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

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“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 .



Brought to you by  LinkedIn Jobs  recruitment platform with 900M+ users,  FreshBooks  cloud-based small business accounting software, and  Athletic Greens’s AG1  all-in-one nutritional supplement.



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  Athletic Greens .  I get asked all the time, “If you could use only one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually  AG1 by Athletic Greens , 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  AG  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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This episode is brought to you by  FreshBooks .  I’ve been talking about  FreshBooks —an  all-in-one invoicing + payments + accounting solution —for years now. Many entrepreneurs, as well as the contractors and freelancers that I work with, use it all the time.



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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




The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes — And Its Implications by David Deutsch | Amazon



The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch | Amazon



The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1 (with Brett Hall) | Naval Podcast



The Beginning of Infinity, Part 2 (with Brett Hall) | Naval Podcast



David Deutsch: Knowledge Creation and the Human Race | Naval Podcast



David Deutsch: Chemical Scum That Dream of Distant Quasars | TED Talk



The Best Theory of Knowledge and Progress | Critical Rationalism Hub



ToKCast | Brett Hall



Science | Airchat (Where Brett and Naval Discuss David’s work)



Philosophy and the Real World: An Introduction to Karl Popper by Bryan Magee | Amazon



Aaron Stupple’s Chapter-by-Chapter Commentary on Philosophy and the Real World | Airchat



The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey through the Land of Counterfactuals by Chiara Marletto | Amazon



Interviews with Chiara Marletto, David Deutsch, and Others About Constructor Theory | Logan Chipkin



A New View of Children | Taking Children Seriously



The Four Strands of the Fabric of Reality | David Deutsch



The Theory Of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe by Stephen W. Hawking | Amazon



Computing Machinery and Intelligence by A.M. Turing | Mind



Church–Turing–Deutsch Principle | Wikipedia



Multiverse | Wikipedia



Genetic Evolution Was a Prelude to Memetic Evolution (with Brett Hall) [Clip] | Naval Podcast



Epistemology | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy



Scientific Method | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy



If You Say ‘Science Is Right,’ You’re Wrong | Scientific American



Famous Scientific Theories That Were Proven Wrong | Grunge



1946 and All That | LSE



Summary of Popper’s Lectures at the LSE | Critical Rationalism Blog



Karl Popper’s Falsification | BBC Radio 4



“Summary: It’s Not Yet Known. But It Will Be.” | David Deutsch, Twitter



Lamarckism | Wikipedia



“Lamarckism! 33 Years After It Had Become Untenable.” | David Deutsch, Twitter



The Many-Worlds Theory, Explained | The MIT Press Reader



Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics | Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy



What is a Qubit? | Quantum Inspire



‘Father of Quantum Computing’ Wins $3M Physics Prize | The Guardian



Shor’s Algorithm | IBM Quantum



How to Use Occam’s Razor without Getting Cut | Farnam Street



David Deutsch: A New Way to Explain Explanation | TED Talk



“The Elephant’s Child” from Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling | Lit2Go ETC



“Science Must Begin with Myths…” -Karl R. Popper | Goodreads



Common Sense | The Chicago School of Media Theory



Iseult Gillespie: The Myth of Hades and Persephone | TED-Ed



What is Earth’s Axial Tilt? | Universe Today



The Infinite Optimism of Physicist David Deutsch | Scientific American Blog Network



Deus Ex Machina Explained | Fandor



How to Travel Faster Than Light | Fermilab



Humans vs. Robots: The Difference Between AI and AGI | Becoming Human: Artificial Intelligence Magazine



Paradox of Tolerance: To Tolerate or Not to Tolerate? | Academy 4SC



Quarantine by Greg Egan | Amazon



Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography by Karl Popper | Amazon



David Deutsch: After Billions of Years of Monotony, the Universe Is Waking Up | TED Talk



Quantum Computing Expert Explains How Humans Could Control the Whole Galaxy | Inverse



How Do Crystals Form and Grow? | Geology Page



The Origin of Atmospheric Oxygen on Earth: The Innovation of Oxygenic Photosynthesis | PNAS



Antonio Stoppani’s ‘Anthropozoic’ in the Context of the Anthropocene | The British Journal for the History of Science



The History of England by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay | Amazon



Wealth is Knowledge | David Deutsch



The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl R. Popper | Amazon



The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl R. Popper | Amazon



2004: What’s Your Law? | Edge.org



A New Approach to Formulating Fundamental Laws in Physics | Constructor Theory



Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin Meet Calvin Meet Calvin | GoComics




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



PEOPLE MENTIONED




Karl Popper



Richard Dawkins



Alan Turing



Alonzo Church



Hugh Everett III



Daniel Dennett



Jean-Baptiste Lamarck



Charles Darwin



Stephen Jay Gould



Erwin Schrödinger



Niels Bohr



John von Neumann



Peter Shor



Richard P. Feynman



Rudyard Kipling



Gregor Mendel



Persephone



Hades



Nike



Zeus



Adolf Hitler



Greg Egan



Immanuel Kant



Antonio Stoppani



Michael Faraday



William Godwin



Thomas Babington Macaulay



Bryan Magee



Brett Hall



Socrates



Plato



Chiara Marletto



Logan Chipkin

The post 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) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss .