Bruce compares Donald Campbell’s evolutionary epistemology and David Deutsch’s ideas on infinite knowledge growth. What is knowledge growth? Is it a rare thing limited to only biological evolution and human ideas, as Deutsch seems to argue? (Does he argue that?) Or is it a ubiquitous process that happens all around us at all levels of nature as Campbell argues? Is knowledge created in human minds an incremental process, as Campbell might emphasize, based on blind variation and selection? Or as D...
Dec 02, 2025•40 min
In this shorter episode Bruce takes a deep dive into logical fallacies. How useful are logical fallacies? Does pointing out a logical fallacy help correct errors? Does doing so make us more rational? Can we become more logical by avoiding ad hominem attacks, not straw-manning or appealing to authority, and avoiding slippery slopes? And is there a difference between a logical fallacy and a rational fallacy? If so, which is more important?
Nov 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 122
In our previous episode covering Strevens' critique of Popper, we briefly touched on why Bruce believes it it a mistake for CritRats to say they don't believe in beliefs. This time Bruce takes a deep dive into beliefs -- and walks back his previous statement a bit. Do humans need beliefs? Are beliefs dangerous? What is the critical rationalist position on beliefs? What did Popper say? And can we even realistically live without beliefs? And along the way, Bruce criticizes "the disobedience criter...
Nov 18, 2025•2 hr 43 min•Season 1Ep. 121
This week Bruce puts Popper on trial. Specifically, through the lens of Michael Stevens’s book, The Knowledge Machine , which argues that science works because it follows the “iron law of explanation” where scientists must (at least in public) put aside philosophy, politics, and theology and only follow empirical evidence. Bruce asks, how compatible is this view with the epistemology of Karl Popper?And does Strevens' critique of Popper ring true? Or is it a strawman?...
Nov 11, 2025•1 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 120
This week we interview Logan Chipkin. Logan is a writer and author of several books. Recently he co-authored and published The Sovereign Child about raising children without coercion, and The Lords of the Cosmos , which tells the story of progress through the lens of good philosophy. Logan is also the president of Conjecture Institute , which is a brand new organization dedicated to promoting the worldview of Karl Popper and David Deutsch. ( Follow on X )Here we discuss the New Right vs libertar...
Oct 28, 2025•1 hr 55 min•Season 1Ep. 119
This week we talk to Micah Redding, the host of the Christian Transhumanist podcast. We discuss: What is the significance of a singularity? What is free will from a many worlds perspective? Does Omega Point cosmology solve the problem of evil? And most importantly, will my sweet dog Jojo join me in the afterlife?
Oct 14, 2025•2 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 118
This week we had the absolute honor of interviewing Jonathan Rauch. Rauch is an extremely influential public intellectual (journalist and author) who is also a Popperian. His 1993 book, Kindly Inquisitors , makes the epistemic case for free speech. It is a stone cold classic that will be with us for a long time. In his 2021 sequel, The Constitution of Knowledge , he considers how society collectively produces knowledge and the dangers of misinformation. He has also written a book that provided t...
Sep 30, 2025•1 hr 53 min•Season 1Ep. 117
This week Bruce take a deep critical rationalist dive into Michael Strevens’s book, The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science , which is an attempt to describe how science is a self-correcting system designed to create knowledge based on explanation. The book is somewhat critical of Popperian falsification, though the reading of Popper presented may be a superficial reading. Bruce describes how Strevens’s “iron rule of science” or the idea that we should settle science base...
Sep 16, 2025•2 hr 17 min•Season 1Ep. 116
This week we consider: Is falsification falsifiable? Was Popper a “naive falsificationist”? Why do so many people think he was? (Including at least one of his own students!) Is falsification itself a philosophical theory that makes it immune from falsification? Does the Duhem-Quine problem, or the assertion that theory exist in an interwoven web of other theories, create a problem for falsification? What exactly is falsification anyhow? It's about showing that a theory is false, right? Right? Po...
Sep 02, 2025•1 hr 56 min•Season 1Ep. 115
Starting in the 1950s, Popperian Donald Campbell developed a theory of "evolutionary epistemology" (coining that term in the process) that expanded Karl Popper’s ideas about scientific knowledge and learning into the natural world. Campbell intended a universal theory of how 'all increases in fit of system to environment' work based on a meta-algorithm (or class of algorithms sharing certain features) he called blind-variation-and-selective-retention. Could it be that nature creates knowledge th...
