Ep 148: Memetics

Today CEO of the world's most valuable company, Nvidia, Jensen Huang, announced "AGI has arrived". https://x.com/JensenHuang/status/2096700264569090384?s=20 Some reflections on all that. 

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 ... Show More

A analysis in Popperian style of Candace Owens' "mode" of debate and discussion, approach to evidence and thinking and a comparison to the more mainstream evaluations of this debate. 

Theoretical physicist David Deutsch delivers a mind-bending meditation on the "great monotony" -- the idea that nothing novel has appeared in the universe for billions of years -- and shows how humanity's capacity to create explanatory knowledge could be the thing that bucks this ... Show More

<p>Sam Harris speaks with Richard Dawkins. They discuss the strangeness of the "gene's-eye view" of the world, the limits of Darwinian thinking when applied to human life, the concept of the extended phenotype, ideologies as meme complexes, whether consciousness might be an epiph ... Show More

<p class="p1">Sam Harris speaks with Geoffrey Miller about evolutionary psychology. They discuss sexual selection, virtue signaling, social media, public shaming, monogamy and polyamory, taboo topics in science, genetic engineering, gender differences and the "Google memo," moral ... Show More

<p class="p1">Sam Harris speaks with Bret Weinstein about the moral panic at Evergreen State College, the concept of race, genetic differences between human populations, intersectionality, sex and gender, "metaphorical truth," religion and "group selection," equality, and other t ... Show More

Some acts of expression are awesome, while others suck, and one philosopher has a new theory about the difference. Using this theory as a guide, we look at some of the suckiest things that ever sucked in urban design, and the street artists and compassionate vandals who are tryin ... Show More

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference b ... Show More

Connecting the Four Theories into a Unified Whole 0:34 Emergence Is Fundamental 3:18 Constructor Theory Could Transform Multiple Fields 8:30 Innovation Often Emerges Unexpectedly 22:46 Knowledge Evolves Independently Across Universes 29:31 Anti-Rational Memes Hinder Human Progres ... Show More

This is the first of two lectures that address: Memory, narrative therapy, important life events, creativity, personality, mental flexibility, positive and negative affect, cognitive flexibility, cognitive arousal, emotions, coping strategies, teamwork, neuroplasticity, resilienc ... Show More

What is the connection between personality and memory? This lecture is the second of two that talks about: Cultural storytelling, personal myths, narratives and the self, schemas, family remembering, narrative therapy, empathic listening, memory, trauma, emotional remembering and ... Show More