I grew up wondering about the nature of alien life, what it might look like, what they might do, and whether we will discover any time soon. Though aside from a number of conspiracy theories, and conjecture on Tabby’s Star, so far we have not discovered any signs of life out there in the cosmos….
Magician James Randi (known as ‘The Amazing Randi’) has spent the bulk of his career debunking the claims of self-proclaimed psychics and paranormalists. Randi has an international reputation as a magician and escape artist, but he is perhaps best known as the world’s most tireless investigator and de-mystifier of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. The Amazing…
Peter Singer discusses the new book ‘The Point Of View Of The Universe – Sidgwick & Contemporary Ethics’ (By Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer) He also discusses his reasons for changing his mind about preference utilitarianism. Buy the book here: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/97… Bart Schultz’s (University of Chicago) Review of the book: http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/49215-he-poin… “Restoring Sidgwick…
At a recent conference in Beijing (the Global Innovators Conference) – I did yet another video interview with the legendary AGI guru – Ben Goertzel. This is the first part of the interview, where he talks about some of the ‘amazing’ progress in AI over recent years, including Deep Mind’s AlphaGo sealing a 4-1 victory…
March Fourth – on March 4th for Science and the Future! Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwW3nIPQYwc A discussion on science advocacy & the future! David discussed how to think about strategic foresight (because it was kind of Future Day being March fourth) and science advocacy (especially in relation to the global science march). We also covered the kinds…
Recent video interview with John Wilkins! What should marchers for science advocate for (if anything)? Which way would you try to bias the economy of attention to science? Should scientists (as individuals) be advocates for particular causes – and should the scientific enterprise advocate for particular causes? The popular hashtag #AlternativeFacts and Epistemic Relativism –…
Adam Ford: G’day everybody – we’ve got Michael Shermer here today and we’re going to discuss science advocacy as well as the up and coming ‘March for Science’ which is happening on the 22nd of April. And I’m helping out with the Melbourne March for Science here in Australia. Michael is in California. Michael is…
The simulation hypothesis doesn’t seem to be a terse parsimonious explanation for the universe we live in. If what is most important is to simulate ancestors, what’s the motivation for all the hugely detailed rendering of space? Why not just simulate earth or our solar system or our galaxy? People often jump to the conclusions…
An exploration of the philosophical concept of metaphysical identity, using numerous variations on the infamous Ship of Theseus thought experiment. Video interview with Keith Wiley Note: a separate text interview is below. Keith Wiley is the author of A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading, available on Amazon. The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’…
Anders Sandberg discusses ideas & values and where we get them from, mindsets for progress, and that we are living in a unique era of technological change but also, importantly we are aware that we are living in an era of great change. Is there a direction in ethics? Is morality real? If so, how…
