Episode 133: The Constitution of Knowledge
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Blue: Hello out there! This week on the Theory of Anything podcast, Bruce takes a deep dive into the epistemological ideas behind Jonathan Rauch’s Constitution of Knowledge. Rauch is a fan of Karl Popper and a former guest on this show who wrote a book a few years back called The Constitution of Knowledge where he makes the case that the creation of objective knowledge relies as much on institutions and norms as individuals. In a free society, knowledge emerges not from individual sincerity or authority, but from a social system governed by shared rules. No one has the final say on truth. No person’s status or identity grants epistemic authority and all claims must be open to public criticism. This applies not just to science, but to journalism, law, and all areas where humans seek to fallibly move closer to truth. I enjoyed listening to Bruce here and I hope someone else out there does too.
[00:01:13] Red: Welcome to the Theory of Anything podcast! Hey, Peter. Hey, Bruce. We’re going to do something a little different today and some may see this as somewhat redundant. We had Jonathan Rauch on the podcast talk about his books, particularly the book The Constitution of Knowledge, but to a lesser degree his book Cross -Premises, the most recent book. Despite this, and even though honestly I’m going to review Jonathan Rauch’s ideas here, which he does better than I’m going to do, I still felt like I needed to do a separate episode on it though to first of all kind of pull it all together, but because I wanted to apply it to our ongoing discussion about static versus dynamic societies, particularly I want to emphasize more the Constitution of Knowledge that book because I believe that one in particular is the one that relates to the static versus dynamic societies book and why we got stuck in static societies for hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of years. I also think it teaches us something very important about epistemology that Popper touches upon but doesn’t dig into nearly enough, the fact that rapid progress comes from a special kind of community rather than from individuals. Let me ask a question to the audience just to get you thinking about this. Think about this for a while, okay, and it’s not like this is a question that has right or wrong answer. It does have a right or wrong answer. It’s just nobody knows what it is and anyone who thinks they know what it is probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Suppose we build an AGI tomorrow.
[00:02:46] Red: Will an AGI be as dogmatic as human beings are or will the AGI be better at self -criticism than humans are? Put another way, is human dogmatism, which I and Popper have claimed is often a good thing, is human dogmatism so fundamental to general intelligence and to the general intelligence algorithm that AGI’s will be dogmatic just like we are or are humans primarily dogmatic for other reasons unrelated to the AGI algorithm and perhaps related to instead evolutionary reasons. For example, could it be that humans are dogmatic for evolutionary reasons that are unrelated to us being universal explainers and that AGI’s will be therefore a kind of super intelligence compared to us because they are much better at self -criticizing their own theories than we are and maybe even under this way of thinking that they won’t even need a scientific community to start making rapid progress. Is the fact that we humans require a scientific community to make rapid progress a compensating factor for our evolutionary dogmatism or is a scientific community required for any person even an AGI to make rapid progress? I can’t help but feel that this is an interesting question and one that I admit I don’t know the answer to and don’t believe anybody does know the answer to. Yeah, these are so interesting.
[00:04:18] Blue: You’ve taken Rauch’s ideas and blasted them off into outer space here, I think. But, you know, wow.
[00:04:25] Red: Now, I do feel there is quite a bit of evidence in various theories out there. There’s corroborating evidence for theories that humans are far more innately dogmatic than we need to be. Actually, see episode 113 for at least one theory about why this would be. Okay, we haven’t really covered that. There’s like a ton of theories on this and the one I covered in episode 113 isn’t really about that subject. It’s just incidentally it came up and I want to cover some of the theories of human dogmatism in future podcasts but it hasn’t been on my top list of things I want to cover so it just has never made the cut so far. This makes me think that maybe AGIs will be super at self -criticism compared to us and maybe the institutions built to create the scientific community are necessarily compensating factors for humans but will be less necessary for an AGI. I’m saying it’s hard for me to believe that AGIs will be so good at self -criticism that they won’t need a scientific community. That seems a little silly to me. It seems like diversity of thought would be almost or equally valuable to an AGI as it would be to us. I admit that I don’t know the answer to this question and I’m almost of two minds on this specifically because we have good theories that say both things and I don’t know how you would select between the theories at this point. There’s just too many on the table and they’re addressing different problems and they’re all a little vague. It’s just unclear how to go about it. Perhaps also we’ll find that it’s not an either or question.
