Episode 33: Unsolved Problems in Physics Part 4 - Possible Solutions and Criticisms
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Transcript
[00:00:10] Blue: So, so let’s take before, you know, I know that I kind of jumped into a little bit of what I feel like is needed, but let’s take the current paradigm a little more seriously. A lot of times, I mean, I’ve always found that, you know, I’ve always taken a conservative view I really do take some of our best ideas as seriously as I can. So this is what the current paradigm leads to. I’m going to call it the deterministic nightmare and some people have Chiara call it the deterministic nightmare in her book Chiara Moreledo. And I’m also going to tell you why there’s no need to lose sleep over this so called deterministic nightmare. Okay. So let’s talk about again, based on these time symmetric laws. And, you know, based on the second law of thermodynamics. All right, this kind of goes back to what you were talking about earlier. All right. So if you look at the universe as a whole and we say that it’s based on time symmetric laws. And we also know, and we also set that second law of thermodynamics is true. Then our universe should be. And again, you know, we’re kind of thinking maybe some sort of a finite universe. I don’t know. I mean, it could be infinite. I don’t know if that would make any difference. But if you look at the universe as a whole, you would think that the universe should be in more of a thermal equilibrium that maximal entropy state that I was talking about some sort of a thermal equilibrium where nothing interesting is happening. That should be the most probable state for the universe to be.
[00:01:44] Blue: And then if you were given an eternity, now, of course, we’re thinking in terms of time, but we can always translate all of that into a timeless picture. But times appears to be a very useful way to talk about things. So I’m going to talk in time, even though I’m talking by the current paradigm, which is suggesting timelessness. Okay, so even if he had an eternity, right, if he had an eternity, then here and there you would see that certain sometimes you will have these fluctuations where the universe, at least parts of like imagine if just for simplicity sake imagine the entire universe as some sort of gas, right, which is internal equilibrium, then you will find these low entropy regions pop up just by chance, right, because of the way things are moving, even though they’re moving randomly, but they will. So subsystems of the universe could cycle to low entropy states, given an eternity, right, given a long, long period of time, they’re really improbable so it would, you would need a long period of time to see that. Okay, so Pankare kind of talked about this, you know, it’s kind of, it’s something called Pankare recurrence theorem which says that certain dynamical systems, this is from Wikipedia, where certain dynamical system will after sufficient long, sufficiently long, but finite time return to a state arbitrarily close, or exactly the same as their initial state.
[00:03:09] Red: Yes,
[00:03:10] Blue: you can see that this sort of stuff probably inspired this wasn’t the only thing but it would probably inspire Nietzsche’s Frederick Nietzsche, the philosophers, the eternal recurrence to I don’t want to get into too much into it but if anybody knows about it. You know, where it’s kind of like where over time you know worse kind of just repeats through the same stuff. Obviously, if the universe is not creating any novelty then whatever exists, you’re just cycling through the same stuff, right. Yes, a long period of time though.
[00:03:39] Red: Yes. Right. This actually follows from just computational theory right if you imagine a computer that’s just doing a computation is not interacting with the real world in any way. It’s got a finite amount of memory, right. So, at some point, if you’re doing that computation, and it’s one that not going to halt it’s going to run forever. There’s no possibility it’s not going to pass through a state that it’s been in before right it has to at some point. So, that would be kind of the same thing as that’s a simplified layman’s version of point cares re -encouraged theorem.
[00:04:17] Blue: Thank you that compliments nicely of what I said in terms of computation so I really appreciate you actually saying that. So, so now let’s look at the universe around us. And what do we find, we find a really interesting universe. Whether you want to look at a galaxy, whether you look at clusters of galaxies, you look at the large scale structure of the universe, and you go to the level of biosphere the world is so interesting. It’s anything but thermal equilibrium right and not just that from the memories and from the records we have geological records, fossil records. We know that the universe has been doing interesting things such as coming up with life evolution of stars, stars die this few are all sorts of heavy elements, then you know that leads to the elements needed for life. So, life has been anything but sorry the universe has been anything but boring when we actually study it. So, then if we are in the current paradigm then we asked ourselves that huh could this all this interesting stuff could that just be that low entropy fluctuation in a much larger universe maybe the universe is much larger. And the observable universe that we’re seeing is some sort of a fluctuate that low entropy fluctuation that took place. Right. So let’s take that idea again a little bit more seriously it’s really fun when you really sometimes dive down into and take an idea more seriously and so in this case let’s dive down deeper. So now imagine that there is a small fluctuation now if there were these thermal fluctuations these small fluctuations that were taking place low entropy fluctuations that were taking place in the universe.
[00:05:54] Blue: Then the first thing you realize is smaller fluctuations smaller in the sense of you can think of smaller regions of fluctuations. They occur more often than larger fluctuations. So, and so a smaller region of fluctuation would also be more probable than a larger one. So you can also think in terms of probability you can also think in terms of just fluctuations happening over a long large region of space or whatever. Okay, so, so then you ask yourself how do I reconcile that with what I see right so when we look out in the universe, we see that our observable universe is about somewhere by 96 billion light years across. Okay. That’s the diameter of the observable universe, and it is rich it’s full of structure it’s interesting and it’s far from equilibrium. So first thing is, obviously this has to be a very high this is a highly improbable state. Okay, so how do we explain this. Okay, so we could. So, first of all, if you know if the fluctuation a fluctuation that was the size of a galaxy would be way more probable than this entire universe, or go even smaller right a fluctuation the size of the world or solar system a solar system would be much more probable than say the rich
[00:07:19] Red: right now that makes perfect sense why why why should the whole universe be in this improbable state. If it’s just a matter of fluctuations that it should be just the galaxy and if it should be just the galaxy then it should be just the solar system.
[00:07:32] Blue: As you take this more seriously and the physicists who have taken this more seriously then finally arrive at this conclusion, they said okay. So how do we explain this experience we’re having right, maybe we should just go down to the level of our experience instead of saying what’s actually out there, what we’re seeing here is a really rich universe right how do we explain this observation. Well, isn’t a brain just fluctuating with all sorts of consistent memories fake memories of a rich universe, way more probable than a 96 billion light year across actual universe fluctuating. Of course it is right. Yeah, we have arrived at something that people have called the Boltzmann brain. Right. So then the question is, could we be Boltzmann brain or should I lose my sleep over it am I just about to fluctuate out of existence. As I said before there’s no reason for us to lose sleep over it. Because here’s the thing a brain a Boltzmann brain with memories which don’t make any sense which are in which aren’t as consistent is way more probable than a one which has consistent memories. So that right away we’ve kind of lost something in terms of explanatory power right, we were trying to explain the richness of the world within the current paradigm we took it seriously. And I still see people talking about Boltzmann brain but obviously if you’re in this paradigm and you’re going to take those Boltzmann brain seriously. So we’ve kind of arrived at sort of like a paradox right that we are not we even if somebody said that I’m a Boltzmann brain. The fact that I have consistent memories of such a highly structured world where there are laws at all sorts of levels.
