chat with David Deutsch about The Beginning of Infinity
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- Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
- Just hanging out with my favorite physicist
Check out David's channel: / daviddeutschoxford
Follow David on Twitter: / daviddeutschoxf
Buy David's book THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY: amzn.to/2x2O7DI
Buy Visa's ebook INTROSPECT: gum.co/introspect
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Timestamps:
0:00 hello
2:40 what David means by parochialism
4:00 having a broad horizon is not a virtue in itself
4:20 all problems are parochial, some solutions are universal but most aren’t
5:00 Visa: the impulse to generalize as a distraction from solving the problem
6:00 David: if you’re writing a computer program…
6:40 creativity in science
7:20 remixes
8:35 David doesn’t want to influence people / save the world, “I just have some ideas, some guesses”
9:30 the purpose of conversation is the fun of exchanging ideas
11:00 Visa: do you share the assessment that your playful POV is uncommon? DD: wrong ideas about epistemology embedded in culture, deeply wrong with the prevailing theory of knowledge
12:10 David: the bucket theory of the mind, of knowledge
14:00 Visa: nuclear fusion reactors and the deficit of imagination
15:10 David: the weight of a static society bearing down on you and your creativity
16:20 David: somebody invented fire
16:30 Visa: and maybe they were burnt at the stake
16:45 Visa: Fritz Haber and the consequences of inventions
17:50 violating tradition would have been dangerous
19:00 not creating knowledge is worse than dangerous
20:00 when you encourage people to be creative, you’re encouraging danger… danger bad, but no creativity bigger bad
21:30 risks as a billionaire trying to be creative
22:00 glad when people behave optimistically
22:40 self-coercion covers all unhappiness
25:50 self-loathing, you’ve granted authority to the loather
26:40 we have made the earth more hospitable to us
27:20 trevor noah and the ability to charm a hostile audience
29:45 a culture can be more or less amenable to welcoming deviant people - foreigners, people who don’t understand the customs
30:00 the most successful societies are also the most tolerant, or vice versa. Accommodating deviance
33:00 refreshing to encounter people who are freshly optimistic
34:00 the fire metaphor (as opposed to the bucket)
34:30 language acquisition for children - the fire is already burning
35:00 the role of the teacher is to not put out the fire
37:00 musical geniuses don’t think
38:20 Paul graham on essays and confidence
39:10 earliest questions?
39:20 theory of the mind, self-awareness
40:00 David doesn’t think that thinking about one’s thinking is very helpful - flow happens when you’re thinking about the subject. you... are not there
41:30 counting to 100 and beyond
42:00 Archimedes
43:00 Feynman made a mistake
44:10 all theories are misconceptions
44:30 David’s next book
46:00 universal programmable constructors
49:00 jump to universality
51:00 our intuition for manufacturing
52:20 people can’t imagine what they’d do with 10x, 100x more income
54:50 Silicon Valley billionaires keeping their kids away from tech
58:30 the unfortunate paradigm of conventional education theories
58:50 anti-rational and rational memes
1:02:40 criticisms help correct errors in rational memes
1:03:50 rational memes as a cause for optimism
1:05:00 artificial pessimism
1:06:30 closing remarks on parochialism
Hi Visa. I really enjoyed your conversation with David.
The moment I liked most was when you asked him about how it all stared for him as a child. He told the story about how he was wondering whether counting goes on forever. I had a similar moment as a child and remember that my mind was blown when my dad explained infinity to me.
I found David through his conversation with Sam Harris and immediately fell in love with his thinking. But for me, he was always "David the intellectual" not "David the human". Your conversation showed me his other side and how he embodies his philosophy as a kind, optimistic and veracious person.
I don't know you (and your work) very well, but through this conversation I started to think of you as a kind of role model. I always had the sense, that the internet culture punishes people that seek to earnestly express themselves and try to find the truth via the internet. You give me courage to use the internet not just as a consumer, but also as a person trying to connect with people.
Thank you!
Cheers Treffer! This was something that was important to me and I'm really glad that you saw it too. Connection is absolutely what we could and should be striving for. :-)
Visa
@@visakanv would you mind sending us your email? We'd like to reach out and offer you free editing services to remove the interjection you make. We can do this for free if you agree to repost this video. Let us know,
Thanks for this great interview Visa. This is the most fun and entertaining Deutsch interview thanks to you.
Always a great pleasure to hear David. Thanks for asking him questions from a unique perspective so I can see how his ideas work in different contexts!!
Glad to be helpful! 🤓
Dwarkesh, this video was so difficult to watch. Visa is so cringey it almost made me sick and it was so uncomfortable to sit through it was almost physically painful. Perhaps you can reach out to visa and encourage him to get help. We are worried about his mental condition.
