Ep 79: David Deutsch answers a question ...

The Farthest Reaches is a book about "Explanatory Universality". Explanatory Universality is a concept introduced by physicist and philosopher David Deutsch in his book "The Beginning of Infinity". Links, as mentioned in the audiobook can be found in the ebook available for free ... Show More

Chapters and Timestamps 00:06 Chapter 13: Explanatory Universality, Hangups and Sexuality 08:07 Chapter 14: The Woke Left and the Woke Right 15:38 Chapter 15: Universality and Optimism 25:04 Chapter 16: Universality and Artificial Intelligences 35:54 Chapter 17: Universality, Fre ... Show More

This is the extended "director's cut" of a talk delivered for "RatFest 2025" (next year to be "Conjecture Con"). This also serves as a supplement to my "Doom Debates" interview which can be found here: https://youtu.be/koubXR0YL4A?si=483M6SPOKwbQYmzb It is simply assumed some ver ... Show More

Are we alone in the Universe? This lecture explores the question of how we might go about finding life on planets around other stars. Rather than talking about speculative ideas, like the Drake Equation or SETI, I am instead taking the approach of posing it as a problem of what t ... Show More

<p><span style="font-weight: 400">Scientists don’t really agree on a definition for life. We may recognize life instinctively most of the time, but any time we try to nail it down with set criteria, some stubborn counterexample spoils the effort. Still, can we really search for l ... Show More

Could human engineering stabilise the Earth's climate and chemistry in the long term? Tim Lenton of Exeter University explains why the Gaia hypothesis is the key to understanding the future of life on Earth. But what about life beyond Earth? Justin Rowlatt speaks to astronomer Li ... Show More

3/6 In this instalment of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Hannah and Adam boldly go in search of scientists who are hunting for ET, spurred on by questions sent in by listeners across the globe, from Australia to Columbia. They start by asking how we define life and why we ... Show More

<p>"Life makes our planet an incredibly exotic place compared to the rest of the known universe," says astrobiologist Betül Kaçar, whose research uses statistics and mathematical models to simulate ancient environments and gather insights into the origins of existence. In this fa ... Show More

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sam Harris speaks with Neil deGrasse Tyson about our place in the universe. They discuss our current understanding of extra-solar planets, the prospect that there is complex life elsewhere in the galaxy, the Fermi problem, the possibility that a ... Show More

<p>Can there be life on planets without magnetic fields? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice discuss exoplanets, extraterrestrials, and answer extraordinary questions from our fans with astrobiologist, David Grinspoon. </p><p>NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this ent ... Show More

What do we know about the planets outside our solar system? NASA planet hunters Jessie Christiansen and Knicole Colon take us beyond...into the exciting world of exoplanets.