“
— David Deutsch
David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf) is a visiting professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, a part of the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, and an honorary fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He works on fundamental issues in physics, particularly the quantum theory of computation and information and especially constructor theory, which he is proposing as a new way of formulating laws of nature. He is the author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity, and he is an advocate of the philosophy of Karl Popper.
Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the co-founder of Airchat and AngelList. He has invested in more than 100 companies, including many mega-successes, such as Twitter, Uber, Notion, Opendoor, Postmates, and Wish. You can see his latest musings on Airchat and subscribe to Naval, his podcast on wealth and happiness, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find his blog at nav.al.
For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020.
Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon.
Please enjoy!
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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.
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Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of reality? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
Connect with David Deutsch:
Connect with Naval Ravikant:
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch | Amazon
The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1 (with Brett Hall) | Naval Podcast
The Beginning of Infinity, Part 2 (with Brett Hall) | Naval Podcast
David Deutsch: Knowledge Creation and the Human Race | Naval Podcast
David Deutsch: Chemical Scum That Dream of Distant Quasars | TED Talk
The Best Theory of Knowledge and Progress | Critical Rationalism Hub
Science | Airchat (Where Brett and Naval Discuss David’s work)
Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee | Amazon
Aaron Stupple’s Chapter-by-Chapter Commentary on Philosophy and the Real World | Airchat
Interviews with Chiara Marletto, David Deutsch, and Others About Constructor Theory | Logan Chipkin
A New View of Children | Taking Children Seriously
The Four Strands of the Fabric of Reality | David Deutsch
The Theory Of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe by Stephen W. Hawking | Amazon
Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A.M. Turing | Mind
Church–Turing–Deutsch Principle | Wikipedia
Genetic Evolution Was a Prelude to Memetic Evolution (with Brett Hall) [Clip] | Naval Podcast
Epistemology | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Scientific Method | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
If You Say ‘Science Is Right,’ You’re Wrong | Scientific American
Famous Scientific Theories That Were Proven Wrong | Grunge
Summary of Popper’s Lectures at the LSE | Critical Rationalism Blog
Karl Popper’s Falsification | BBC Radio 4
“Summary: It’s Not Yet Known. But It Will Be.” | David Deutsch, Twitter
“Lamarckism! 33 Years After It Had Become Untenable.” | David Deutsch, Twitter
The Many-Worlds Theory, Explained | The MIT Press Reader
Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
What is a Qubit? | Quantum Inspire
‘Father of Quantum Computing’ Wins $3M Physics Prize | The Guardian
Shor’s Algorithm | IBM Quantum
How to Use Occam’s Razor without Getting Cut | Farnam Street
David Deutsch: A New Way to Explain Explanation | TED Talk
“The Elephant’s Child” from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling | Lit2Go ETC
“Science Must Begin with Myths…” -Karl R. Popper | Goodreads
Common Sense | The Chicago School of Media Theory
Iseult Gillespie: The Myth of Hades and Persephone | TED-Ed
What is Earth’s Axial Tilt? | Universe Today
The Infinite Optimism of Physicist David Deutsch | Scientific American Blog Network
Deus Ex Machina Explained | Fandor
How to Travel Faster Than Light | Fermilab
Paradox of Tolerance: To Tolerate or Not to Tolerate? | Academy 4SC
Quarantine by Greg Egan | Amazon
Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography by Karl Popper | Amazon
David Deutsch: After Billions of Years of Monotony, the Universe Is Waking Up | TED Talk
Quantum Computing Expert Explains How Humans Could Control the Whole Galaxy | Inverse
How Do Crystals Form and Grow? | Geology Page
The Origin of Atmospheric Oxygen on Earth: The Innovation of Oxygenic Photosynthesis | PNAS
The History of England by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay | Amazon
Wealth is Knowledge | David Deutsch
The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl R. Popper | Amazon
The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl R. Popper | Amazon
2004: What’s Your Law? | Edge.org
A New Approach to Formulating Fundamental Laws in Physics | Constructor Theory
Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin Meet Calvin Meet Calvin | GoComics
RESOURCES PROVIDED BY NAVAL RAVIKANT
Critical Rationalism Hub: A hub of relevant resources to learn all about our Critical Rationalism.
ToKCast by Brett Hall: A podcast promoting optimism, unbounded progress and creative critical thinking using the best known explanations from fundamental physics and philosophy.
Brett and Naval’s Podcasts on The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1, Part 2, and interview with David Deutsch.
Airchat Science Channel where Brett and Naval discuss David’s work.
Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee
Aaron Stupple’s room on Airchat goes through the book chapter-by-chapter with unique commentary.
The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals by Chiara Marletto
Logan Chipkin’s interviews with Chiara Marletto and other physicists working on constructor theory
Taking Children Seriously website: Everything TCS related from what to do during a unique situation to the deep underlying explanation binding such a parenting style.
Talk by David Deutsch: Chemical Scum That Dream of Distant Quasars
SHOW NOTES
[08:03] The impact The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity have had on Naval.
[10:07] The four strands.
[13:04] Dispelling common misconceptions about science.
[19:26] How does knowledge grow?
[24:26] The benefits of understanding the four strands.
[32:47] How quantum computing arose from trying to test a multiverse theory.
[37:40] What a good explanation looks like.
[42:43] How do conjecture and criticism give us a basis for optimism?
[48:38] Translating knowledge into action.
[51:20] Artificial intelligence (AI) vs. artificial general intelligence (AGI).
[56:54] AGI is people! But how do we ensure it’ll be good people?
[1:03:03] What’s taking AGI so long to get here?
[1:08:59] Chemical scum that dream of distant quasars.
[1:17:47] Are humans central to the universe, or just a sideshow?
[1:20:17] Wealth and resources.
[1:25:30] Recommended thinkers.
[1:28:05] Taking Children Seriously, ToKCast, Critical Rationalists, and Popper 101.
[1:31:55] David’s most interesting problems right now.
[1:39:24] Parting thoughts.
MORE DAVID DEUTSCH QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW
“In many ways, our institutions are wiser than we are. “
— David Deutsch
“AI [artificial intelligence] has nothing to do with AGI [artificial general intelligence]. It’s a completely different technology, and it is in many ways the opposite of AGI … An AGI can do anything, whereas an AI can only do the narrow thing that it’s supposed to do.”
— David Deutsch
“Even the most careful scientific observation is all theory-laden, and theories are inherently fallible.”
— David Deutsch
“Good explanations begin with bad explanations. And you get there—between the bad explanation and the good explanation—by criticism, by conjecturing variance of the story, and then criticizing both them and the original story, and then choosing the one that survives the criticism. And then you can move on from there to a better thing.”
— David Deutsch
“Knowledge can live inside our DNA and our genes, and the genes that are correct and useful get replicated—not just in the universe, but possibly even in the multiverse.”
— David Deutsch
“Wealth is not a number. I don’t think it can be characterized very well by a number. It is the set of all transformations that you are capable of bringing about. That is your wealth. And if optimism is true, then there’s no limit to wealth.“
— David Deutsch
PEOPLE MENTIONED
The post David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant — The Fabric of Reality, The Importance of Disobedience, The Inevitability of Artificial General Intelligence, Finding Good Problems, Redefining Wealth, Foundations of True Knowledge, Harnessing Optimism, Quantum Computing, and More (#662) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.
