Episode description
This is the final "The Beginning of Infinity" episode.
I must say: the Youtube version of this contains many useful videos and images to help with what is being described and explained.
Either way: Enjoy! (And rest assured "The Science of Can and Can't" and "The Fabric of Reality" episodes will continue to come out weekly. This is not the end, but "The Beginning").
Here is a time-stamped summary of the contents of this episode:
00:00 “The Horizon”: An introduction to “The Beginning of Infinity”
03:10 The Beginning. A throwback.
04:20 The point of all this.
06:15 Comments on Ricky Gervais and Sam Harris “Absolutely Mental” podcast and related themes
09:30 A place for religion and people.
16:00 A central message of BoI
16:45 Books that inform a worldview: including "The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch and "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris
22:30 Some criteria for understanding
27:40 Competing “epistemologies”.
31:20 Some comments on Ayn Rand’s philosophy
32:30 The “knowledge density” of "The Beginning of Infinity"
38:20 Critical thinking
43:15 Common Sense Realism
47:30 The end of the introduction
48:00 Reading Part 1
49:05 My reflections on historian Roy Porter and the competing Enlightenments
56:45 Reading Part 2
57:00 Prophesies and Predictions.
59:15 Reading Part 3
59:30 "Popperian Provisos"
1:00:35 Reading Part 4
1:00:51 The infinite potential of explanatory knowledge
1:01:40 Reading Part 5
1:04:10 Physical reality and laws of physics
1:05:15 Reading Part 6
1:05:30 Simulations vs recordings of people
1:06:35 Reading Part 7
1:08:00 Misunderstandings of Explanatory Universality
1:10:00 The Final Reading
1:11:00 The Beginning. A Throwback Part 2
1:12:30 Extended credits.
Music: "Double Slit Test" by Ketsa: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/The_Double_Slit_Test/Double_Slit_Test
Made for Mum & Jem.