The Theory of Anything Bruce Nielson

This week we discuss the book Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (1908), perhaps the most famous defense of the Christian tradition. We contrast this with Karl Popper’s talk, “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition” (1948), from his collection of essays, Conjectures and Refutations.

We consider: What is the role of tradition in science and knowledge? Is there a relationship between liberalism and Christianity? Is Chesterton actually a rationalist? What are the paradoxes of Christianity? Is there a link between madness and rationality?


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Here Bruce reflects on AI researcher Kenneth Stanley’s assertion that setting specific, measurable goals may actually hinder discovery and innovation, which he writes about in his book, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective. How does Stanley’s insight relate to critical rationalism, education, and life in general?



We cover topics including:


Why are objective sometimes misleading?
When are objectives appropriate and when are they misleading?
How did Stanley and his team discover the problems with objectives?
How does this relate to the problem of open-endedness?
How did he implement a program to explore alternatives? What was the result?
What are implications for AI/AGI, scientific research, and education?
How does these theories relate to Darwinian evolution and Popperian epistemology?
Are natural selection and biological evolution the same thing?
How important is 'selection' to knowledge creation?



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Is the universal explainer hypothesis falsifiable? How does the concept of universality relate to human minds? Is anything truly beyond human comprehension? And how would you frame universality as an interesting topic at a party?



This week we also feature a guest, Dan Gish, a fellow traveler Bruce has connected with on Twitter. Dan (on Twitter) had questions about if the incomprehensibility of LLMs refuted the universal explainer hypothesis. This was Bruce's attempt to give him an honest answer to Dan's questions.



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How do humans form 'fuzzy categories'? How does this all relate to essentialism? Is essentialism false? Or is it partially true? And how does this all relate to Critical Rationalism?


Picking up where we left off last week, Bruce gets
deeper into Douglas Hofstadter’s ideas on language and the mind and his assertion that “analogy-making lies at the heart of intelligence.”

Bruce considers how Hofstadter’s theories may be interwoven with ideas on language and cognition promoted by Steven Pinker in "How the Mind Works" along with, as usual, the epistemology of Karl Popper and David Deutsch.

We again consider if this is an inductive theory? And how should critical rationalists view theories like this?


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This is the first of our two part series (that may or may not be released back-to-back) where Bruce delves into the work Douglas Hofstadter, specifically the book Surfaces and Essences. We consider what is the relationship—if there is any—between critical rationalism and Hofstadter's idea that analogy is a core mechanism of human cognition. Is it fair to criticize Hofstadter's ideas as being inductivism in disguise? Could something like what Hofstadter suggests (i.e. analogy) be central to human consciousness and creation of AGI?


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Here we discuss a 1992 interview with David Deutsch where he makes the case that video games are inherently educational, not addictive, and that children should not be stopped from playing as much as they want. We contrast the view of humans, science, and knowledge promoted there by David Deutsch with the more pessimistic view of thinkers such as Jonathan Haidt today. Bruce and Peter reflect on their own mixed feelings on this issue both as critical rationalists and parents.


David Deutsch on video games:
https://takingchildrenseriously.com/video-games-a-unique-educational-environment/

Peter briefly quotes from this recent article by Jonathan Haidt:
https://www.thefp.com/p/jonathan-haidt-worried-about-the-boys-too


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