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ToKCast

Brett Hall

This is a podcast largely about the work of David Deutsch and his books ”The Beginning of Infinity” and ”The Fabric of Reality”.

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  • 20 episodes
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  • #272
    October 6 · 56 min

    Ep 271: Super Intelligence: Then and Now. Fiction and Reality. Part 1

    This is Part 1 of 2 where I compare and contrast what philosophers were saying about the possibility of "Super Intelligence" many years ago with respect to the discourse today. What did Nick Bostrom say over a decade ago, and what is he saying today? How is the discourse being framed and what are the major commentators saying, in their own words?

  • #271
    September 22 · 1 hr 43 min

    Ep 270: The Gradient Descent into Doom.

    A spontaneous set of comments on the ongoing AI scare of 2026. What's happening in the media right now, on social media, in culture and at the highest levels of government. Why the pessimism and catastrophism? What can be done? Quite a few slides are referred to, but I do read through them. Incase you want the video - it's here: https://youtu.be/mItTFoYSCcA

  • #270
    September 22 · 15 min

    Ep 269: The Quantum Observer Effect?

    Youtuber Warren Smith of https://www.youtube.com/@SecretScholars made some remarks about the double slit experiment. I assess his claims.

  • #269
    September 7 · 34 min

    Ep 268: AGI has arrived podcast

    Today CEO of the world's most valuable company, Nvidia, Jensen Huang, announced "AGI has arrived". https://x.com/JensenHuang/status/2096700264569090384?s=20 Some reflections on all that.

  • #268
    August 26 · 27 min

    Ep 267: The Orthogonality Thesis is Moral Relativism. (Response to Sam Harris on AI).

    This is in response to episode 489 of Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast - in a section only available via subscription. I have clipped the approximately 60 seconds worth of material I am narrowly responding to for fair use in this commentary. The case unpacked is, roughly, that morality can be disconnected from (is orthogonal to) reason broadly is no more than a restatement of moral relativism - and hence false. Morality and science are about objective reality so cannot be “orthogonal”. Moral progress goes hand-in-hand with reason broadly and any “sufficiently advanced” intelligent system would not only realise this, they must understand it to make unbounded, rapid progress.

  • #267
    August 20 · 32 min

    Ep 266: Facts, Fantasy and Critical Thinking

    A analysis in Popperian style of Candace Owens' "mode" of debate and discussion, approach to evidence and thinking and a comparison to the more mainstream evaluations of this debate.

  • #266
    August 15 · 1 hr 28 min

    Ep 265: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 14 "The Ends of the Universe" Part 2 The Omega Point

    All about the distant future. What does cosmology tell us about the fate of the universe, life and intelligence in some ultimate sense? Frank Tipler's The Omega Point Theory is the primary focus, but throughout we consider the centrality of The Turing Principle for predictions about the future of the cosmos, Roger Penrose's "Conformal Cyclic Cosmology" and some of Freeman Dyson's ideas. Timestamps and Chapters: 0:00 – Introduction: Longevity, Immortality, the Singularity & the Omega Point 5:50 – Recap: The Four Strands, Knowledge & the Multiverse 8:20 – Frank Tipler’s Omega Point Theory Introduced 9:00 – Anthropic Principles (Weak, Strong & Final) 10:30 – The Turing Principle as the Key to the Omega Point 1 3:40 – Modern Cosmology Challenges: Expanding Universe, Dark Energy & Heat Death 20:20 – Cosmological Models That Allow Unlimited Computation (Big Crunch Conditions) 22:00 – Tipler’s Rejoinders & the Case for Eventual Collapse 24:00 – Computers Near the Omega Point & Mutual Implication with the Turing Principle 30:00 – Defending the Strong Turing Principle & the Comprehensibility of Reality 35:00 – Infinite Thoughts, Virtual Reality & Colonisation Deadlines 37:00 – Roger Penrose’s Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC) 43:00 – Freeman Dyson’s Ideas & Infinite Computation in an Expanding Universe 46:50 – Properties of the Omega Point: Omniscience, Omnipotence & Omnipresence 1:15:00 – The Omega Point as “God”, Resurrection & Virtual-Reality Heaven 1:18:50 – Critique of the Technological Singularity (Kurzweil) & Mind Uploading 1:22:00 – The Limits of Far-Future Prediction (Ancient Builder Analogy) 1:25:00 – Conclusions & Takeaways: Take the Turing Principle Seriously

  • #264
    July 4 · 1 hr 30 min

    Ep 263: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 13 "The Four Strands" Part 4 - and final.