[00:09:15] Blue: You know, that’s somewhat of a paradox because I really shouldn’t be experiencing anything consistent if I was to be a Boltzmann brain.
[00:09:23] Red: So, I have to tell you, I had a conversation with your husband about a variant of this, and he wasn’t getting it I was struggling to try to explain it to him but the what I was trying to get at was Penrose. Explain this this is like a variant of the Boltzmann brain, where he said the, the state of the universe, in terms of its low entropy state is so improbable that there’s no need for biological evolution. Because you could have atoms smashed together and form the world as it is, you know, if necessary complete with memories of the of our past. And that would be less, that would be less improbable. Then the state of the universe, trying to measure its probability in terms of the entropy state it’s in that such a low entropy state that that’s way less probable. Yeah, so so there’s no need for evolution at all that we shouldn’t even be in a universe that has biological evolution, because that’s a completely unnecessary aspect of a universe that just by chance happened that way. His point he’s trying to make is that people are ignoring that they kind of just accept the universe is in a low entropy state that’s like a given. Right, he’s trying to say, that’s a genuine mystery.
[00:10:53] Blue: Exactly. This is one of those things we just assume that it just is. But if you really take the current paradigm seriously as what you just mentioned and the Boltzmann brain sort of thing is again, it’s basically the same idea what you just said. It’s just really taking this seriously and seeing what are the implications, but then not just that the idea just destroys itself because we shouldn’t just be Boltzmann brain with all the structured memories, all these, you know, there is a consistency and stuff. It should really just doesn’t make sense at all. So there is a sort of a paradox here. And you know I mean if you’re a physicist when you come across docs you don’t think that that paradox is out there in the universe you’re thinking the paradox is usually considered as something where our theories there’s something wrong with our ideas there’s some inconsistency in our theories or ideas right. So, so again this is an example where you take this paradigm seriously you come across something which leads into a paradox. And we’re definitely not Boltzmann brains and there is no need for us to lose sleep over it. Earlier we also talked about the heat death of the universe. Again, looking at the universe, looking at the history of the universe that is available to us through whether it’s through astronomy astrophysics through geological records through fossil records. All of that consistently gives a view of the universe having evolved novelty, it’s become more and more interesting right. You know when you look at the history, starting at the Big Bang and all the way to life and present moment, it’s been anything but boring it’s actually become more and more interesting. Okay.
[00:12:30] Blue: So, so again, it this requires an explanation. And so I don’t feel like I have to, again, no one is saying the second law of thermodynamics is wrong. It’s just that we are we only have the partial picture with the second law of course there is this second law in operation that if you have an isolated almost, you know, I mean even though it’s really hard to get. There’s no such thing as a perfectly isolated system, because even if you try to isolate everything, you’re always going to have gravity, gravity is everywhere you can really isolate anything. If you tried to you would actually end up with a black hole, at least one actually can solve that problem to me kind of beautifully talks about in his book. Now look, you can really have an isolated system but let’s say if you think of some idealization, then yeah, in an idealized way which has nothing seems like not not has nothing to do with reality. You can say that there’s going to be a heat that if the entire universe was an isolated system but we can even have such an isolated system in our universe, let alone the whole universe. So why should I lose my sleep or this heat depth, but at the same time you know there’s something to be said about the second law, but it but what we’re missing right now that what we really need to take seriously is how is the novelty being created. There’s something novel that the universe is creating. So this is before
[00:13:52] Red: you move on I actually have a question about this one. I actually don’t think I followed the logic that you just mentioned from Lee Schmoen on that I agree that inside the universe, you can never have an isolated system, but the word universe by definition is an isolated system. So it does seem like that’s different to me so I just maybe just throw that out there I don’t know if you want to comment on that or not.
[00:14:17] Blue: Okay, so you could assume that the universe is an isolated system but what I guess it’s an assumption that it’s an isolated system, the word universe means isolated system that you to say that the universe isn’t an isolated system is to say it’s not a universe. Yeah, so so again, that would be the assumption would be that the universe is in some sort of way, like finite.
[00:14:41] Red: It’s making some assumptions you’re right about
[00:14:44] Blue: exactly so what we have to realize is that all of that goes with a certain assumption about the universe that the universe is not an open system right that it’s, and if it is, then sure yes. And if you know it is working under time symmetric laws then yes, yeah, he did, sure. But the thing is that everything that this is based on. When we look at the universe, this highly improbable state, it’s nothing short of a miracle is actually in the current paradigm. And I hate to say this, when I do physics, I don’t want my physics theories, physical theories to be based on things that seem kind of miraculous. Like I want to explain the world. So something is wrong there so I’m not losing my sleep or something that is based on some sort of, you know, almost such an improbable thing that that it is pretty much like a miracle. So, when I look around the universe, I see growth of novelty, I, you know, I, I see an interesting universe. So that’s what I’m going to focus on explaining. And there doesn’t have to be, I don’t think there’s any problem with the second law. The problem is the heat, the heat depth part is something that is very much laden with all sorts of assumptions about the universe. And that’s the part where I’m saying like, I really don’t see any reason to be worried about it, or I don’t see any clash with the second law either. Okay.
[00:16:06] Blue: So, so, so anyway, so that leads me to the proposal, I think the best explanation I can think of right now, a novelty generation that comes from having looked at life, you know, the evolution of life where we’ve seen how new organisms and if you even, there’s actually a beautiful documentary shouldn’t be that difficult to look up it’s actually about the evolution of I. So when even if you look at the life itself it’s an interesting phenomena as a matter of fact the more I’ve kind of dived into theoretical biology and looked at how biologists talk about it is interesting that when you’re studying life. You don’t study in the way physicists study the physical phenomena, non living physical phenomena that whole dichotomy that physicists can can make with the law versus a state vanishes. Life is best understood the evolution of life can be best understood if you’re thinking in terms of a game we talked about that there is an appearance of design so you can almost think as if certain things like I has some purpose, and you know that, you know, like to think. I’m not saying that’s how we should think about it that’s just, you know, it sounds anthropomorphic but what I’m trying to say is that there is an element of design there that is fully understood. When you, you know, making the differentiation between law and the state seems to vanish when it comes to life. You can’t really talk about life in that way. And it’s been kind of highlighted by, you know, this argument, this has been brought up by quite a few biologists that have read.