Aug 19, 2025•2 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 114
This week Bruce takes a deep dive into anthropologist Joseph Henrich’s book: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter . Bruce outlines Henrich's hypothesis that human evolution occurs at the level of culture as much as genes and that this collective mind may be far superior to any individual. Bruce considers ways this theory may or may not be consistent with David Deutsch’s ideas on static and dynamic societies. What we c...
Aug 06, 2025•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Bruce first explains the difference between arguing over concepts vs arguing over words. Then Bruce examines assertions about probability and randomness in the critical rationalist community. Why does David Deutsch insist that there is no such thing as 'randomness'? What does the many worlds interpretation really say about this? Is all 'randomness' really just pseudo-randomness? Is this really a conflict between concepts or just an argument over words? Support us on Patreon...
Jul 22, 2025•1 hr 12 min•Season 1Ep. 112
What precisely is a static vs dynamic society? It is possible to take this down to the level of machine learning? Could this distinction turn into a testable theory? What are the alternatives to what Deutsch proposes? Is Deutsch's theory of static societies testable? What exactly is a culture or criticism and how is this intertwined with the Enlightenment? Which came first: the Enlightenment or the Scientific Revolution? Support us on Patreon...
Jul 08, 2025•1 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 111
We once again get together some of the smartest people we know for a discussion that gets into foundational issues, this time in the form of the classic battle between the dystopian novels 1984 and Brave New World. But it was really much less of a debate than a discussion in line with Popper’s defining principle of critical rationalism: “I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth.”Guests: Vaden Masrani (Increments podcast, X: @Vaden Masrani) Sam Kuypers...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 110
In this round table discussion with Ivan Phillips and Sadia Naeem, we begin by discussing differing viewpoints on “third way evolution,” or a gene-centric viewpoint vs a more holistic view of natural selection. The discussion evolves into a deep dive into emergence and reductionism and many interwoven ideas.Ivan Phillips is author of Textbook Rationality about rationality education, and a new book titled Counterargument from Design that counters arguments for design in evolution. Sadia Naeem, li...
Jun 10, 2025•3 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 109
This week we are joined by fellow traveler Dan Gish to discuss LLMs and AGI. Does it really, truly make sense to think that OpenAI or DeepMind are not at least an important stepping stone towards the creation of human-level creativity? What does it mean when CritRats assert that these AI algorithms are the opposite of human intelligence because they are obedient whereas we are disobedient? Support us on Patreon...
May 27, 2025•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Here we discuss fidesim and critical rationalism. Fideism has many definitions, but at least how we are thinking of it, it is the idea that something like faith has validity in the process of moving closer to truth through reason. Our starting point is a paper written by prominent Popperian Joseph Agassi about how William Bartley, another critical rationalist philosopher closely associated with Popper, had a falling out with Popper after he accused Popper of being a fideist, which Popper apparen...
May 13, 2025•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 107
This week we discuss a short interview with Karl Popper from 1969 where he discusses God and religion. Specifically, he makes a case for agnosticism, asserts that all men are religious, and discusses the problem of evil. We use this as a starting point to consider if we live in an inherently meaningful universe or one ruled by something like entropy. We discuss arguments for the former related to fine tuning, causation, and beauty. Bonus: Bruce proclaims himself one of those much hated Fideists!...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 25 min•Season 1Ep. 106
This week Bruce speaks about the work or Michael Levin, who is a biologist know for his work on cell cognition and collective intelligence or the idea that electrical signals between cells influence the formation of biological systems. His work has potentially massive implications in cancer research and other fields. Though rarely identified with 3rd way evolution, his work has more than a passing similarity to it. Like 3rd way evolutionists, he seeks to expand evolutionary theory beyond the all...
Apr 08, 2025•1 hr 52 min•Season 1Ep. 105
How well do the collection of assertions called “3rd way evolution” stand up to criticism? Here, in our second of at least 3 episodes on this topic, Bruce considers the criticisms of Denis Noble and James Shapiro by YouTuber and evolutionary biologist Zach Hancock in his epic video on the subject. Perhaps the role of epigenetics is overstated, Lamarckism is not back, and neo-Darwinism is not dead after all. Support us on Patreon...
Mar 18, 2025•1 hr 58 min•Season 1Ep. 104
This week we discuss neo-Darwinism vs post-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism meaning a gene centric view of evolution, which is also called the great synthesis since it unifies natural selection with genetics and paleontology and perhaps even human psychology. Post-Darwinism is a view that emphasizes factors outside random mutation, like epigenetics or the assertion that organisms and cells can alter their own genome in a beneficial way. Here Bruce specifically concentrates on the work of biologist James...