[00:06:08] Red: Maybe AGIs will be dogmatic but not as dogmatic as us or something like that, something that’s a kind of hybrid in between. I see no reason why that couldn’t be true. As we’ll see this question has relevance to understanding Rausch’s views which is why I brought it up in this episode. Although it’s a question that’s been in my mind that I wanted to bring up for discussion on the podcast anyhow. Now Rausch holds a special place in my heart and I need to probably just bring this up and explain it because it does have some real relevance to my own intellectual journey with critical rationalism. Rausch clearly is a critical rationalist. I don’t know if he self -labels that way but like in the podcast he outrightly says Popper’s like one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era and it’s too bad if the academy downplays that you asked about why is the academy downplays like do they? Oh that’s bad if that’s true. You can see to the degree to which he is a critical rationalist. I recall how I started departing from certain critical critical rat community ideas sometime around episode 53 to 55. That’s the the episodes on the Brett Hall’s theory of intelligence compared to IQ theory. Recall that I had a long discussion with several members of the Crit Rat community over Brett Hall’s theory of intelligence. He argued that universal explainer theory implies that all humans including apparently mentally challenged and even senile older people because I specifically asked about those are actually equally intelligent. What had really struck me was the degree to which many of the Crit Rats I had interacted with had been willing to ignore all possible tests to their theory.
[00:07:55] Red: Now if you recall I had asked one Crit Rat what sort of evidence would he accept as showing his view to be false. Now the context here isn’t probably what you think. He didn’t find IQ correlations impressive so we were talking about the fact that there’s these correlations there’s this data that you have to explain. Okay so I asked him so he pointed out that correlations aren’t very impressive they’re only like 30 % you know like they’re not very impressive. So I asked him I said what level of correlation would you find impressive enough to convince you which honestly to me seems like a super fair question okay and it’s not like I’m trying to argue that he’s right or wrong or anything if anything this is supportive of his view like I’m just trying to say okay I can see where you’re coming from but like what sort of correlation would you say is actually impressive okay. He very dramatically and I would say quite proudly explained to me that there was no possible test outcome that could possibly change his mind because if there was a test with a high enough correlating factor to be convincing he would know for sure there had been cheating on the tests thus he’d still not believe that his theory was wrong.
[00:09:10] Red: Now I was like shocked at this answer and I said okay what if we put in place very careful anti -cheating measures like let’s imagine this is just hypothetical dude right like imagine this scenario any way you want imagine the most stringent most amazing anti -cheating measures you can imagine and some sort of high correlation would it then convince you and he again proudly told me he’d not find any such measures convincing he’d be sure there must somehow be cheating it would just convince him of cheating. He then explained that he saw Brett’s theory as philosophical so it wasn’t subject to testing anyhow. Now I documented this conversation at length in episode 55 if you’re curious about it. Now an answer like this coming from the critical rationalist community honestly it was disheartening I mean like we are talking the opposite of critical rationalism here okay especially since there seemed to be something like really strong agreement like this was multiple people I was talking to and they agreed with him right. Now not long after that I remember feeling disheartened and I came I started reading Kindly Inquisitors I think actually you recommended that book to me Peter I had already read Constitution of Knowledge at that point but I was reading Kindly Inquisitors for the first time and I came across this quote quote the skeptical rule is no one gets final say you may claim that a statement is established as knowledge only if it can be debunked in principle and only in so far as it withstands attempts to debunk it this is more or less what the great 20th century philosopher of science Carl R.
[00:10:50] Red: Popper and his followers have called the principle of falsifiability science is distinctive not because it proves true statements but because it seeks systemically to disprove falsify false ones in practice of course it is sometimes hard if not impossible to say whether a given statement is falsifiable or not but what counts is the way the rule directs you to try to act in principle if you do not try to check ideas by trying to debunk them you are not practicing science you are entitled to claim that a statement is objectively true only in so far as it is both checkable and has with stood up to checking and not otherwise reading that was like a light coming on for me it was as a reassuring moment the realization that there were critical rationalists out there that read Popper and had come away with an interpretation way more similar to my own
[00:11:44] Unknown: yeah
[00:11:45] Blue: that book just it makes the epistemological case for free speech stronger than anything it just it just really links it to critical rationalism and it’s just so well written and it just yeah I agree what a good book
[00:12:01] Red: probably that book establishes career didn’t it like wasn’t that the one that made him famous oh
[00:12:06] Blue: yeah yeah it’s just it’s just a masterpiece of critical rationalism and I love that it’s not like in in the weeds with all this like esoteric philosophy or it’s just perfectly aligns with common sense and I think I think it could be appreciated by just about anyone
[00:12:25] Red: yeah now I’m a much bigger fan of Roush’s book The Constitution of Knowledge than even of Kylan inquisitors and I should say I completely agree with you that it’s masterclass it’s just the Constitution of Knowledge is even better to understand now it may not be as famous but it is better to understand the idea let’s start with the idea the idea from his book let’s start with the idea of quote the marketplace of ideas or if you prefer we can call this a culture of criticism which might mean the same thing to many people so Roush says quote when Americans think about how we find truth amid a world full of discordant viewpoints we usually turn to a metaphor that of the marketplace of ideas now Roush finds it a useful analogy but one that you can’t take too far quote it’s a good metaphor as far as it goes yet woefully incomplete but I quote but ideas in the marketplace do not talk directly to each other and for the most part neither do individuals rather our conversations are mediated through institutions like journals and newspapers and social media platforms and they rely on a dense network of norms and rules like truthfulness and fact -checking and they depend on expertise of professionals like peer reviewers and editors and the entire system rests on a foundation of values a shared understanding that there is a right and wrong way to make knowledge those values and policies and institutions do for knowledge what the U.S.
[00:13:51] Red: Constitution does for politics they create a governing structure forcing social contestation onto peaceful and productive pathways Roush points out by the way all these quotes I’m using are pretty much the exactly the ones that I read to him in the interview and asked him to comment on Roush points out that in reality the whole marketplace of ideas doesn’t work well he uses social social media as his prime example you got to think social media in its early days it’s actually getting better so you got to think about the wild and woolly early days of social media particularly around the time of covid let’s say journalism is part of the reality -based community that’s what he calls instead of saying the scientific community a reality -based community would be the broader including the scientific community but includes like journalism and things like that okay and any truth -seeking groups that are using the constitution of knowledge so journalism is part of the reality -based community according to Roush and it has institutions and values to be truth -seeking social media did not and social media quickly filled up with utter crap because the network proliferated not based on how true a story was but on how enraged it made people to put another way social social networks on social media preferred falsehoods over truth and that is what the marketplace of ideas therefore supplied the net result was a short period of time where social media was dominated by fake news stories and honestly did real harm to society the fact this would be true of nearly the fact in fact this would be true of nearly any network that didn’t put in place the right kinds of institutions to allow the network to prefer truth but what do you need to get your network preferring truth Roush’s key insight comes primarily from charles sanders purse who predates carl popper and founded the epistemology of pragmatism which is very instrumentalist and traditionalist would disagree with but popper was a huge fan of purse and popper clearly borrowed a lot from purse purse therefore deserves to be thought of as a forerunner to popper that delved more into the nature of critical truth -seeking communities and how they function popper wrote some on the subject as well though he he did it less roush calls these communities the reality -based community and that’s what that term means it included the scientific community and even today the scientific community is something of a gold standard but it also includes scholarship in a field not considered a science journalism government organizations that collect intelligence or data and probably most important law and most importantly law and jurisprudence would count as part of the reality -based community