[00:17:40] Blue: So that’s the case, you know, it seems like that that whole idea of thinking in terms of law initial conditions and a state. It seems to be a pretty surface level that some physicists have started thinking about it there’s really no reason even within the current paradigm as I explained with the how clocks emerge to make that distinction. All we need to think about is. Okay, how is the universe actually evolving right and and then really that is the question, but to answer that question. I think that we do need a global notion of time, because without time there is no evolution because otherwise you’re just again back in that thing that everything that you can possibly imagine and every novelty that they somehow exist in a timeless way but that’s just not a good explanation if you want a good explanation, a theory which makes testable predictions, then we have to take it as a process that you know an ongoing process in the universe how is the universe evolving, and then we can hope to make progress. And for that I think we will need a global notion of time. Going back to barbers theory the barbers reformulation does suggest that they’re, I think I might be repeating myself here that there might be a global notion. There might be. So who knows maybe that that I don’t know if that’s a hint there that what we’re seeing in general relativity, but basically we need to take time seriously. I really don’t know what to say beyond that that we really need to take this asymmetry of the universe. This idea of the evolution.
[00:19:11] Blue: Seriously, and one of the biggest challenge I think right now that we have is how does novelty actually how is the novelty actually created. So, so that’s, that’s the push that’s the whole idea what I talked about and I hope maybe you can ask questions to see without anything. But, but we need the concept of some sort of a global time, if, if the evolution of the universe is to make sense, because we can study the evolution of life with some external time right that’s given to us by physics. But when it comes to the universe as a whole, we don’t have anything outside of it. So, so what type of, you know, so so we have to really think about something and then there has to be some way that it generates novel to see it can’t be kind of like the current paradigm that were clocks just emerge and time every year and because otherwise we’re back in the time of this realm. Let me let me related to that let me ask you a question one that’s been bothering me for long before I knew you.
[00:20:13] Red: There is leash. I think it was leash more in one of his books. He has this idea of that we may be able to someday create a universe, like scientists in a lab in our world could create a universe. Am I wrong about this and is it that leash Mullen or is it somebody else I’m thinking
[00:20:33] Blue: that I don’t know about I mean his current ideas have now changed because he’s saying that there is just a singular universe a single universe. Yeah.
[00:20:41] Red: So, I think it was leash Mullen but I might be wrong, but it was legitimate scientist he was talking about this idea of humans creating a universe in a lab.
[00:20:50] Blue: But I guess if you could create black holes and if black holes really are creating universes. Yes,
[00:20:55] Red: it was related to that was related to that. Okay, now according to a night. I’ve never actually read the whole book I just read this part of it. And what I recall was that, first of all, we wouldn’t be able to in any way interact with that universe other than we might have a say over like how the laws of physics were designed in that universe, and it would, and they may actually be designed in that case, because it was a scientist in the lab that designed it. Okay. But we wouldn’t have any way to interact with it’s not like we could see this universe is not like it would displace our world or something like that it would, for all intents and purposes, we just can’t interact with it at all. The laws of physics keep us from doing so. This idea led to some later. And this is of course obviously a very speculative idea. This led to an even more speculative idea of maybe we could create a universe, and then find a way that we could interact with it such that we could move into it. And it was one of the proposals for how to overcome heat death that that pops around the internet. It’s not a true scientific proposal I’ve got to tell you that it’s so speculative that it’s just almost to the point of silly. Okay, and yet usually when you’re trying to deal with things like that you’re not worried about silly you’re just trying to float ideas out there so there’s nothing wrong with that.
[00:22:13] Blue: Yeah.
[00:22:15] Red: If this proposal were but the first part of the proposal the idea that you could create a universe based on the idea of being able to create a black hole. That first part, at least is somewhat rooted in real physics, certain physical ideas. If you were to do that though that would effectively mean that time in that other universe is disconnected from time in our universe. Isn’t that wouldn’t that be the case. Like they would have their own time separate from ours, they would literally be a different timeline.
[00:22:49] Blue: So, in terms of the current paradigms where, you know, where clocks or what, what, what is called time in the current paradigm that arises with the dynamical laws so yeah in that case, yes. Yeah,
[00:23:02] Red: yeah.
[00:23:04] Blue: But here we’re talking about small theory this is actually pretty novel like here I could literally put, like, I wish I could just call time as some, you know, like, because I’m using the same term right when I talk about current paradigm, and what I’m calling time, but they’re like really different beasts like it’s like this time that I’m talking about is a completely different. The
[00:23:26] Red: reason why I brought this up as an example is when you create this other universe in this theoretical, you know, this hypothesized way of doing this, you’re effectively creating a big bang, and time starts with the big bang there’s time before the big bang. And yet there is, in a sense, in this case, because you could, you could, meaningfully say, at such and such a time in our universe, this other universe began, but from that the point of view of that other universe. It start was outside of time.
[00:24:00] Blue: Yeah, to be honest with you, I’m not even sure like how to understand this idea of saying that there was this other disconnected universe. You know, I mean, once you start to go down that route. You know, we are really getting into this thing that how do we even test an idea like this like candy. Right. So that’s why it even though it sounds kind of interesting that I would love to watch a sci fi with something like that but then it would be a sci fi right
[00:24:26] Red: yeah. Okay, let me offer some feedback and criticisms on what you’ve said up to this point.
[00:24:33] Blue: Actually, could I first comment on one other thing you said right there before you go into that where I forget what I was going to say. So, so the, you know, it’s not just Lee small and actually Barbara, Julian barber and then Roger Penrose, they’ve kind of talked about their multiple people were kind of talking about this that that the time may not so people who are kind of thinking outside of this current paradigm and saying that time may not even though the clocks might start at the point at some point that we call big bang, but the time that I’m sort of talking about might extend further back in other words, there may not be a big bank singularity, like what we think of singularity may not exist in a slightly different paradigm.
[00:25:23] Red: Right, no, I agree that’s the case I was actually
[00:25:26] Blue: in Barbara’s TV there isn’t really a big bank similarity.
[00:25:29] Red: I was actually asked that question because I wanted to understand if we could think of when you talk about taking time seriously, if this was an alternate possible way of thinking of it, but maybe not. I wasn’t I was unsure if it was or not.
