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jessenichols

131 karma · joined June 26, 2019

INFINITEDAYS.org
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jessenichols··on How David Bohm and Hugh Everett changed quantum theory
"Claims that the standard procedure for testing scientific theories is inapplicable to Everettian quantum theory, and hence that the theory is untestable, are due to misconceptions about probability and about the logic of experimental testing. Refuting those claims by correcting those misconceptions leads to an improved theory of scientific methodology (based on Popper's) and testing, which allows various simplifications, notably the elimination of everything probabilistic from the methodology (‘Bayesian’ credences) and from fundamental physics (stochastic processes)." – David Deutsch

pdf, The Logic of Experimental Tests, Particularly of Everettian Quantum Theory https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135521981...

jessenichols··on Philosophy of Science 101: What is the problem of induction?
Popper's criterion in a vacuum could seem to be exclusionary, but his philosophy of science involves his underrated idea of evolutionary epistemology. That all theories, seemingly pseudoscientific and the rest, compete to explain something, testable or not. Explanation is the most fundamental aspect, the rival statements compete to solve some problem in terms of how and why.

Read Popper's Ch. 1. Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction https://roamresearch.com/#/app/infinitedays/page/tGbhrzsPK

jessenichols··on Powering the lunar base, version 2
He didn't explain why we can't make a "beefy" nuclear option. It's also the option I would have expected, especially when you think of nuclear subs.
jessenichols··on Replit Mobile App
Repit support here: dm'd you on twitter to figure this out.
jessenichols··on Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health
This just in, food is also misused and proven to cause ill health in the majority of people, stop eating food now.
jessenichols··on Modernity is incompatible with planetary limits: a PLAN for the future
There are no resource limits, only limits to the creativity of people to create explanations that allow us to transform raw materials from one state to another.

See The Beginning of Infinity by Deutsch and More From Less by McAfee.

jessenichols··on Teach your kids bridge, not poker
Teach your kids whatever they're interested in, not X utility
jessenichols··on Against Bayesianism – David Deutsch
For the clearest and most precise view of Deutsch's philosophy of science in the context of quantum theory, read his paper The logic of experimental tests, particularly of Everettian quantum theory: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S135521981...

There's a breakdown of the paper here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHLTBOJ5hoQ&t=42s

A quote mentioning Bayesian Epistemology:

Prevailing discussions (e.g. Dawid & Thébault, 2014; Greaves & Myrvold, 2010) of the testability of various versions of quantum theory have approached the matter indirectly, in terms of support or confirmation – asking how our credence (degree of belief) for a theory should be changed by experiencing results of experiments. However, experimental confirmation is a philosophically contentious concept. Notably, it is rejected root and branch by Popper (1959). I shall present an account of the nature and methodology of scientific testing that closely follows Popper׳s. It differs from his, if at all,3 by regarding fundamental science as exclusively explanatory. That is to say, I take a scientific theory to be a conjectured explanation4 (explanatory theory) of some aspects of the physical world – the explicanda of the theory – that is testable (I shall elaborate what that means below) by observation and experiment. A scientific explanation is a statement of what is there in reality, and how it behaves and how that accounts for the explicanda. Neither confirmation nor credence nor ‘inductive reasoning’ (from observations to theories or to justifications of theories as true or probable) appear in this account. So in this view the problem described in Section 1 is about testing theories.

This contradicts the ‘Bayesian’ philosophy that rational credences obey the probability calculus and that science is a process of finding theories with high rational credences, given the observations. It also contradicts, for instance, instrumentalism and positivism, which identify a scientific theory with its predictions of the results of experiments, not with its explanations. My argument here, that Everettian quantum theory is testable, depends on regarding it as an explanatory theory, and on adopting an improved notion of experimental testing that takes account of that.

Scientific methodology, in this conception, is not about anyone׳s beliefs or disbeliefs. Rather, it assumes that someone has conjectured explanatory theories (though it says nothing about how to do that), and it requires those who know (i.e. are aware of) those theories and want to improve them, to attempt to locate specific flaws and deficiencies and to attempt to correct those by conjecturing new theories or modifications to existing theories. Explicanda in the sciences usually involve appearances of some sort (e.g. the perceived blueness of the sky). Theoretical matters can also be explicanda (e.g. that classical gravity and electrostatics both have an inverse-square force law), but those will not concern us here. Explanations of appearances typically account for them in terms of an unperceived, underlying reality (e.g. differential scattering of photons of different energies) that brings about those appearances (though not only them).

jessenichols··on David Deutsch’s Constructor Theory
It's amazing work. Building from his work around The Beginning of Infinity, and The Fabric of Reality (1997), which Naval has been doing a podcast on: https://nav.al/agi
jessenichols··on Why don't we use the math we learn in school?
Because most school is forced knowledge work on problems that don't fit the person's problem situation.

When people are free, they learn the math they need for the problems they are trying to solve.

Traditional, compulsory school forces children to solve problems they don't have. See Karl Popper's idea of the bucket theory of mind, or David Deutsch and Taking Children Seriously.

jessenichols··on Review of “The Fabric of Reality” by David Deutsch (2001) [pdf]
It's an amazing book. Best popular science book next to his other book, The Beginning of Infinity.

Naval's, Ravikant Capital's Technical Advisor Brett Hall does an amazing unpacking of the book on his youtube/podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_2C21gIgzY&list=PLsE51P_yPQ...

jessenichols··on Why A.I. Moonshots Miss
Epistemology http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Po...

https://aeon.co/essays/how-close-are-we-to-creating-artifici...

jessenichols··on People
+1 for David Deutsch http://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/
jessenichols··on Do We Need a Theory of Everything?
I don't think he has attempted to fold epistemology into physics or has a deep understanding of evolutionary epistemology and how it connects with computation or mechanics.
jessenichols··on Do We Need a Theory of Everything?
David Deutsch is the only person who has a theory of everything, not just for mechanics. He connects quantum theory (he wrote the first quantum algorithm), evolution (of genes and memes), and computation into the only true theory of everything. It's elegant, meaning the explanation of the theory is beautiful and highly structured. He presents it in The Fabric of Reality (1997) and has since been building it into constructor theory http://constructortheory.org/