Feb 25, 2025•1 hr 54 min•Season 1Ep. 103
This time we discuss Nassim Nicholas Taleb's article "IQ is Largely a Pseudoscientific Swindle" -- a title whose compliment is that he's claiming IQ is a bit scientifically valid. But which bits does he claim are valid? We use this article as a springboard to consider: Do the numbers produced by an IQ test say something meaningful or useful about human minds? Would these tests be better off in the dustbin of history? Are they ever useful? And is there overlap between Taleb's take on IQ and the n...
Feb 04, 2025•1 hr 26 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Bruce takes a deep dive into Stephen Wolfram’s ideas regarding computational universality, which may go further than the Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis in that Wolfram’s theories imply that all of nature could be simulated even by relatively simple systems, so even nature itself may be computational rather than something that can just be simulated on a turning machine or quantum computer. Stephen Wolfram is a renowned physicist, computer scientists, and entrepreneur. Bruce also talks about the rel...
Jan 14, 2025•2 hr 16 min•Season 1Ep. 101
Our Christmas gift to you this year is episode 100: an interview with The Man (TM) himself! Bruce stumbles over himself fan-boying as he asks all his burning (but geeky) questions about cosmology, the omega point, and probability. How do Deutsch and Tipler differ on optimistic end-time cosmology? Is the Omega point refuted by observation (Deutsch) or not (Tipler)? Does heat death contradict the principle of optimism? Is it a bummer? Does stochasticity really not exist? And is it rational to wear...
Dec 23, 2024•2 hr 27 min•Season 1Ep. 100
AKA "David Deutsch DESTORYS the Simulation Hypothesis" Bruce take a deep dive into solipsism in the form of the brain in a vat thought experiment, Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, and related ideas. Does the Church-Turing-Deutsch thesis suggest we could live in a simulation? What does critical rationalism say about these theories? Support us on Patreon
Dec 16, 2024•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 99
This week we discuss the chapter “Why are Flowers Beautiful?” from the book Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. Through our discussion we consider: Does relativism make any sense? Is preferring Mozart to a child banging on a piano really just an arbitrary preference? If progress in art is real, will human minds ever stop increasing the level of beauty in the world? Are humans more objectively beautiful than other species? (And are women more beautiful than men?) Is music “cheesecake for the ...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 58 min•Season 1Ep. 97
We take a deep dive into Karl Popper’s philosophical ideas about music that he outlines in four chapters in this intellectual autobiography Unended Quest: “Music,” Speculations about the Rise of Polyphonic Music,” “Two Kinds of Music,” and “Progressivism in Art, Especially in Music.” We are joined by Peter’s brother, Chris Johansen, who is a straight-ahead jazz tenor saxophonist living in NYC. We discuss how Popper’s ideas on classical music intersect with Chris’s ideas on jazz, as well as the r...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Here we interview AI researcher Kenneth Stanley, who makes the case that in complex systems, pursing specific objectives can actually be counterproductive. Instead, whether in machine learning, business, science, education, or art, we should pursue what is interesting. It is in this search for novelty—fueled by curiosity—where innovation and open-ended knowledge creation occurs. Get Ken's book! Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective Also: Can Bruce find a counter example to K...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 96
This time we invited some of the coolest and smartest people we know to have a freewheeling discussion on morality loosely centered on Jonathan Haidt's “rider and the elephant” metaphor. We take a deep dive into this idea that moral reasoning is a slave to our passions. Guests: • Lulie Tanett (https://open.spotify.com/show/6OPFnEt6uTOTGeSpnZ1YDp?si=4exIQOUfQzOg4TIU2hZ5hA) • Vaden Masrani (https://open.spotify.com/show/1gKKSP5HKT4Nk3i0y4UseB?si=Iu1WkwJMR1GHlm3OLrUwNA) • Ivan Phillips (https://www...
Oct 15, 2024•2 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 95
This episode we interview Professor of Philosophy Stephen Hicks. In his excellent books Explaining Postmodernism and Nietzsche and the Nazis it becomes clear that the history of bad and good ideas—which he sees through the lens of Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment philosophers—is more than an academic issue but something with monumental importance for human life and prosperity. Rather than focus on this aspect of his work, which is widely known, we thought we’d ask him questions on epistem...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 94