[00:25:46] Blue: But anyways, so I’ll let you ask. I mean there are a few things I was going to say later on but we can get into those. Go ahead. Oh,
[00:25:55] Red: do you want to go ahead and finish out and then I then I’ll
[00:26:00] Blue: So anyways, kind of talking about, you know, again I kind of mentioned a little bit about the life that how in biology, biological evolution is best understood. It’s understood in a very different way than we talk about in physics where this law state, you know this differentiation kind of starts to disappear, and you’re just looking at the evolution of a phenomena. All right, and we don’t even know I mean so far in new Darwinian evolution we just like we talked about that we’ve looked at how genes player you know the the mutation at the level of DNA is what drives evolution. So the idea is basic but if you look at how when we look at the evolution of life up to humans. It seems like the evolution has taken a leap here. There is something novel right because here now the evolution is taking place of the ideas at the level of means. So how do we even connect that right and in the old paradigm. How do we make sense of it. I mean to me this is something novel that has come about in the universe right in this evolution. And it seems like history plays an important part in the evolution as well. Kind of like what you mentioned that one could in the current paradigm think of how smashing all sorts of stuff together you could come up with life. But see again if you go down that route everything becomes kind of like a miraculous thing we’re hoping that oh well someday you know something just smashed in the right way and you know loosely speaking.
[00:27:24] Blue: But actually when you look at the theory of evolution when you’re trying to explain what an eye does like an eye in an organism then the history matters a lot. Like the evolution up to human beings to understand what you know how humans came about. I think you would need to have the evolution of life. I remember Paul Davis mentioning that if you look around the universe. He said in one of his books that I read. He said that I don’t think there is any phenomena that could that the universe couldn’t come up with that only life could actually make possible. And it suddenly occurred to me. I’m like you’re so wrong. I’m like I don’t think I really don’t think humans would have been around if life wasn’t around first. So there you go. There is a phenomena there that requires life to exist. Right. We sometimes take ourselves too much for granted as if oh well we’re just humans. Right. We need to explain ourselves. This is really important. I think we see that novelty at play. More than anywhere else. I think in human phenomena because humans look at the things we’ve created. I think that it isn’t just what we’re creating things like art. Whether you look at economics culture science mathematics. I think all of that should be viewed as evolution of laws not an evolution under static laws. Like this should be looked upon as genuine evolution where laws are evolving. Right.
[00:28:58] Blue: Do you see what I’m trying to say like I’m saying that instead of us thinking that a human is doing stuff and we’re bound by some sort of fixed laws we need to start thinking of the whole human phenomena just like what I’ve said about the universe is actually an evolution of laws itself. It’s not just a phenomena that’s unfolding under some constraints put by certain laws which are static. So look at the biosphere. Look at how much we’ve chained the entire biosphere. If you take the human element out this world would be quite different. Now give it enough time. We’re actually already doing experiments in labs in the quantum realm. Right. We’re doing there’s all sorts of novel phenomena we study in condensed matter physics. There’s been a lot of foundational research in condensed matter physics. I actually developed more of an appreciation of it much later at graduate school level of what condensed matter physics was about. And then we have you know when we look at purely just quantum mechanics as we move towards quantum computers we’re making we’re getting towards higher and higher qubit states. We might be making all sorts of new novel phenomena that may not maybe eventually we’re going to get to the level where the things we’re going to create the states that we’re going to come up with may not actually exist anywhere in the universe. It’s kind of hard to know if we already reached that point or not maybe not but I think we’re kind of almost at the cusp of where we might start doing that particularly with qubits and stuff.
[00:30:36] Blue: That’s I think I feel like this is where the time is going to be ripe to test out these ideas that if there is novelty being generated. We’re going to have to come up with theories how novelty is generated. Maybe we can test them in those ideas. I think we’re already testing that in AI research and our move towards AGI is another place right where we’re testing these ideas artificial life is another one. The recently I heard you know I was part of a conversation between Sarah Walker and Lee Cronin and they both really highlighted this that how much the artificial life is not coming up with anything like we don’t understand life. It said that anytime we come up we understand something it’s always because we’ve kind of snuck in life ourselves. But this whole idea of just putting together the raw ingredients and hoping that something just pops up. It really isn’t just it’s not going anywhere we’re not understanding something we’re not understanding how laws come about. We need to figure that out. And again I’m kind of putting in the way laws come about as some static law appears but it has to be taken as more of a continual evolutionary process. Instead of thinking oh this rule popped up that rule and maybe some sometimes some rules are that novel that when they pop up they’re like oh wow this is like kind of like how humans started using means to the evolution of humanity is now based on evolution of means rather than genes and eventually who knows you know we might use after a while and want to something else. So I think we really need to take this seriously if you want to make progress in science.
[00:32:08] Blue: I think honestly I’ve come to call you know the universe another name for the nurses it’s a novelty generator. It literally this is one of probably the most important properties of the universe. And we’ve only right now we’ve only focused on very limited phenomena and we’ve been very successful and all of that should emerge out of a more fundamental theory as a special case. Right. So but but there is something lurking that deep down because majority of what we see around us is just not explained by our current science. The biggest one all these asymmetries the novelty. So I think I’ll stop at this point and I’ll let you ask questions.
[00:32:45] Red: Okay, so obviously you’ve had a chance to think this through carefully so that you could present this and you’ve done a good job of doing that over the last three or four podcasts or much I decide to break it up into. And I haven’t had a sufficient chance to put my thoughts together and to formulate them. So I’m a little bit of disadvantage here because of that.
[00:33:11] Blue: I was going to say I have an unfair advantage here. Yeah,
[00:33:14] Red: let me try to explain a couple things though that maybe criticisms of what you’re saying but maybe not even truly criticisms.
[00:33:25] Blue: Actually, I don’t mind you can criticize all you want. I’m a I’m a police game. Yeah, I’m,
[00:33:30] Red: I’m not one to you
[00:33:33] Blue: like don’t even try to pretend it’s like be nice or flight just throw it.
[00:33:38] Red: Okay, let me see if I can explain this from a critical rationalist standpoint. There’s a tension that seems to exist that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk about between this idea that we take our best theory seriously. And the fact that you have to not take your best theories seriously to generate new theories. Now obviously, I think the answer that is oh no you are taking your best theory seriously you’re taking the problem seriously then you try to solve the problem, and that in turn leads to a new theory. Okay, but here’s the real truth. When you start that process, you always start with a bad explanation, right when when Einstein comes up with general relativity. He’s how long did you say he spent working on that it was like eight years or something before he came up with this theory. But maybe it was Bart that brought that up, but it’s a very long period of time he had this thought that was the happiest thought he had ever had that was based on this idea that the force of gravity was indistinguishable from the curvature of exactly what the thought was. But it’s like if you’re in an elevator. You can’t tell whether there’s a force of gravity, or if you’re just accelerating. Yeah,
[00:35:05] Blue: basically acceleration gravity are indistinguishable right in an elevator that’s closed and you’re accelerating versus you’re in gravity. Right. Or you’re in a. Yeah, you won’t be able to tell if you’re accelerating or what you’re experiencing is the gravity of a planet, for example.