@@ChrisVallejos who’s “we”? 😂
@@visakanv mutual acquaintances, which you have very few it’s come to light
I'm ready to preorder David Deutsch's upcoming book the second I'm able to do so.
Should it be out soon?
I loved the idea that David Deutsch has about the main point of a conversation is the fun from exchanging ideas. I'm so happy you had this conversation Visa, I had fun listening to it. You two truly embody the philosophy of fun, playfulness, and optimism.
This is a nice surprise and well done. Happy the next book is in the works !
This was a very interesting conversation, on both sides. Kudos, keepnup similar content, v
Oh my god!!!!🤩🤩🤩 David Deutsch with Visa!!!
🥰😎
I'm more ready than I've learned to become.
Now that I've watched this exchange several times I have perhaps even more admiration for David Deutsch than ever before. He is able to raise the level of narrative from a polyglot of rather unspecific, pedestrian questions to transcendent universality, again and again-spontaneously and amidst disruption and continual reduction of the scope of ideas. -What a superlative mind and character!
Mind boggling conversation
Thank you 🙏 for doing this interview.
I loved David’s mug. Btw, we also use the word parochial in Portuguese with the same meaning ('paroquial')
David is always articulate
@visa Great conversation with a brilliant mind and love how you approached it by practically applying many of these fascinating concepts from the book into different problems/context. 1h was too short!
Thanks Rohith! I appreciate your thoughtful observation
Nice
No point asking David some of the most interesting and unique questions amongst all his conversations, and then interrupting/changing directions before he can offer full analysis. Great questions though. Wish I got to hear his take on them. Nice to hear your take on his book. Do you do events in Singapore?
Haha yeah I guess I get interrupty when I get nervous! Trying to learn and practice being more patient. I was hoping to organize some things but then Covid happened...
visa Heh, I guess a podcast is diff to get used to. Good topics still. One of the most interesting ones with DD. What did David think about it? Do you have these sorts of conversations elsewhere? COVID in Singapore is 😢
I suspect that for a culture to move away from deviance-intolerance it must discover some other mechanisms for strangers to signal that they are trustworthy. Speaking the same language and having similar physical appearance and social customs probably used to be the best signal for most cultures, and a culture needs to find better signals if it wants to overcome xenophobia.
A universal language is a good start, and English, for good or for bad, is probbaly it. The issue then is to find ways to educate kids to be more tolerant and oriented towards social good, not money, since xenophobia is partly accelerated by capitalism --- the need to "get ahead" of the "other" --- but it need not be this way. A culture can always be structured around a sharing economy, more socialistic, or at least more of a healthy mix of production incentives, since money profit is not the best (it rewards M-C-M'-M'', so money hoovering up more money, which is unproductive.)
It is funny that people dont like your style.
One of the gratest intellectual virtues is to be able to treat your conversional partner as equal dance partner no matter who he/she is.
Failing to realize this you will not be able to open and feel the magic of real semi-spontaneous informal conversations where two intellectual wonderers symbiotically coemerge.
I appreciate that you appreciate it! Though I can definitely get better at learning not to interrupt 😅
Yeah, maybe you were too excited to be a good dance partner. But that too had benefits, you managed to cheer up David and get more from him.
Timely and relevant interruptions matter for a lively conversation.
However the intention of the interrupter and how much he/she is able to contribute matter even more.
How did you manage to get Deutsch of all people?
We have a mutual friend who introduced us
You have some influential friends...
Also, is it possible for you to repost this with your interjections edited out?
21:15 Risk doing big things
I was surprised to hear Popper has a theory called "the fuck it theory of the mind" xD (12:06)
Just a tip. It would greatly increase your value, and probably your viewership, if you didn´t interject affirmative words while the guest is speaking. I know from experience that this can be tough, since you might be nervous when talking to a person who´s viewpoint you value, but it makes for a much better watch if you don´t have that background "noise" when the guest is talking.
Just a thought, leave it or take it.
Best,
Ben
I personally find this unbearable to listen to, because of that distraction, although your list of topics seems interesting and very different from other interviews with Deutsch I´ve seen.
I agree. It was distracting. Great topics though. I would’ve liked to hear David have more uninterrupted air time to elaborate/complete his analysis.
Sure would be nice if the interviewer wasn't constantly clucking "Mhmm" "Yeah" "Right" "Yep" "Ah" "Uh huh".
Thanks for the interview, but please learn to listen and respect your brilliant guest. The constant interruptions with useless comments is annoying.
New subscriber. Not even watched yet.
Thanks Richard! Looking forward to hearing what you think once you do!
