Ep 103: Ask Me Anything #2

This is “Ask Me Anything” number 2: questions from Twitter (mainly) and elsewhere.   Here are the questions/timestamps:   00:00 Introduction 01:50 How do people learn false things? 06:32 Why does persuasion fail? 15:20 What’s wrong with physicalism? 18:30 How are mind and the laws of physics abstractions? 21:18 What are your favourite chapters from David’s books? 26:46 Are facts theory laden? 27:49 Is a fact “fallibly true”? 30:24 What are your thoughts on the mind-body problem? 34:50 How has Deutsch improved on Popper? 40:05 What is the most difficult idea to explain from David’s books? 44:58 Do the ideas in “BoI” trace back to Judeo-Christian values? 48:32 What is the plan for the future spreading of David Deutsch’s ideas? 51:38 How do we resolve the apparent conflict between “incremental change” and “rapid progress”? 54:27 What parts of David’s work do you disagree with? What did David Deutsch get wrong? 58:24 Why isn’t morality about suffering? 01:03:50 Are free will, consciousness and explanatory knowledge fundamentally tied? 01:06:10 Does Ayn Rand’s objectivism follow from Deutsch/Popper? 01:13:52 If a problem is a conflict between ideas, what is the conflict with the problem of the universe’s initial conditions? 01:15:52 How can we reconcile the subjectivity of problems with the objectivity of knowledge? 01:18:04 Can’t machines create new choices through abstraction? 01:20:58 Did Popper/Deutsch influence your libertarianism? 01:26:22 What is the beef between Popper/Deutsch and the formal education system? 01:27:02 Are there Popperian resources on child rearing? 01:31:59 Are there pre-requisites for understanding “The Beginning of Infinity”? 01:35:29 What other books can help with thinking? 01:36:10 If a person has struggled academically, what is to blame? 01:40:21 Do you have any (other!) book recommendations? 01:44:32 Doesn’t quantum mechanics and the multiverse violate common sense and logic?