[00:35:21] Red: So at that point, he has a kind of explanation in mind as to how to solve this problem of light, how to, how to solve the, which experiment is that really
[00:35:36] Blue: experiment. Yes,
[00:35:37] Red: thank you. Okay, but he doesn’t really, he doesn’t really have a good explanation yet. He’s got a vague idea based on an analogy, and it’s going to take eight years for him to turn it into a hard to vary explanation. Okay, so there is actually a tension between the need to take our best explanation seriously, and the need to not take them to seriously, so that we can generate new ideas. And I see what you’re saying in that light. That’s that’s how I would interpret it if I
[00:36:10] Blue: right now we’re clearly seeing some problems and I hope that I made it clear that how the current paradigm this asymmetry issue. I just don’t see how the current paradigm with the time symmetric laws can solve
[00:36:23] Red: and I agree with you. I think that you’ve listed out completely legitimate problems with our current theories. And I think
[00:36:31] Blue: that also should make us take the idea seriously that maybe what we’re calling novelty the emergence is actually novelty, and not just something that’s just on
[00:36:40] Red: it may mean that right I don’t want to say it doesn’t mean that. Okay, here’s what I can say though, I can say that if I’m in the mode of taking our best theory seriously, then yes, we, they do say that the world is deterministic, they do say that that eternalism, the way you described it is true. Okay, there’s, there are certain things that absolutely do follow from our best physical theories that we have right now. And, and us following those from those theories. You kind of use the idea that they weren’t testable but the theory is testable these are, these are things that follow from the theory. Okay, including as you point out some fairly serious problems, which means that there’s problems that need to be solved.
[00:37:27] Blue: I guess the part that I’m saying that’s not testable is the meta, the metaphysics that kind of follows from this whole, like when you take it seriously and you look at the metaphysical implications for the universe as a whole, which physicists do think about right because in a way I’m saying that even if you don’t spell it out, it’s working at the back of your mind right because that is the view that’s driving. Yes,
[00:37:49] Red: and you know what, if, if Popper’s right that we should take a, you know, I guess actually it was Deutsch that used this wording. But if we should take our best theory seriously, that that includes thinking about these things that includes saying yeah according to our best theory, eternalism is true, according to our best theory, determinism is true according to our best theory. I mean a lot of these things, we should admit they follow from our best theories. Okay. And even if they are a little bit out there at the moment. Okay. Chiara talks about the Terminus nightmare and I personally don’t see it as a nightmare I actually agree with her determinist nightmare she’s trying to get around it. I accept it. I just don’t see it as a nightmare to me it’s not a nightmare, but it does follow from our current best theories it really does. Okay, just, she was willing to give up on computational universality, as possibly as a way of dealing with determinist nightmare, I don’t even feel a need to do that, because it doesn’t strike me as a nightmare to begin with. But both of our points of views have some legitimacy, right that we’re exploring the implications of current theories. We’re trying to figure out how to deal with potential problems. It’s not always obvious if a problem is a real problem or a pseudo problem. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that they’re that a pseudo problem and a problem are indistinguishable at first. And therefore we have to treat them all as problems. And it’s only after we have a solution that we actually know if it was just a pseudo problem or if it was a real problem.
[00:39:22] Red: And that would be true for a lot of things that you brought up I think that certain things, I would definitely feel are real problems. I, there’s no way for me to be absolutely positive of that. But I would think that, you know, for example, the Penrose example with the entropy in the low entropy state and your example the Boltzmann brains and trying to treat the Boltzmann brains by the way, isn’t really a problem with the current paradigm. It’s a problem with a certain solution to certain cosmology in the current paradigm it’s, it’s a way of saying well, we’ve got these current physics that suggests a big bang and someone goes oh no maybe it doesn’t suggest a big bang maybe it suggests that it was just a fluctuation. You know, everything was at heat death, and then there was this fluctuation and that’s our universe. Okay, that leads to a new problem the Boltzmann brains which makes us realize that was a very poor cosmology to try to deal with the implications of the current theory.
[00:40:20] Blue: The only thing is that then, no matter what I think the low entropy, the highly improbable low entropy thing is kind of, I mean, I don’t I don’t know what type of cosmology would lead to.
[00:40:32] Red: And I agree. Right, it’s, there are some really big unanswered questions. And maybe we will someday realize there’s some way to answer that question with the current paradigm. Just, let’s just hypothesize for a second I don’t believe it either. But let’s say that there’s some way to solve Penrose’s problem of the fact that we’re in a low entropy state that’s so improbable that we don’t even need evolution. Okay, that’s a legitimate question mystery.
[00:41:04] Unknown: Right.
[00:41:04] Red: And I
[00:41:05] Blue: just quickly interject that’s why the dogma is important to right you need some people who are going to just say not give up, you know,
[00:41:12] Red: yes,
[00:41:13] Blue: and then the, then the people who are working on rival ideas, if they start getting results that other isn’t yes what other thing just becomes boring it’s not like you can just for anything it just starts to become boring after a while.
[00:41:26] Red: So, let’s say that somebody comes up with a solution to that problem but they do it using entirely just general relativity. Okay, they demonstrate through some mathematical formula. Oh, actually we can explain the low entropy state of the universe, because general relativity predicts it. Just nobody realized that before. Okay, now I don’t believe that’s going to happen. I mean, I think that this is actually a legitimate problem that goes beyond general relativity and may even require new physics to solve. Okay, but I don’t know that for sure. And somebody could come up with a solution that uses only general relativity uses only existing theories and solves that problem. Until I see the solution I don’t know for sure. Right. But you
[00:42:11] Blue: do realize right that once we’re starting to do say stuff like that. I feel like this is as good or bad as me suggesting something new where I’m actually trying to address, you know, like I have at least, I get it’s almost like a what if like this could happen what if that right it’s still kind of pretty open.
[00:42:30] Red: I actually agree with you. I think that when I if I were to speculate. Well someday maybe we will solve. The problem the Penrose problem of low entropy state using only quantum physics and general relativity are existing theories, and we won’t need anything else. I don’t think that’s any better a speculation. Then what you’re coming up with.