[00:16:43] Blue: i’ve got to say bruce that word reality -based community makes me bristle a little bit fair enough it may not be the best term just it seems a little bit too much like an us or them kind of thinking like there’s a community that has almost like a monopoly on rationality i don’t know maybe there is i guess but it just i i mean he you can make that case but i just it just inside i get i feel a little icky when i hear that yeah i don’t i don’t think it’s do you know what i do too really how like interwoven just moving closer to truth is in this world like there’s everyone is i mean if it is does have validity i think just about everyone is part in some ways part of that community in some ways not i suppose yeah but it makes it when you when i hear that phrase it makes it sound like it’s a you’re either with this with us or against us kind of a thing and i
[00:17:54] Red: so i i have the same problem with the term reality -based community i think in context he never sees it as a specific community but instead as a series of nodes in some sort of network fair enough he makes a huge case that you can be part of more than one community so he would consider religion legitimate but not the reality -based community and a person can be both part of religious community let’s say when they go to church and part of the reality -based community when they become a scientist and they go to work right fair
[00:18:31] Blue: enough
[00:18:31] Red: and that’s what he’s he’s trying to generalize the idea of the scientific community now if you think about it the scientific community you may not bristle at that but it’s got the same problem right like you could say you’re part of the scientific community and religion isn’t or something like that yeah
[00:18:46] Blue: i get it
[00:18:47] Red: okay and so he’s trying to generalize it so that we that we we don’t have just science we’ve also got things like journalism jurisprudence things like that scholarship right
[00:18:57] Blue: that
[00:18:58] Red: you’ve got a community or a network that is trying to find the truth about something and has a certain epistemology of how they go about it and religion is not subject to it your religion’s kind of the gold exact gold standard example of this but like any meaning meaning meaning would qualify right and probably a lot more would qualify we don’t live our lives as part of the scientific community even if as your day job you’re part of it right and this is the point he’s trying to make yeah
[00:19:29] Blue: but then even okay to push back a little bit even within religion there’s so many examples of people arguing and trying to work stuff out and forming consensus and you know there’s there’s similar processes going on historically in just about any religion and some religions are more authoritarian than others and
[00:19:50] Red: you’ve just studied this recently so you know exactly what you’re talking about don’t you
[00:19:54] Blue: well i’d like to think so i’d always like to think so you actually took
[00:20:00] Red: a took a online class by Bart Erdman about this didn’t you
[00:20:04] Blue: i did yes yeah
[00:20:05] Red: so like you’re not just like saying this up top your head you’ve got like some real knowledge about what has happened historically here yes
[00:20:13] Blue: yeah i think so and the the jadeo i dare say the jadeo -christian tradition might be stronger than this on this than
[00:20:23] Red: then roush is saying
[00:20:24] Blue: than other traditions maybe okay
[00:20:27] Red: all right so let me just say that i’m not necessarily agreeing with roush i’m doing my best to explain the viewpoint from his book and he actually makes a number of things that he says that i don’t even think i agree with but i i don’t think that detracts from what really strikes me as a very valid way to try to generalize poppers epistemology away from just being about science and i think we can learn from that but i i i think your criticism here is valid for what it’s worth right and um roush tries to address like tries to pre -think those criticisms and address them but i’m not convinced he fully does it
[00:21:09] Blue: yeah i’m sure he did i i’m sure he does he’s such a nuanced thinker i just meant that just that particular phrase makes me bristle yeah fair enough and you know what it
[00:21:20] Blue: does for me too it it does it does come across as sort of like you’re not part of the reality -based community all right so roush sees all truth -seeking reality -based communities as relying on a constitution which he sees as analogous to the u.s constitution he is clear that by constitution he doesn’t merely mean the document we we know as the constitution though that plays an important role but also all the related institutions that implement the government however roush seemingly disagrees with popper that falsification is the center of the epistemological world here’s a quote from him francis bacon and his followers said that the scientific that scientific inquiry is characterized by experimentation logical positives positivists that is that it is characterized by verification carl popper and his followers by falsification all of them were right some of the time but not always so like right there you have him clearly departing from popper at least to some degree and i do want to call that out okay i do too so there’s nothing wrong with that he’s and that doesn’t make him not a critical rationalist he’s