David Deutsch—physicist, pioneer of quantum computation, and author of The Beginning of Infinity and The Fabric of Reality—joins me to discuss fun, learning, and how minds create knowledge. We explore the Fun Criterion: why a sense of “no fun” is best treated as criticism, a signal that something needs improvement, rather than a stop rule or a feeling to chase. Deutsch unpacks conflicts between explicit, inexplicit, and unconscious ideas, and how problems get worked on through conjecture and criticism across different modes of thought and learning. We then zoom out to how ideas “evolve together” inside a mind and why biological evolution is less understood than people often assume. The discussion also touches on focus and attention—whether they’re better seen as a trainable skill, a resource constraint, or both. Finally, we unpack the self as the collective term for the institutions of consent among the multiple strands of creativity and criticism that constitute a mind.

📚 Mentioned Resources

The Beginning of Infinity — David Deutsch
The Fabric of Reality — David Deutsch
My upcoming book — The 4 Acts

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 — Intro
01:21 — Can we measure Fun?
04:31 — Thwarting creativity
06:01 — Can mundanity be Fun?
07:58 — What does “follow the Fun” mean?
10:28 — Fun and inner alignment
12:20 — Resolving conflicts
15:47 — Must ideas align?
17:39 — Are all thoughts creative?
21:25 — Different modes of creativity & learning
28:22 — Evolution of ideas in the mind
33:58 — How (poorly) we understand biological evolution
37:41 — Creating knowledge vs. learning knowledge
40:42 — Knowledge is information with causal power
43:06 — The Self and how the parts of the mind are organized
51:15 — Focus and attention
53:37 — The roots of inexplicit knowledge
57:15 — Physical sensations vs. emotions
01:00:36 — David's upcoming book
01:02:29 — Outro

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