[00:42:53] Blue: Exactly. So in other words just because right now our best explanation are those theories we can’t use that to validate any type of a new out there. Yes, that we. Yes,
[00:43:04] Red: and I agree. If so if I’m assessing if I’m assessing what you’re what you’re, let’s, let’s call what you’re laying out here, and you’ve got some direction you’re putting kind of a rough explanation very rough, admittedly, explanation together as to how we might go about solving some of these problems, where we take seriously the idea that the laws of physics themselves may change, because they, they themselves are novel creations. Okay, and you’re throwing other other things out there we may need to take time seriously as actually existing and not being emergent, which means we have to give up on eternalism. You’ve got a rough direction that you’re going with this, but I don’t really have any reason to favor it over really any other speculation at this point.
[00:43:55] Blue: I agree. I agree and I think my idea again you know this is how conjectures are I guess you could say my inspiration came from the poppers thing all life is problem solving. And I’m thinking, and I’m making this observation of the world that there is asymmetry there’s novelty. So if there is novelty, how does that come about in the universe right and then there are these asymmetries in the physical world as well not just in terms of life. Right. And I’m thinking maybe evolution goes deeper than just life, right, you know, so yeah.
[00:44:27] Red: So that and I guess that’s the way I’m looking at it. If I’m thinking of what you’re laying out here as an early conjecture. I find it very interesting. And I want to strongly encourage you and I want to strongly encourage others to take it seriously enough that we get some people looking at it as a possible way of solving some of these known problems that exist. I think it also intersects with what you’re trying to do because I think aren’t we both trying to now as of now trying to figure out how learning takes place.
[00:45:00] Blue: You know, so if we could figure out the general principles behind it like we have the rough idea like what popper gives us but you know in biology it happens a certain way with the genes being around or like the DNA and stuff. So, but what is it that we’re missing and I think you pointed out a little bit of how there are certain aspects of induction. Right.
[00:45:24] Red: Yes.
[00:45:24] Blue: So, so we need to address that we really need to figure out how learning.
[00:45:29] Red: So, and actually let’s use that as an example. So, I’m trying to figure out what learning is I became interested in a GI I’m also interested in artificial narrow kind of artificial intelligence and machine learning. I understand that there’s, those are different areas I’ve, the reason why I did my podcasts on knowledge creation was to show that there actually was that both were a kind of a single thing. Right there’s actually relationship between them, maybe not a strong relationship but there is their both knowledge creating. At least in a certain sense of the word knowledge the way popper and Campbell use that term, a little less clear if it’s true in the way do it uses that term. I’m not trying to deny people who have a different opinion on what they want to define knowledge as I don’t actually care to define words I’m just trying to understand what Campbell and popper we’re getting at. Okay. How does popper’s theory. How does it, how does it tie into artificial intelligence that’s the question I’m trying to ask, whether we call it knowledge or not doesn’t matter to me based on that. I’m trying to take our best it’s theory seriously. If you turn out to be right, then maybe I shouldn’t have taken our best theories, quite so seriously. Or
[00:46:42] Blue: there’s something else though, it is possible I’m not denying that there isn’t such a thing as emergence. So again, you know we have clocks that emerge in the universe. But what we’re saying is, is that the whole picture. So that’s why I made that initial differentiation between novelty and emergence. Maybe that there are certain, like, we might be able to figure out that life is just emergence. And, you know, but but at the same time I can’t help but think that the jump to humans, where now we’re using means does seem a little too like, like, it’s not at the level of genes so what has happened what what allowed.
[00:47:19] Red: So, and now again this goes back to, maybe we solve that problem is there is a real mystery there, not denying that. Maybe we solve that problem by coming up with new laws of physics that that new understanding of the laws of physics maybe I should say where the physics laws of physics themselves emerge as a novelty generating type of evolution. Okay, that’s that’s a possible solution to the mysteries there. Another possible solution is that I don’t need to do that that that I’m going to be able to think about just the current theories that I can just fact I don’t need to think about the current physics theories maybe I only need to think about turning machines and think about computation what the theory of computation. And based on that, I will be able to come up with a GI and solve that problem within the current paradigms. I’m in many ways, assuming I can, even though I don’t know for sure that I can. Okay, do you see what I’m saying here. And that’s not a bad bet. The fact that I’m willing to simply take the current theories, take them seriously even though I know there’s problems and use those as my starting point in in many ways that’s just a smart thing for me to do. Okay, I
[00:48:35] Blue: always feel like sometimes taking a game taking our ideas really seriously and running into failure is something that we actually learned like there is a learning there. Yeah. Right. And also just a quick thing about that that it is also possible that, you know, it has occurred to me I thought about it, that maybe the novelty was the jump in like non human life to humans. But maybe life is more of an emergence rather than novelty, but at the same time and I’m also thinking, look, long time ago we had myths now we have science right, we do mathematics. It seems like there seems to be an evolving law type thing going on in the human phenomena. So, you know, so again this is kind of one of those things that the question is, are we dealing with emergence when it comes to humans and hence, you know, maybe we could create a GI and it’s just emergence. Or are we actually looking at something that is novelty, like every time we are thinking we’re actually generating. Okay,
[00:49:38] Red: so now let me explain to you, not even I have have argued about this over the internet. It’s not that I’ve ever had a problem with the theory that you’re coming up with, or wanted to discourage you from it, or was even truly disagreeing with it. What I’m really trying to say is, there are implications of your theory, even just now, even it’s just Mason state, there are already implications that absolutely matter to what I’m trying to do.
[00:50:07] Blue: Yes, because if I’m right about the human creativity and you’re wrong, then you’re not going to get anywhere. I’m not. Right. Right. One of the things that we’ll see some results.
[00:50:17] Red: Yeah, one of the things that follows from your theory, possibly would have to wait to see what the final theory looks like. But one of the things that really does seem to follow from your theory is that I’m not going to be able to do a GI on a computer. Right, it’ll, it’ll turn out to be physically impossible because true novelty requires these changing laws of physics which are, you know, computational theory slices away from the laws of physics. I kind of hate to call them laws of physics because, you know, when we’re generating novelty in terms of humans, I hate to just make the differentiation between laws of physics and the ones that are not, I just want to call it law, right, laws of nature.
