David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant — The Fabric of Reality, The Importance of Disobedience, The Inevitability of Artificial General Intelligence, Finding Good Problems, Redefining Wealth, Foundations of True Knowledge, Harnessing Optimism, Quantum Computing, and More (#662)

“Wealth is not a number. I don’t think it can be characterized very well by a number. It is the set of all transformations that you are capable of bringing about. That is your wealth. And if optimism is true, then there’s no limit to wealth.“
— David Deutsch

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!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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#662: David Deutsch and Naval Ravikant — The Fabric of Reality, The Importance of Disobedience, The Inevitability of Artificial General Intelligence, Finding Good Problems, Redefining Wealth, Foundations of True Knowledge, Harnessing Optimism, Quantum Computing, and More

This episode is brought to you by AG1! I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually AG1, 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 AG1 further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system.

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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.

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Want to hear another episode that ponders the nature of reality? Have a listen to my conversation with Professor Donald Hoffman, in which we discuss the science of consciousness, how perception may influence the physical world, the holographic model of the universe, panpsychism (and influential panpsychists), cosmological polytope, the use of hallucinogenic drugs to tap into deeper reality and interact with conscious agents, QBism, the probability of zero that humans evolved to see reality in full, and much more.

#585: Professor Donald Hoffman — The Case Against Reality, Beyond Spacetime, Rethinking Death, Panpsychism, QBism, and More

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with David Deutsch:

Website | Twitter

Connect with Naval Ravikant:

Website | Twitter | Airchat

RESOURCES PROVIDED BY NAVAL RAVIKANT

Critical Rationalism Hub: A hub of relevant resources to learn all about our Critical Rationalism.
ToKCast by Brett Hall: A podcast promoting optimism, unbounded progress and creative critical thinking using the best known explanations from fundamental physics and philosophy.
Brett and Naval’s Podcasts on The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1, Part 2, and interview with David Deutsch.
Airchat Science Channel where Brett and Naval discuss David’s work.
Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee
Aaron Stupple’s room on Airchat goes through the book chapter-by-chapter with unique commentary.
The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals by Chiara Marletto
Logan Chipkin’s interviews with Chiara Marletto and other physicists working on constructor theory
Taking Children Seriously website: Everything TCS related from what to do during a unique situation to the deep underlying explanation binding such a parenting style.
Talk by David Deutsch: Chemical Scum That Dream of Distant Quasars

SHOW NOTES

[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.

MORE DAVID DEUTSCH QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“In many ways, our institutions are wiser than we are. “
— David Deutsch

“AI [artificial intelligence] has nothing to do with AGI [artificial general intelligence]. It’s a completely different technology, and it is in many ways the opposite of AGI … An AGI can do anything, whereas an AI can only do the narrow thing that it’s supposed to do.”
— David Deutsch

“Even the most careful scientific observation is all theory-laden, and theories are inherently fallible.”
— David Deutsch

“Good explanations begin with bad explanations. And you get there—between the bad explanation and the good explanation—by criticism, by conjecturing variance of the story, and then criticizing both them and the original story, and then choosing the one that survives the criticism. And then you can move on from there to a better thing.”
— David Deutsch

“Knowledge can live inside our DNA and our genes, and the genes that are correct and useful get replicated—not just in the universe, but possibly even in the multiverse.”
— David Deutsch

“Wealth is not a number. I don’t think it can be characterized very well by a number. It is the set of all transformations that you are capable of bringing about. That is your wealth. And if optimism is true, then there’s no limit to wealth.“
— David Deutsch

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