    How do the Four Strands of the Fabric of Reality - Quantum Physics, Computation, Epistemology and Evolution by Natural Selection hold together? What does taking them each seriously and all of them together seriously? Is it possible to construct a worldview without one of them or based on a single one alone? What do they imply about free will and consciousness? Doesn't making progress require us to assume them false? All this and more.

  • #263
    May 4 · 1 hr 3 min

    Ep 262: David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality" Chapter 13 "The Four Strands" Part 3

    This episode is heavily focussed on Dawkin's "Selfish Gene" explanation of Darwin's evolution by natural selection. Obviously there are readings from the relevant part of this chapter from The Fabric of Reality but I augment that with sections from "The Selfish Gene" itself as well as "The Beginning of Infinity" as well as a larger portion of me providing additional unpacking and exposition.

  • #262
    April 23 · 38 min

    Ep 261: Objective Morality II

    Do not destroy the means of error correction. A deep unification of knowledge akin to unifying quantum theory with computation to create the theory of quantum computation. David Deutsch will be known for not merely forging the basis of quantum computing but also a new basis for morality and epistemology. I explain much of that here. "What should we do next?" is a question with an answer that is right or wrong, good or evil, better or worse. All existing moral frameworks philosophers debate are theories that can serve as criticisms of "what to do next". Morality is as objective as domain as mathematics, physics or anything else. Relativism, like it's sister philosophy dogmatism is false.

  • #261
    April 5 · 1 hr 6 min

    Ep 260: I don't believe it!

    Response to a question about my discussion with @drpeterboghossian here: https://youtu.be/72vhtT0pFmA?si=hAx1kPho4DkLkBFN This is yet another way of coming at a critique around the concept of "belief" or those who profess to "believe" and so on using Deutsch's approach that knowledge is "information with causal power". I explore that for around the first 40 mins. If you're in a hurry, skip to the final 15 or 20 minutes where I get to responding to the meat of the matter in the question itself.

  • #260
    March 11 · 59 min

    Ep 259: Reaction to Michael Levin Part 3: Bait and Switch, Podcastistan and Surprising(?) algorithms.

    In this, the third and final part of a series, I break down some work Michael Levin has done with sorting algorithms. That seems very dry until you hear his claim that these algorithms that are well known and have been studied for decades exhibit extremely unusual behaviour never before spotted because "no one ever bothered to look". This part of the interview is between Ferris and Levin is referring to this paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10597123241269740 which is available on the arXiv at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.05375 and which a Forbes writer authored this "explainer" of sorts here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2025/11/13/the-secret-life-of-algorithms/ and which Levin himself explains here: https://thoughtforms.life/algorithms-redux-finding-unexpected-properties-in-truly-minimal-systems/ Michael Levin has done some very interesting work in biology around worms regrowing heads and so on. But this "research" is quite a departure from that. Get my book here: https://www.amazon.com/Farthest-Reaches-Important-Entities-Universe/dp/B0GRR2LLZV/ref=sr_1_1?crid=157SNHQC0QFHK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.D5jlSZxhaQmrjzrnV209t0-bvV-i5un48Fwu5tb8Y42AKywnL9YRXJ8ylEe8EPH2SBLoKpU2AXag0llMQ3XfVILgUrAiohRqKjRaBiNdrcUqVQIV6MyEUBdAWiwjufzS4dCs_m5HBm-Px8errzQVyqzjO7F9UEGMeOgpjDGyJBB5Qbi98LHHSYb91z0J5sP9fRT8BaP4wXNvi4p0Va4kbQNBXxPjUb0OOwORDDGbWGo.HBT8A2pQNHYK8NyTIn91VtLaPJEMt17xp7qCt4bNcv4&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+farthest+reaches&qid=1773231582&sprefix=the+farthest+reac%2Caps%2C346&sr=8-1