trying to improve upon popper’s critical rationalism okay then he continues the better generalization perhaps just better generalization perhaps the only one broad enough to capture most of what reality -based inquiries do is that liberal science is characterized by orderly decentralized and impersonal social adjudication thus roush argues for not falsification as central to epistemology but as a certain institutionally powered form of social adjudication note that in the interview roush surely backed falsification as a huge overwhelming aspect of that and as we’ll see he does work it into his view as relatively central but he doesn’t see it as the central tenet the way popper did and it’s worth calling that out okay rouse finds the analogy with the constitution to be better than the marketplace of ideas analogy quote in that respect the political marketplace provides the better metaphor the u.s constitution forces political factions and their agendas into non -stop negotiations requiring multiple factions to agree in order to make law similarly the constitution of knowledge forces epistemic factions and their beliefs into non -stop negotiations requiring multiple factions to agree in order to make knowledge quote i have supplement supplemented liberal science as a term with the term quote reality -based community by which i mean the social network which adheres to liberal sciences rules and norms my hope is that reality -based community as a term captures the notion that liberal science is no mere colloquy of individuals each doing his own thing and occasionally interacting with others like gas molecules in a balloon or bumper bumper cars at the amusement park the community’s interactions are structured and elaborate elaborate and amount to much more than just the sum of individuals doings and the essential enabler connect enablers connectors and transmitters are institutions institutions propagate and enforce norms and rules evaluate and certify credentials set agendas and direct resources enforce accountability and train future generations to do all of those other things and more as a result the reality -based community can get at least some traction on almost any claim which its members choose to discuss provided always that they follow the rules
[00:24:56] Red: what are the rules roush previously mentioned roush breaks this constitution of knowledge down into several ideas and institutions one the impeer the fallibilist rule quote no one has the final say the empirical rule no one has personal authority quote to be knowledge a statement must be checked and it also says that knowledge is always provisional standing only as long as it withstands checking um that poppers falsified that that does seem like poppers falsificationism to me doesn’t it rouch also puts a huge huge emphasis as does popper on theories and criticisms that are inter subjective quote the rules apply to everybody and persons are interchangeable if your method is valid only for you or your affinity group or people who believe as you do then you are not reality -based quote objectivity factuality and rationality they live not just within individual individuals minds and practices but on the network objectivity wrote the philosopher um helen e logino logino is a characteristic of a community’s practice of science rather than of an individuals roush argues that what a reality -based community values is not specific outcomes or endpoint theories but more the value they value the overall process by the way this is why i did the the podcast on anarcho capitalism versus critical rationalism prior to this one i’m trying to
[00:26:33] Red: is built the same way on ins critic sizable and error correctable institutions and processes not outcomes and that’s what we’re after in critical rationalism okay it is not a coincidence that this is very reminiscent of classical liberalism therefore which values certain democratic norms over specific electoral outcomes now as we discussed a podcast ago this is why classical liberalism isn’t compatible with anarcho capitalism which is outcome oriented rather than process oriented and then roush continues quote what sets the reality -based community apart is that its members operate and interact on the basis of generally shared if sometimes also disputed values and rules they embrace the authority of those values and rules rather than the authority of any particular individual and tribe and they hold each other accountable this is why we can say in jargon unavailable to purse that they constitute a social network or put another way a reality -based community that follows the constitution of knowledge is outcome neutral and favors the process but he argues they in a sense replace a smaller tribe with a larger less personal one quote but replaces a personal or tribal network with one which is smaller local or familiar or familial or private or affiliative with a liberal network one which is large and global and impersonal and public and critical this changes the game again it’s hard to miss the parallel here with classical liberal identity which says being a citizen of the u.s this is assuming you’re in the u.s um to be a citizen of the u.s first and maybe your local tribe second if it is out or at least equally maybe if it is outcome neutral it does at least value certain process -oriented values roush gives this list of core commitments that he believes are the core commitments and he lists it as fallibleism objectivity exclusive exclusivity disconfirmation
[00:28:36] Red: pluralism civility professionalism institutionalism no no bull crapping and do not block the way of inquiry this view of rationality makes rationality a function of the network rather than the individual quote the best way to think of rationality and objectivity is not only as attributes of individuals but also and primarily as attributes of the reality -based community as a system a network what can the reality -based community address here’s another quote from roush can the marketplace of persuasion research reach sorry reach some sort of stable conclusion about a proposition or tackle it in an organized consensual way if so the proposition is grist for the reality -based community whether or not a clear consensus is reached this is this isn’t only science it could even be something like aesthetic or moral knowledge so another quote from
[00:29:35] Red: roush on this in this way the reality -based community can advance not only empirical knowledge but also aesthetic knowledge and even moral knowledge the result may not always be a body of hard facts or technical innovations but it rightfully qualifies as progress towards truth again from kindly inquisitors this is me quoting him in constitutional knowledge quoting himself in kindly inquisitors so literally he says again from kindly inquisitors quote moral knowledge like other knowledge is not definitive but it is generally an overlong spans is is generally an overlong spans you can look at it as as a tape of a liberal you can look at a tape of a liberal society’s moral development and know which way it is running usually towards less social violence violence more social participation and a wired wider circle of dignity and tolerance that’s from the constitutional knowledge page 98 to 99 i didn’t get page quotes for most of these quotes but i did for that one i guess but according to roush anyhow this places limits on what the reality -based community can address can the reality -based community or classical liberalism address say the question of the meaning of life roush answers no given this roush sees both classical liberalism and the reality -based community as intentionally incomplete roush references what he calls the four ms morality the question of life and death um more sorry mortality the question of life and death morality the question of right and wrong murder or rather the question of suffering but he just wanted an m word and miracles or lack thereof roush claims the reality -based community and classical liberalism only try to deal with some of these questions with the reality -based community unable to answer ultimate questions of meaning about life and death and how to deal with suffering his argument is that it is part of the design of secularism that these two sides are incomplete it built it built itself upon the idea that would use something like the reality -based community to answer types of questions that it um that is meant to answer but we leave you to find meaning using your own personal ideas and conscience quote and so we wind up with two quite different modes of thinking both inherently incomplete a satisfactory account of the world requires both a regime which subordinates one to the other whether theocratic or common communistic cannot be healthy or fully human that’s from cross purposes by the way rather than constitution of knowledge and quote i’m obliged to confess that purely secular thinking can get you some distance towards putting morality and mortality on solid footing but i cannot get all the way there this is how roush makes room for our anarcho -anarcho -anarcho -capitalist friends and also a religious person like me not as best a best theory but as a valid meaning making system of beliefs initially roush saw this as a mutual non -intervention pact but he came to realize he was wrong about this so now going back to quotes this is from cross purposes again we have since learned painfully with with what an iraqi or an afghan what any iraqi or afghan stan can tell you air dropping elections and constitutions on a morally unprepared society does not work at the same time i didn’t foresee the extent to which mainline protest of protestantism would collapse as a source of public values and i certainly didn’t foresee the extent to which evangelical protestantism would turn resentful confrontational and authoritarian in hindsight too i did not appreciate the impact implicit bargain between american democracy and american christianity i would have said that the the basic deal back before he changed his mind i would have said that the basic deal was to leave each other alone a wall of separation and all that their only bargain i thought was to make no bargain to the greatest extent possible and religion and government should tend to their separate business and not interfere with each other i should note here this is me talking now that i personally bristle at people that claim this and find their view to be and find their agrees with me on this but he didn’t back then but rash continues quote although there is much merit in mutual non -intervention i would have i should have paid more attention to the american founders who while opposing the admixture of religion with government warned that republicanism would rely in part on religious underpinnings john adams for instance famously wrote we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by morality and religion avarice ambition revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes against a net our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other that’s also from cross purposes i also see roush’s theories is