yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

We’re at the Beginning of an Infinity of Knowledge


2m read
·Nov 3, 2024

The difference with "The Beginning of Infinity" is that you're getting a worldview. You're not being given the standard take from physicists about how to understand quantum theory. You're not being given the standard take of how to understand knowledge from philosophers, and you're certainly not being given the standard take of how to understand mathematics from mathematicians.

Deutsch is qualified in all these areas; he's an expert in all these areas. So, the worldview itself—what's at the core of it? Deutsch's worldview is that reality is comprehensible. Problems are soluble. It's a deeply rationally optimistic worldview. It believes in good explanations, good scientific explanations, and progress.

Progress is inevitable as long as we have these good explanations. Good explanations have tremendous reach; they are acts of creativity. Humans are problem solvers and can solve all problems. All sins and evil are due to a lack of knowledge. One can be optimistic about constant progress.

That's what the title "The Beginning of Infinity" refers to: that we're at the beginning of an infinite series of progress. It's a very optimistic take. It believes that we are at home in the universe; the universe is ours as a resource to learn about and exploit. That material wealth is a set of physical transformations that we can affect.

Everything that is not forbidden by the laws of physics is eventually possible through knowledge and knowledge creation. He also talks about how humans are universal explainers. That anything that can be known and understood can be known and understood by human beings in the computational power of a human system.

It's all knowable; it's all noble by humans. We're the beginning of an infinity of knowledge. As we understand things using good explanations and we create new theories that are constantly being destroyed and replaced by better ones, there's no endpoint in sight. There's no perfection; every theory can be falsified and improved.

That we are on our way to being able to do everything that is not forbidden by the laws of physics.

Thank you to Eight Sleep for supporting the Naval Podcast. All of the sponsorship revenue goes to our guests to support their work. Eight Sleep makes a heating and cooling smart mattress, which they tell us gets you to sleep 32 percent faster with 40 percent fewer sleep interruptions.

Go to eightsleep.com/infinity for a discount. I'll put a link in the show notes.

More Articles

View All
Seneca | Why Worry About What Isn't Real? (Stoicism)
In a letter to his dear friend Lucilius, Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote: “There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” End quote. Chronic worriers tend to be more …
Warrior Watch: Protecting Kenya's Lions | Explorers in the Field
[Music] [Music] My father was Saawariya and they used to kill many, many, many Lancia. He used to tell me how dangerous Lancer. I used to hate Lance. [Music] When I was a young boy, I thought I would be growing up and killing Lance, but now we protect the…
When Life Hurts, Stop Clinging to It | The Philosophy of Epictetus
Our very sense of wellbeing is at gunpoint when we cling to the fickle, unreliable outside world. Around two thousand years ago, Stoic philosopher Epictetus observed that people are burdened and dragged down because they tend to care about too many things…
Gobble founder Ooshma Garg speaks at Female Founders Conference 2016
[Music] Hey everyone, how’s it going? You excited to be here? Let’s have some fun! My name is Usma. I’m the founder and CEO of Gobble. Gobble helps anyone cook dinner in just 10 minutes. We’re the inventors of the 10-minute one-pan dinner kit on the scre…
Mesh current steps 1 to 3
Now we’re going to discuss the second of two popular ways to analyze circuits, and this one is called the mesh current method. This is actually one of my favorites. There’s a fun spot in here where we make up currents flowing around in circles inside the …
Beaver for Bolts | Live Free or Die
One of those days were the amenities so hot that the air is sweating. Well, it’s about 20 degrees above room temperature. I tell my glance at the river, I’m thinking, I sure would like to go down here to enjoy some of that cold water. There’s no rest for…