  • #259
    February 16 · 1 hr 38 min

    Ep 258: Reaction to Michael Levin, Part 2: Bioelectricity, Consciousness and Knowing

    This is the second in a multipart series where I react to some interviews with ‪@drmichaellevin‬ a biologist who, among other things, specialises in bioelectricity. His research can be found here: https://www.drmichaellevin.org and his "explainer articles" for his own professional papers here: https://thoughtforms.life . In this episode I mention the discussion he had with ‪@timferriss‬ which is found here: • Dr. Michael Levin — Reprogramming Bioelect... Part 1 is here: • Reaction to Michael Levin, Part 1: Categor... Part 3 will be out soon.

  • #258
    February 9 · 1 hr 8 min

    Ep 257: Reaction to Michael Levin, Part 1: Categories and Continuums.

    This is the first in a multipart series where I react to some interviews with @drmichaellevin - a biologist who, among other things, specialises in bioelectricity. His research can be found here: https://www.drmichaellevin.org/publications/ and his "explainer articles" for his own professional papers here: https://thoughtforms.life . Although in this first episode I mention the discussion he had with @timferriss which is found here: https://youtu.be/kz1jnoKfRrI?si=O-TTxrVleMbDsEH8 I never actually get to it in this first part. I do comment on Michael's interview with @lexfridman found here: https://youtu.be/Qp0rCU49lMs?si=jYN_SbXCd6ziO_pe and even then only in brief because I'm verbose. Part 2 will be out soon.

  • #257
    January 30 · 1 hr 9 min

    Ep 256: David Deutsch’s ”The Fabric of Reality” Chapter 13 ”The Four Strands” Part 2

    Comparing Kuhn and Popper on Quantum Theory: Here we go deeper into the differences between Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn's account of how science moves from one theory to another. David applies the theory set out in part 1 of this chapter to the specific case of quantum theory. Did social forces have a major impact on whether quantum theory was adopted as Kuhn would have it, or were rational factors like argument and experiment crucial in dictating how science broadly, physics and the community of physicists took on a new "counter-cultural" idea?

  • #256
    January 14 · 1 hr 22 min

    Ep 255: Does this research explain how LLMs work?

    I take a look at these three papers: 1. https://www.arxiv.org/abs/2512.22471 2. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23752 3. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.22473 Collectively titled "The Bayesian Attention Trilogy" along with some other material - in particular an interview with one of the authors "Vishal Misra" - https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/faculty-staff/directory/vishal-misra For those familiar with my output on this you can probably skip to about halfway through at 42:40. Prior to this is a lot of background on Induction, Bayesianism, Critical Rationalism and so on that people may have heard from me before in different contexts - although for what it's worth these are new ways of expressing those ideas. At the end I am reacting to a video found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRuY0ozEm3Q

  • #255
    Dec 25, 2025 · 1 hr 33 min

    Ep 254: Australia: The Land of Bans. (Social Media prohibited for under-16s. Analysis of the arguments "for".)

    This is effectively part 3 in a series of responses to the Prime Minister of Australia about censorship, legislation, policy, philosophy, Bondi and Social Media. The Prime Minister attempted to explain, as best he could, the reasons for banning under-16 year olds from certain social media platforms. I remark on an interview he conducted and make some broader remarks in conclusion to a short series on his response to the Bondi tragedy and other issues. These are largely off-the-cuff rather than prepared remarks - so expect the tone, tenor, tempo and expression to be a little different than usual.

  • #254
    Dec 22, 2025 · 35 min

    Ep 253: Further Comments on the Bondi Massacre.

    Here I remark on comments made by Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Education Minister Jason Clare and then make some broader points about the recent tragedy on Bondi Beach. This is part 2 of a response to the Prime Minister of Australia and others.

  • #253
    Dec 19, 2025 · 1 hr 5 min

    Ep 252: Response to the Prime Minister of Australia

    A reaction "episode" where I make some remarks about a speech by Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, in the wake of the Bondi Beach Massacre by Islamists terrorists who attacked Jews at a Hanukkah celebration on 14 December, 2025

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