[00:50:54] Blue: Let’s just call it that way because you know when we say laws of physics, some people might specifically think that, oh, am I in my, am I doing something magical here that doesn’t go with electromagnetic laws of electricity. Yeah,
[00:51:04] Red: well, so I understand why you would say that and that’s fine. However, I do think laws of physics is the right thing in this case. And I agree that laws of nature also exist and they’re not the same as the laws of physics. I
[00:51:15] Blue: mean the laws of physics are something again it’s kind of like thinking in terms of the constructor theory what are the possible impossible as long as our brains aren’t doing anything that violates the laws of physics there’s plenty of freedom. Right. We could, you know, we could see electrons doing stuff. So we’re not saying that somehow the electrons have now, you know, but but there is something else going on here right. Yeah,
[00:51:37] Red: let’s, let me use like I put a series of thought experiments out on my blog. And so maybe let’s just talk about those because I think that helps explain what I’m trying to say better. So let’s imagine that we do determine what the AGI algorithm is. We don’t know, like one of the things that I’ve debated with some Deutschians out there is, is all you need the AGI algorithm or do you need some sort of interaction with a world for it to be interesting enough to get the AGI to start to mature. I don’t know the answer that question and it actually doesn’t matter what the answer is for the sake of the thought experiment. If we need some sort of external world for the AGI to mature, then imagine a program self contained program that consists of both a virtual world and one or more AGI. If we don’t need a world for them to interact with then imagine the program without the virtual world and it’s got one or more agis they can interact with with themselves. But they have no ability to interact with our world right there’s they have no inputs other than the initial ones we gave them these initial conditions. And we just start to run the this world of agis that exists inside this computer, and it’s on a deterministic computer. And then we take that same program we give it the same starting point with the exact same inputs, we run it on a slower computer. Okay. One of the things that follows is the thought from this is the thought experiment that I suggested to Chiara is this idea of deterministic nightmare right now you suddenly have.
[00:53:12] Red: There’s just no way around it in in our current understanding of physics in the current understanding of computational theory which is always wholly deterministic, which means inputs plus program will always have the same outputs period end of history there is no way around that under current theory. Okay, you suddenly get what Chiara was calling the deterministic nightmare you’ve got these, these AIs on the faster computer. And you can’t predict what they’re going to do, because they’re they’re moving the fastest there’s there’s no faster version of them to use as a predictor. And there is no big using Stephen Wolfram’s theory here a little bit although some of his theories speculative but some of it isn’t. There is no known way to predict what those agis are going to do on the faster computer that they do not exist in any sort of what Chiara was calling a deterministic nightmare. Okay, not to us not to themselves. Now, you’ve got the slower computer though, that’s the exact same agis with the exact same inputs, you can predict exactly what they’re going to do, because they’re going to do exactly whatever the faster computer was doing. And so, suddenly now are they in a deterministic not deterministic nightmare know Chiara when I asked her that question she said that they were. Okay. I do agree that you can predict what they’re going to do but you can interact with them the moment you interact with them and say oh you’re about to do this, you can no longer predict what they’re going to do, because now you’ve changed the input.
[00:54:41] Blue: Exactly. Okay,
[00:54:42] Red: so I don’t actually believe that from their point of view they’re in a deterministic nightmare either. Okay, to me, I just solved the problem of the deterministic nightmare without having to violate computational theory without having to look for new laws of physics. Now it’s not that I know for sure that computational universality is true. You know, that it couldn’t be false. It’s not that I know the laws of physics are true. You know, we basically know they those are false because we got a lot of problems with them. Okay. That my point is only that this was, in my opinion a pseudo problem to begin with it never was a real problem deterministic nightmare doesn’t matter. It’s an uninteresting problem because it’s not a problem. That’s my opinion. It doesn’t that doesn’t inform me on whether the laws of physics are true or whether universality is going to hold or not. I don’t disagree with Chiara’s answer. She’s she’s right. The laws of physics will determine whether universality holds or not. That’s completely true. That’s a straightforward apparent answer. It’s just that I never saw this as a problem to begin with so that explains why I find it less interesting. Okay, you see where I’m coming from here.
[00:55:56] Blue: Yeah. Okay,
[00:55:58] Red: so based on all this with this experiment that I was that I was trying to use with Chiara there’s a simplified version, which I used with you, which is, am I even able to make these agis in the first place, if I can if this agi algorithm exists. Doesn’t that show that novelty in the human sense can exist in a deterministic environment like a computer yes it does. Okay, because this these agis in this computer, they are in it for all intents and purposes their laws of physics are eternalism.
[00:56:33] Blue: Well, I guess what I’m when I’m thinking is that we live in a world where there are deterministic laws right but but when we’re thinking about computational type of a thing. Then we are restricting we are we are really boiling it down to those laws right, but when when you’re operating in a world as a human does the world is much bigger and we’re wondering how big is the world like you know, else is there. Yes,
[00:56:59] Red: yes. So, one of the things that that possibly follows from your theory, therefore must be if if if eternalism is at odds with novelty in the human sense, then I won’t be able to instantiate an agi on a computer, it will turn out to be physically impossible. Okay, that does follow from that. It
[00:57:21] Blue: is pretty much strictly from that yes.
[00:57:24] Red: Yeah,
[00:57:24] Blue: I am saying the novelty is generated. Yeah, there is something else there is this notion of time right
[00:57:33] Red: now you might try to get around that by saying something like this you might say well. Certain kinds of novelty require that but other kinds don’t but the moment you make a weaker statement like that. Then you have to ask the question well why do I why do I even need this to solve the problem of novelty to begin with. Right. And I think that until there is actually a true theory like when we talk about a true explanation in the, the full paparian sense. We’re talking about something with mathematical precision. Right and there’s so many explanations that exist out there at kind of the intuitive level. And until you really.
[00:58:12] Blue: Paparion epistemology being one of them right. Yes, you know what, that’s
[00:58:17] Red: part of what we’re trying to solve agi will solve epistemology in a way that’s mathematically precise. Okay, that’s why like Ella Hopner has gone down the path of trying to come up with a theory where she formalizes preparing epistemology as a computable theory. Okay. We theories, evolution itself is not a computable theory yet. We don’t know how to compute evolution in such a way that we can get the same types of results that biological evolution does this is what Leslie valiant raises in his book, probably approximately correct, and led to the whole field of, I think it’s called algorithmic evolutionary algorithmic algorithmics or something like that. And really interesting stuff comes out of that is they’re trying to figure out, how do we actually create a true evolutionary algorithm that is open ended in the same way by biology is where our current evolutionary algorithms which there’s tons of them by based on the idea of AI being knowledge creating all the knowledge creating algorithms that I kind of went over in AI, it was a few questions around the ones in the machine learning, but under AI, their search algorithms, and their evolutionary, but they’re super narrow they’re nothing like biological evolution they’re missing really important something. And
[00:59:40] Blue: can I also mention something else so like, even though we’re saying okay we’re trying to so we have this understanding of what papyrus epistemology is we’re trying to instantiate it. I think what papyrus epistemology is missing, which I’m going to say that now, that is the same thing that when we’re saying for example you have the quantum theory right, but then the quantum theory itself. There are, you know, what what exists in the world, and the laws like for example you have charges electromagnetic waves and they’re, that is a separate thing right and then quantum mechanics is more often kind of like overarching kind of like you can say rules. You know it talks about the discreetness of the world and stuff, but it doesn’t have that specifics in there right. So, so I guess what I’m saying is that papyrus epistemology is that general idea, but that doesn’t necessarily but when you’re bringing in a GI as on, you know, as a some sort of theory of computation. That is something you’re putting in as if we were putting in some using some specific theory of the world, whether it pertains to electromagnetic phenomena and then using it with quantum. So, so the question at hand really is, I think, at that level, when we say that what are those deeper laws, we’re really questioning it. So, so in other words, just taking a papyrus epistemology isn’t in itself going to say oh well computational universality. There is something else like how is the world, you know,
[01:01:05] Red: you’re right. Right. Papyrus epistemology does not by itself say anything about computational theory because you’re
[01:01:11] Blue: using it right now in conjunction with saying that, you know that the theory of computation and saying that we can instantiate it that way but but what are the underlying laws really don’t understand in other words what is what is required to create the sort of novelty we’re dealing with in the case of humans. Right.
