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We're back! Apologies for the delay, but Vaden got married and Ben was summoned to be an astronaut on the next billionaire's vacation to Venus. This week we're talking about how to forecast the future (with this one simple and easy trick! Astrologers hate them!). Specifically, we're diving into Philip Tetlock's work on Superforecasting.

So what's the deal? Is it possible to "harness the wisdom of the crowd to forecast world events"? Or is the whole thing just a result of sloppy statistics? We believe the latter is likely to be true with probability 64.9% - no, wait, 66.1%.

Intro segment:

"The Sentience Debate": The moral value of shrimps, insects, and oysters

Relevant timestamps:

Main References:

Additional references mentioned in the episode:

Use your Good Judgement and send us email at [email protected].

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Why do logic and mathematics work so well in the world? Why do they seem to describe reality? Why do they they enable us to design circuit boards, build airplanes, and listen remotely to handsome and charming podcast hosts who rarely go off topic?

To answer these questions, we dive into Chapter 9 of Conjectures and Refutations: Why are the Calculi of Logic and Arithmetic Applicable to Reality?.

But before we get to that, we touch on some of the good stuff: evolutionary psychology, cunnilingus, and why Robin is better than Batman.

References:

Quotes:

“The indescribable world I have in mind is, of course, the world I have ‘in my mind’—the world which most psychologists (except the behaviourists) attempt to describe, somewhat unsuccessfully, with the help of what is nothing but a host of metaphors taken from the languages of physics, of biology, and of social life.”

“In so far as a calculus is applied to reality, it loses the character of a logical calculus and becomes a descriptive theory which may be empirically refutable; and in so far as it is treated as irrefutable, i.e. as a system of logically true formulae, rather than a descriptive scientific theory, it is not applied to reality.”

Send us the most bizarre use of evolutionary psychology you've seen at [email protected].

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There are many overused internet keywords that could be associated with this conversation, but none of them quite seem right. So here's a poem instead:

The Ogre does what ogres can,

About a subjugated plain,

- August 1968, W H Auden

Send us an email at [email protected]

Image from https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/the-august-1968-red-square-protest-and-its-legacy

Audio updated: 05/07/2021

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In a rare turn of events, it just so happened that one or perhaps both of your charming co-hosts spewed a bit of nonsense about Derek Parfit in a previous episode, and we had to bring in a heavy hitter to sort us out. Today we're joined by friend of the podcast Mr. Dan Hageman, immuno-oncologist by day and aspiring ethicist by night, who gently takes us to task for misunderstanding Parfit and the role of ethical theorizing, and for ignoring the suffering of pigeons. The critiques land, and convince Vaden that we should dedicate our resources towards providing safe and affordable contraception for Apex predators.

We cover all sorts of ground in this episode, including:

References:

Dan Hageman is a biomed engineer who works in immuno-oncology, but in his not-so-free time strives to sell himself as an amateur philosopher and aspiring 'Effective Altruist'. He spends much of this time trying to keep up with impactful charities focused on the reduction and/or prevention of extreme suffering, and in 2020 helped co-found a hopefully burgeoning side project called ‘Match for More’. He would like to note that the IPAs are to blame for any and all errors/misapprehensions made during his lively discussion with epic friends and podcast hosts, Ben and Vaden.

How many insect lives are morally equivalent to one human life? Send us your best guess at [email protected]. We'll reveal the correct answer in episode 1000.

Update 13/06/21: The original title of this episode was "Meta-ethics Cage Match (with Dan Hageman)"

Special Guest: Dan Hageman.

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We often talk of explanation in the context of empirical sciences, but what about explanation in logic and mathematics? Is there such a thing? If so, what does it look like and what are the consequences? In this episode we sit down with professor of philosophy Mark Colyvan and explore

References:

Mark Colyvan is a professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney, and a visiting professor (and, previously, Humboldt fellow) at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He has a wide array of research interests, including the philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic, decision theory, environmental philosophy, and ecology. He has authored three books: The Indispensability of Mathematics (Oxford University Press, 2001), Ecological Orbits: How Planets Move and Populations Grow (Oxford University Press, 2004, co-authored with Lev Ginzburg), and An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Special Guest: Mark Colyvan.

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This episode begins with a big announcement! Ben has officially become a cat person, and is now Taking Cats Seriously. Vaden follows up with some news of his own, before diving into the main subject for today's episode - Popper's Three Worlds.