@@visakanv Thanks a lot for organising. For future interviews I'd suggest a list of succinct questions. Cheers!
Visa, no point inviting people to your show and then not let them speak...
Yes exactly. I’m thinking about reaching to Visa to remove this video. We are thinking of paying to get it removed since it looks really bad for David to have a video like this up,
@@ChrisVallejos Is that what Deutsch wants? If he didn't want it up I'm sure he would've said so to Visa. I for one am glad the video is up, it gave me some useful and throught provoking ideas, like that it maybe isn't that useful to think much about one's thinking, something I do a lot, and now I will focus more effort to find criticisms of my theories of why I do that. I hope the video stays.
Commentator babbles too much. David Deutsch's ideas are golden and his appearances too rare.. He should have been allowed to speak much more..this interviewer couldn't keep quiet for the length of a sentence.
I believe that part of why David agreed to have this conversation is that I framed it as a chat, and not as an interview. 🤓
Firstly - I very much appreciated the style of the conversation which made Deutsch's thinking a bit more graspable.
Secondly you could have stated the sentiment a lot more polite! That's why I'd propose you to interview Deutsch in the matter you wish once you get the chance to (which I really do since I agree with you about his golden ideas) !
@@jjphenom2831 Sorry to seem impolite. I only meant to critique the format style for functional reasons. I've watched everything Dr. Deutsch has on video (often many times-to understand them) and in none is his flow and train of thought so constrained as in this one. I mean the continual insertions and interruptions while he's speaking are just distracting and dissonant, in my opinion. For those who liked this nonetheless, I recommend watching his other vids...they are pearls beyond price..
@@visakanv Good. Except the constant prompting and insertions of agreement, polite as they may seem, are plainly interrupting and distracting your guest. Glad you interviewed him though...can't have too much David Deutsch! Thanks.
@@Lance_Lough I like the interviewer, and enjoyed the video - but agree with your points. Specifically, the use of the phrase "so true" sort of implies you had the interviewee's perspective/insight all along when you may have just been hearing/thinking about that point for the first time. In any event, I wish any interviewer (in all sorts of contexts) would follow the mantra: "Act like you're never going to speak to this person again, their time in general on this earth is finite, and they have experience that you wish to garner - thus give them space to let them say things that might truly bring an interview to life and leave it an indelible record that you, as an interviewer, will be proud of being involved in"
Visa, I hope you learned from this talk, looking back at it, how immaturely you handled this conversation. It’s quite poor of you to cut off your guest, interrupt, talk over them, interject continuously. It’s a bad look, but Deutsch was nice enough to stick with it.
I Google/RUclips David Deutsch at least once a month to see what’s out there. Heard almost everything I could find. With all due respect I have to say this interview is very very annoying and disappointing....you didn’t listen to him you constantly interrupted him and did way too much talking. David Deutsch is perhaps the top intellectual on the planet. Ask your question -shut up like a good host and Let the guy talk. ❤️
I’ve watched every video of Davids and I couldn’t even finish this one. I think Visa must be a total creep and it’s in a way good if we can’t get him to remove the video because it will help people see what he is really about and avoid him.
@@ChrisVallejos 😂 yes, please make sure you tell all of your friends about what a creep I am and how they should avoid me!
I think it’s people you might potentially cross paths with that need to be on alert, not people I know.
Do you know what u are saying?
You ask him specifically what a universal constructor is, right?
As he starts to explain you say "right"??? What does that mean? Not only do you interrupt but u also assume to understand what he means from his first four words, wtf? He will ignore this politely and continue, then you come in and go "yes" or "mmmm" or "right" or some stupid shit...ffs what are you doing?
He hasn't even half explained what you asked and your trying to shut him down at every opportunity. Throughout the whole interview you are constantly interjecting with right,yes,right,mmm,yes,right...let the man speak and control your ego.
Couldn't watch it after a few minutes in due to your interruptions. I had the same problem during my past interviews. I think it's due to the fear of losing control.
@46:00 universal constructors are miss-named. Also bullsh*t scifi. You cannot make a UC because it'd "solve the Halting Problem" so-to-speak: you cannot program into the thing the instructions to build anything possible, you can only program in what _you_ know is possible (and by logical + evolutionary programming extension of what you know). Such concepts do exist in cellular automata worlds and so forth, but such math worlds are not energy constrianed and have an enumerable set of possible objects.
The best one could do is a quasi-universal assembler that with an arbitrary amount of mass-energy can make anything from some finite set of objects. They are only well-defined in a limits environment (conservation of mass-energy of course being the limit to truly "universal" constructors). The von Neumann idea is that a UC would at least be able to reproduce a copy of itself. So more like a Self-assembler (some others stuff) rather than a universal assembler.