[01:01:32] Red: So, let me so let me with this in mind, let me kind of back up. I see the problems that you raised, I think several of them, I would completely agree with you are real problems. I think some of them are pseudo problems specifically, I suspect that there is no actual problem of novelty. It’s just something we don’t understand yet, and that it’ll work just fine. I mean, from your,
[01:01:53] Blue: from your point of view, I can see that but but to me saying that there might be novelty is a is a byproduct of everything that I’ve said about why time needs to be taken seriously. That’s not my starting point in other words. You know, it’s kind of well
[01:02:11] Red: I wasn’t quite done. So what I was trying to say is, that’s how I would look at the problem I see some of your problems is legitimate and some of them as I don’t actually think they’re going to turn out to be problems.
[01:02:22] Blue: Yeah,
[01:02:23] Red: however, you have I’m not, you have a specific speculation on how to go about solving these problems. That’s why in your mind they become connected. Because according to that speculation, they would be connected for me to turn out to be right. Let’s say that I’m right and you’re wrong. Let’s say that we you know, 25 years from now, we solve all these problems that’s not going to happen but let’s say we did. We come back and we go okay, you know which ones did Bruce turn out to be right were actual problems versus not real problems. Let’s say I turned out to be entirely right. You know, I had guessed correctly across the board, you know, one of the implications would be that for that to be the case would be that your, your speculation would have to have turned out to have been wrong, for some reason. And I admit that right I’m again I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t continue this line of thought. It’s just that the speculation that the nascent theory itself that you are exploring. It’s what creates the connection. There isn’t necessarily a connection if I’m just looking at current best theories.
[01:03:25] Blue: I agree and even though let’s say that you saw the problem of a GI right that also won’t necessarily say that what I’m thinking is wrong because I’m actually thinking at the level of physics right now, trying to solve problems. And I’m thinking that there may actually be a connection of the problems we’re solving in physics, and the problem of, you know, whether have a GI or not.
[01:03:46] Red: Right. It wouldn’t necessarily make your theory wrong, but it would challenge one aspect of it. It would, it would, it would, it would seem to give a solution to the problem of novelty without ever having to have gotten gotten novelty from the laws of physics.
[01:04:01] Blue: First of all, I am saying that there are emergent phenomena to right.
[01:04:05] Unknown: Yes.
[01:04:05] Blue: That one
[01:04:06] Red: would then become to the status of an emergent phenomenon and you would other parts of your theory in nascent theories are easy to vary right and that’s what I was trying to get at. So of course you could slice off parts of it. And you could reformulate the nascent theory. Once it becomes a true theory then that becomes impossible everything starts to just fall from the theory it’s hard to vary at that point. We’re not there yet right I mean we’re probably a long ways off. Even if you’re right, we’re probably a long ways off we got it you’d have to first get enough people interested in it that have to be a program you’d have to come up with testability. It would have to be turned into a mathematical formula of some sort, so that we can make sense of it, unless your theory actually challenges that with Penrose has theories that challenge that. There’s a long way to go. At this point. So it’s understandable that on the one hand, I can agree with you on some of the problems, but not some of the other problems. That’s really just me saying, Well, I’m still skeptical of your theory I think it’s interesting. But there could be a different answer. Yeah. But you would be right to say yeah but you don’t know what that answer is Bruce and you’re right. If I knew what the answer was I could go program agi today.
[01:05:21] Unknown: Yeah,
[01:05:21] Blue: so I think yes science goes and I see the value in both side I think we both have some legitimate legitimate thing that we’re putting on the table for why we should pursue what we’re pursuing. And I think that that is good enough reason to say that, you know, we hope that some people will take one side series together, and then the future research will reveal like which ideas are more fruitful. The ones will just become like let’s say if I started seeing more and more fruitful stuff coming out of mind, you start attracting more it’s again one of those things you really can’t, you know, what does it mean you falsify something eventually, the better idea is just kind of.
[01:06:03] Red: Yeah, so you know what, I want to make sure one of these days, we’re going to do a another podcast where I went through had my first four, maybe second, third and fourth you could say three podcasts were on poppers epistemology. I need to do another one where where I we go through it again, only with a completely new paradigm of how to look at it, one where we kind of talk through some of the things that have come up so the problems that have been solved. Since Papa originally formulated his epistemology, some of the ways were do itch, although he always claims he’s just footnotes to popper has actually maybe improved upon poppers epistemology.
[01:06:44] Blue: I’ve always felt that way, like, you know, anytime if somebody asked me like if I want to introduce them to popper, I always go for do it because I feel like do itch is giving me something different, which actually led to certain understanding that when I came back to popper I had tough time seeing where popper was actually saying those. And it’s, I don’t know, I see differences and I feel like do itch has a grasp which I find.
[01:07:10] Red: One of the things that you and I have talked about though, just offline is the fact that really falsification never happens.
[01:07:17] Blue: Exactly. I mean, and, and that’s why I really don’t have any problem with using the word test, testable versus falsifiable. Yeah, the notes kind of I put together I was like, Oh, do I do falsifiable all the popperians are going to get pissed off and like, you know what, I’m just going to say, you know, I don’t care.
[01:07:34] Red: Yeah, what really happens in real life is that theories collect problems. And eventually, people can’t figure out how to take a theory and make advances with it, where in the meantime, there’s some other theory out there that’s really fruitful.
[01:07:50] Blue: Exactly. Yeah. And it’s all the same way. Same thing happened to the idea of eater, right, that were Michael some morally experiment just became boring after a while like what were they searching for when something so awesome came along and progress started happening people wanted to do stuff which is more exciting. Yeah, forget about it, not be falsified it at some point we were like, haha, that’s it. We just falsified it.
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