This is in response to episode 489 of Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast - in a section only available via subscription. I have clipped the approximately 60 seconds worth of material I am narrowly responding to for fair use in this commentary. The case unpacked is, roughly, that morality can be disconnected from (is orthogonal to) reason broadly is no more than a restatement of moral relativism - and hence false. Morality and science are about objective reality so cannot be “orthogonal”. Moral progress goes hand-in-hand with reason broadly and any “sufficiently advanced” intelligent system would not only realise this, they must understand it to make unbounded, rapid progress.

This is in response to episode 489 of Sam Harris' "Making Sense" podcast - in a section only available via subscription. I have clipped the approximately 60 seconds worth of material I am narrowly responding to for fair use in this commentary. The case unpacked is, roughly, that morality can be disconnected from (is orthogonal to) reason broadly is no more than a restatement of moral relativism - and hence false. Morality and science are about objective reality so cannot be “orthogonal”. Moral progress goes hand-in-hand with reason broadly and any “sufficiently advanced” intelligent system would not only realise this, they must understand it to make unbounded, rapid progress.

Ep 267: The Orthogonality Thesis is Moral Relativism. (Response to Sam Harris on AI).

This is the first episode in a series on David Deutsch's groundbreaking work "The Beginning of Infinity". I read some passages from Chapter 1 "The Reach of Explanations" and make some explanatory remarks and other comments. This podcast is intended as a companion to the book. Feel free to ask me questions at www.bretthall.org

This is the first episode in a series on David Deutsch's groundbreaking work "The Beginning of Infinity". I read some passages from Chapter 1 "The Reach of Explanations" and make some explanatory remarks and other comments. This podcast is intended as a companion to the book. Feel free to ask me questions at www.bretthall.org

Episode 2: Chapter 1 "The Reach of Explanations"

This is a podcast primarily about the work of philosopher and physicist David Deutsch and related matters (such as Popperian epistemology). I read from and comment upon the books ”The Beginning of Infinity” & ”The Fabric of Reality” (both by Deutsch), ”The Science of Can & Can’t” (by Deutsch’s collegue Marletto) and ”Rationality” by Pinker (so far). In addition I make stand alone episodes about topics like resources, environmentalism, economics, science, philosophy, epistemology (especially explanations) and reason broadly.

This is a podcast primarily about the work of philosopher and physicist David Deutsch and related matters (such as Popperian epistemology). I read from and comment upon the books ”The Beginning of Infinity” &amp; ”The Fabric of Reality” (both by Deutsch), ”The Science of Can &amp; Can’t” (by Deutsch’s collegue Marletto) and ”Rationality” by Pinker (so far). In addition I make stand alone episodes about topics like resources, environmentalism, economics, science, philosophy, epistemology (especially explanations) and reason broadly.

ToKCast is a podcast largely about the work of David Deutsch. We begin with a discussion of "The Beginning of Infinity".

ToKCast is a podcast largely about the work of David Deutsch. We begin with a discussion of "The Beginning of Infinity".

ToKCast Episode 1: An introduction to the podcast and this first series

This is a podcast largely about the work of David Deutsch and his books ”The Beginning of Infinity” and ”The Fabric of Reality”.

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