probably one of the most important tweaks to geuch’s theory of static versus dynamic societies obviously roush doesn’t know anything about geuch’s theory but one might read him i think rightly as arguing that a mere culture of criticism is simply insufficient to start rapid progress but if the marketplace of ideas unaided naturally prefers untruth over truth then that would be a problem you’d have to overcome to overcome a static society this is how i see roush’s ideas as related to the static society versus dynamic society discussion let’s formalize this theory a bit we might conjecture a theory as something like this that humans are evolutionarily dogmatic such that we need to first discover special institutions on which to build a scientific community before it becomes possible for rapid progress to be made if this is true and we don’t know that it is true it’s just a theory then that would help explain why we got stuck in static societies for so long it means that it is not possible for rapid rapid progress to begin until certain special institutions are discovered one might see jonathan roush as making an argument something to that effect this theory stands possibly in contrast to various theories um all good explanations in their own right that human beings aren’t really very dogmatic here i’m thinking of hugo mercer’s theories which by the way i think is very good and i want to do a podcast on it or race got perservals theories which i also think is very good and i want to invite him on the show to have a conversation it’s possible that i already am starting to line that up it’s possible that you’ll have heard the interview with him before this episode airs so or it might even be a way there might even be a way for all these theories to be true at once they don’t necessarily have to be seen as at odds with each other given some nuance one of the things that i plan to ask
[00:36:49] Red: race got perserval about is to what degree does his theory his theory is is that human beings have this natural explanation module that checks how good explanations are and therefore human beings are not forever closed -minded which i think is absolutely correct but i wanted to ask him to what degree would he be accepting of the idea that human beings are also at least in the short term maybe even very dogmatic and i’m curious how he will answer that question so i was planning to to ask him that when we do an interview with him so if we do an interview and i ask him that net you’ll know that was what i was thinking okay i’m guessing and i don’t know how he’s going to answer i’m guessing he’s going to say that there’s no actual conflict here um and i kind of know that because we had a panel discussion he was on on this podcast and he kind of indicated that like i want to get a little bit more specific with him but like i kind of think he would not necessarily see his theory as at odds with roushes so it could be that humans have a natural explanation making module and also we’re dogmatic and also we needed special kinds of institutions for rapid progress to begin and that was why we got stuck in statics or one of the reasons why we got stuck in static societies and that’s how i would take roushes theory which i think is important from a critical rational standpoint in its own right and how i would probably try to tie it into the discussion on static versus dynamic societies i don’t know if i think he’s right or not i guess i’m leaning towards him being right on this that you need certain kinds of institutions or else the natural tendency would be for a network of humans to prefer untruth because it would be based more on what peaked our emotions rather than based on institutions that drive us towards trying to improve our explanations and so i do think i currently agree that this is one of the reasons why we got stuck in static societies for a very long time and i also think that probably means that the idea that you just need a culture of criticism to break out of a static society may just not be true it may be that there have been many many many cultures of criticism and they did not become dynamic societies because they were missing the necessary knowledge of how to organize the institutions to be able to start making rapid progress so anyhow i’m not 100 sold on that there are certain things about it that i feel a little fishy to me with that explanation but i i guess i’m leaning towards it at this point and that’s it for today do you have questions peter
[00:39:35] Blue: no but the world needs you to keep doing what you’re doing bruce and that you are critically and with minimal dogmatism uh dealing with the best our best theories out there and please keep it up
[00:39:54] Red: all right thank you very much i appreciate uh you saying that
[00:39:57] Blue: thank you
[00:39:58] Red: all right bye bye
[00:40:01] Blue: hello again if you’ve made it this far please consider giving us a nice rating on whatever platform you use or even making a financial contribution through the link provided in the show notes as you probably know we are a podcast loosely tied together by the popper deutch theory of knowledge we believe david deutch’s four strands tie everything together so we discuss science knowledge computation politics art and especially the search for artificial general intelligence also please consider connecting with bruce on x at b neilson 01 also please consider joining the facebook group the mini worlds of david deutch where bruce and i first started connecting thank you
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