Fabric of Reality Book Club
#2190·Erik Orrje, about 2 months agoYeah, thanks! Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates, or is there more to ideas?
In the neo-Darwinian view, any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals. This view is what Dawkins (IIRC) calls the gene’s eye view, and it applies to ideas as much as it does to genes. Any adaptation of any replicator is primarily in service of this concern.
So I think the answer to your question, “Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates …?”, is ‘yes’.
Yeah, thanks! Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates, or is there more to ideas?
#2153·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoThe rival theories and clashes sound like competition between genes – or more precisely, between the theories those genes embody.
Basically, genes contain guesses (in a non-subjective sense) for how to spread through the population at the expense of their rivals. Those guesses are met with selection pressure and competition.
Dirk approves of your comment.
#2152·Dirk Meulenbelt, about 2 months agoHow could we integrate that vision with Popper's definition (paraphrased): a tension, inconsistency, or unmet explanatory demand that arises when a theory clashes with observations, background assumptions, or rival theories, thereby calling for conjectural solutions and critical tests.
The rival theories and clashes sound like competition between genes – or more precisely, between the theories those genes embody.
Basically, genes contain guesses (in a non-subjective sense) for how to spread through the population at the expense of their rivals. Those guesses are met with selection pressure and competition.
#2151·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoA gene doesn’t have problems in any conscious sense, but it always faces the problem of how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Maybe that answers your question, Erik.
How could we integrate that vision with Popper's definition (paraphrased): a tension, inconsistency, or unmet explanatory demand that arises when a theory clashes with observations, background assumptions, or rival theories, thereby calling for conjectural solutions and critical tests.
#2149·Dirk Meulenbelt, about 2 months agoI don't think a gene has problems. It does not have ideas.
A gene doesn’t have problems in any conscious sense, but it always faces the problem of how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Maybe that answers your question, Erik.
#2081·Edwin de Wit, about 2 months agoPerhaps it’s premature, but I’d love to discuss:
why DD thinks the four strands already amount to a theory of everything
why DD presents quantum mechanisms as having already subsumed general relativity
what other (proto)strands we could envision and why they are indeed a meaningful addition to the 4 strands
Yeah (3) is interesting. Constructor theory is the contender I can think of for a future fifth strand. Any other suggestions?
Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.
Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to assess what that balance looks like in 2025.
Consequently (they say), whether or not it was ever possible for one person to understand everything that was understood at the time, it is certainly not possible now, and it is becoming less and less possible as our knowledge grows.
If something already isn’t possible, how could it become less possible?
Isn’t possibility a binary thing? As opposed to difficulty, which exists in degrees.
Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.
Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.
Perhaps it’s premature, but I’d love to discuss:
why DD thinks the four strands already amount to a theory of everything
why DD presents quantum mechanisms as having already subsumed general relativity
what other (proto)strands we could envision and why they are indeed a meaningful addition to the 4 strands
Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.
Can't think of how it could be otherwise. Do you have any examples of inexplicit explanations?
The important thing is to be able to make predictions about images on the astronomers’ photographic plates, frequencies of spectral lines, and so on, and it simply doesn’t matter whether we ascribe these predictions to the physical effects of gravitational fields on the motion of planets and photons [as in pre-Einsteinian physics] or to a curvature of space and time.
I’m getting conflicting results online for this quote. Some sources that quote the same passage say singular ‘effect’, others use the plural like Deutsch does.
I don’t have access to the original text, so I can’t say for sure if this is possibly a slight misquote or if different people are just quoting different editions.
The important thing is to be able to make predictions about images on the astronomers’ photographic plates, frequencies of spectral lines, and so on, and it simply doesn’t matter whether we ascribe these predictions to the physical effects of gravitational fields on the motion of planets and photons [as in pre-Einsteinian physics] or to a curvature of space and time.
I’m getting conflicting results online for this quote. Some sources that quote the same passage say singular ‘effect’, others use the plural like Deutsch does.
I don’t have access to the original text, so I can’t say for sure if this is possibly a slight misquote or if different people are just quoting different editions.
The important thing is to be able to make predictions about images on the astronomers’ photographic plates, frequencies of spectral lines, and so on, and it simply doesn’t matter whether we ascribe these predictions to the physical effects of gravitational fields on the motion of planets and photons [as in pre-Einsteinian physics] or to a curvature of space and time.
I’m getting conflicting results online for this quote. Some sources that quote the same passage say singular ‘effect’, others use the plural like Deutsch does.
I don’t have access to the original text, so I can’t say for sure if this is possibly a slight misquote or if different people are just quoting different editions.
The important thing is to be able to make predictions about images on the astronomers’ photographic plates, frequencies of spectral lines, and so on, and it simply doesn’t matter whether we ascribe these predictions to the physical effects of gravitational fields on the motion of planets and photons [as in pre-Einsteinian physics] or to a curvature of space and time.
I’m getting conflicting results online for this quote. Some sources that quote the same passage say singular ‘effect’, others use the plural like Deutsch does.
I don’t have access to the original text, so I can’t say for sure if this is possibly a slight misquote or if different people are just quoting different editions.
The important thing is to be able to make predictions about images on the astronomers’ photographic plates, frequencies of spectral lines, and so on, and it simply doesn’t matter whether we ascribe these predictions to the physical effects of gravitational fields on the motion of planets and photons [as in pre-Einsteinian physics] or to a curvature of space and time.
I’m getting conflicting results online for this quote. Some sources that quote the same passage say singular ‘effect’, others use the plural like Deutsch does.
I don’t have access to the original text, so I can’t say for sure if this is possibly a slight misquote or if different people are just quoting different editions.
We discuss David Deutsch’s first book, The Fabric of Reality.