• The TCS parenting movement 
• Chesto's tweet to Deutsch
• How Popper's Three Worlds differs from Deutsch's Things/Qualia/Abstractions classification
• Would prime numbers exist if humans didn't exist?
• What constitutes reality?
• The existence of non-physical entities and the reality of abstractions 

 
Having a quick glance at the following wikipedia pages will help ground the conversation:

• Formal systems 
• Formal languages
• Modular Arithmetic
• Rules of inference
• Alternative Logics

Errata:

• Somewhere Vaden says English is a formal language. Nope definitely not - English is natural language, which is distinct from a formal language.  

Send us your best guess for whether or not we're real at [email protected]. 

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We are joined by the great Sam Kuypers for a conversation on physics, philosophy, and free will. 

Vaden spends most of the episode preparing for a huge debate on free-will, and Ben spends it worried about what alternate versions of himself are up to in parallel universes. Still, we manage to touch on a few topics: 

• Realism and antirealist interpretations of quantum theory
• The advisory styles of Dennis Sciama and John Wheeler and the standardization of education 
• Reconciling the Harris / Deutsch perspectives on Free Will
• Restorative and Rehabilitative justice
• A universe in which Ben spontaneously explodes into dust while speaking

Links: 

• Sam's recent paper with David Deutsch
• From Micro to Macro, by Vlatko Vedral 
• Hayek's Constitution of Liberty

Sam Kuypers is a  DPhil student at the University of Oxford, where he researches foundational issues in quantum theory. He's also one of the founders of the Oxford Karl Popper Society, an Oxford-based student society created to facilitate discussions about science and philosophy.

Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/crit_rat.

Send us an email or explode into dust - your choice:  [email protected]. 

Special Guest: Sam Kuypers.

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In this episode, we discuss Peter Singer's famous drowning child thought experiment, the role of moral theories, and the role of thought experiments in moral reasoning. From our perspectives, the conversation went something like this: 

Ben's POV: Bravely and boldly trying to think through problems, Ben puts forward a stunningly insightful theory about the role of moral argumentation. Vaden, jealous of the profundity of Ben's message, tries to disagree but can't.

Vaden's POV: What the eff is Ben talking about? I disagree. No wait nvm I agree. Let's change the subject.

References in intro segment: 

• Talk by Joseph Agassi
• Robert Sapolsky's book Behave
• Milgram experiments
• Stanford Prison Experiments (see also: Radio Lab's The Bad Show)

References in main  segment:

• Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer
• The Organization for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS) 
• Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
• Galileo's thought experiment: Parts of Falling Objects
• Einstein's thought experiments

 
Put on a suit and drown a child before sending your best moral theory to [email protected]. 

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After a long digression, we finally return to the Conjectures and Refutations series. In this episode we cover Chapter 1: Science: Conjectures and Refutations. In particular, we focus on one of the trickiest Popperian concepts to wrap one's head around - the problem of induction. 

References:

• Wiki on scientific laws
• Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion  
• Proof of the impossibility of probability induction 
• One of the YouTube videos on induction. 

And in case you were wondering what happened to the two unfalsifiable theories Popper attacks in this chapter, you'll be pleased to know that they have merged into a super theory. We give you Psychoanalytic-Marxism: http://oldsite.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/janmohamed/Psychoanalytic-Marxism.pdf.

Sent us your favorite unfalsifiable theory at [email protected]

audio updated: 29/08/2021

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Hello and sorry for the delay! We finally got together with Fin and Luca from the excellent HearThisIdea podcast for a nice roundtable discussion on longtermism. We laughed, we cried, we tried our best to communicate across the divide. 

Material referenced in the discussion:

- 80k Hours Problem Profiles
- Jon Hamm  imprisons us in an Alexa
- The Case for Strong Longtermism
- A Case Against Strong Longtermism
- Nick Bostrom's seminal paper on existential risks

Quote:  "[Events like Chernobyl, Bhopal, volcano eruptions, earthquakes, draughts, World War I, World War II, epidemics of influenza, smallpox, black plague, and AIDS. ] have occurred many times and our cultural attitudes towards risk have been shaped by trial-and-error in managing such hazards. But tragic as such events are to the people immediately affected, in the big picture of things – from the perspective of humankind as a whole – even the worst of these catastrophes are mere ripples on the surface of the great sea of life.  (italics added)"

- Nick Bostrom's "A survey of expert opinion" (errata: Vaden incorrectly said this paper was coauthored by Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord. It's actually authored by Vincent C. Müller and Nick Bostrom - Toby Ord and Anders Sandberg are acknowledged on page 15 for having helped design the questionnaire.) 

Send us a survey of expert credences over at [email protected]

Special Guests: Fin Moorhouse and Luca Righetti.

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