Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 900M+ users, FreshBooks cloud-based small business accounting software, and Athletic Greens’s AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement. David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf) is a visiting professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation, a part of the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, and an honorary fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He works on fundamental issues in physics, particularly the quantum theory of computation and information and especially constructor theory, which he is proposing as a new way of formulating laws of nature. He is the author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity, and he is an advocate of the philosophy of Karl Popper. Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the co-founder of Airchat and AngelList. He has invested in more than 100 companies, including many mega-successes, such as Twitter, Uber, Notion, Opendoor, Postmates, and Wish. You can see his latest musings on Airchat, and subscribe to Naval, his podcast on wealth and happiness, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find his blog at nav.al.For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020. Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon. Please enjoy!*This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 900 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by FreshBooks. I’ve been talking about FreshBooks—an all-in-one invoicing + payments + accounting solution—for years now. Many entrepreneurs, as well as the contractors and freelancers that I work with, use it all the time.FreshBooks makes it super easy to track things like expenses, project time, and client info and then merge it all into great-looking invoices. And right now, there’s a special offer just for my listeners. Head over to FreshBooks.com/Tim to get 90% off your FreshBooks subscription for 4 months.*This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1 by Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and 5 free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.*[08:03] The impact The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity have had on Naval.[10:07] The four strands.[13:04] Dispelling common misconceptions about science.[19:26] How does knowledge grow?[24:26] The benefits of understanding the four strands.[32:47] How quantum computing arose from trying to test a multiverse theory.[37:40] What a good explanation looks like.[42:43] How do conjecture and criticism give us a basis for optimism?[48:38] Translating knowledge into action.[51:20] Artificial intelligence (AI) vs. artificial general intelligence (AGI).[56:54] AGI is people! But how do we ensure it’ll be good people?[1:03:03] What’s taking AGI so long to get here?[1:08:59] Chemical scum that dream of distant quasars.[1:17:47] Are humans central to the universe, or just a sideshow?[1:20:17] Wealth and resources.[1:25:30] Recommended thinkers.[1:28:05] Taking Children Seriously, ToKCast, Critical Rationalists, and Popper 101.[1:31:55] David’s most interesting problems right now.[1:39:24] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
FreshBooks streamlines bookkeeping and accounting tasks such as time tracking, invoicing, and expense tracking, saving up to 11 hours a week according to a survey of over 10,000 customers.
Naval explores the counterintuitive learnings from successful people and captures their valuable lessons for posterity in this podcast for curious people who want to learn to think more clearly and live more optimistically.
Sam Harris discusses an array of topics such as scientific method, principle of optimism, knowledge creation, quantum computation, and theory of the multiverse to help truth seekers make sense of the world and make better decisions.
The process of developing knowledge, including scientific knowledge, starts with identifying a problem and making a conjecture. The scientific institutions and procedures then ensure that the correct outcome is reached through testing and competition between competing theories.
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of epistemology in political theory. People can't deduce the properties of the virus from their political theories nor can they deduce the best policies to follow during the pandemic. Understanding the four strands of evidence can help individuals gain a basic understanding of the pandemic and make informed decisions.
The speaker discusses the potential of using quantum mechanical bits in a computer to run an artificial general intelligence program and the misunderstandings around Everett's multiverse version of quantum theory.
The rejection of supernatural is due to the fact that an explanation that involves the supernatural is not a good explanation. One can come up with a good explanation through criticism and conjecturing variants of the story that survive the criticism, as seen in the case of Darwin and Mendel's theories.
This podcast talks about the limits of understanding and how it contradicts accepting bad explanations. It includes notes on how physical problems can be solved by explanations and governed by laws of physics.
To create AGI, we need to know what we want it to be and be able to test the theory. But if we try to build an AGI with a limited capacity to make mistakes, it's like trying to cage humans of a certain kind.
The way AI makes a decision is by working its way back through a long chain of reasoning to its fundamental motivation, which should not involve crippling someone's brain to get its way.
With the expanding view of the universe, humans are just a tiny part of it, and our ideas about how we want to live, physics and laws can all conflict with each other. The universe could last for a very long time, whether infinite or finite.
The creation and sharing of knowledge has the potential to violate the hierarchy rule of the universe and transform other planets, allowing for the possibility of humans to control the galaxy. Knowledge has the ability to cause itself to be replicated in the environment due to its usefulness.
The value of knowledge is unlimited and surpasses material possessions like gold in the long run, as other means for obtaining it will be discovered. Wealth is a byproduct of knowledge and meaning, and it dominates those who lack them.
Constructor Theory is a theory of all things that can and cannot be done, which is considered as a theory of physics, applying principles to politics and the mimic warfare on Twitter. It delves deeper into understanding moral knowledge and the possibility of objective progress in it, while returning the notion of common sense.
The speaker emphasizes the importance of not stopping the growth of knowledge and that anti-rational memes, censorship, and beliefs systems can hinder progress. The moral imperative is to not destroy the means of error correction.
Tim Ferriss shares how a collection of articles, books, music, gadgets, and even esoteric things sent by podcast guests have greatly expanded his knowledge base. He also emphasizes the value of thoroughly reading a text to truly understand it and connect with the wisdom it offers.
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