In his Interintellect series, Phil Filippak will talk about critical rationalism and major ideas from David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity.
David Deutsch’s book The Beginning of Infinity is a treasury of beautifully explained universal laws, deep ideas, and daring hypotheses. In this Series, we will revisit some of the major topics: from quantum multiverse to the objectiveness of beauty to the concept of universal explainers and beyond.
All episodes take place at 7pm CEST
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In addition to series tickets, you will get access to our community Discord (with a channel for this series to chat between events)—as well as free salon tickets each month, discounts, free members-only events, and more.
Salon image by Justin Main (unsplash.com/@photified)
| # | Date | Episode |
| 1 | Sept 23, 2023 | The Beginning of Infinity: The Multiverse Quantum theory has given us an incredibly powerful computational tool but its nature still remains a mystery. Or is it just that many of us think so? David Deutsch argues that the nature of quantum mechanics is explained best by the many-world interpretation. We will speculate both on the MWI and the conflicting theories. |
| 2 | Nov 4, 2023 | The Beginning of Infinity: Eternal Mathematics It may sound counterintuitive but mathematical proofs depend on the physics of the world where the proof is being used. Or do they? We will explore the mysterious and abstract realms of mathematics, gaze at seemingly absurd and controversial statements, and visit the famous Hilbert’s Grand Hotel. |
| 3 | Dec 2, 2023 | The Beginning of Infinity: Rational Democracy Critical rationalism and a properly built democracy have more in common than one can guess at first sight. Better voting systems are a product of knowledge creation, only constrained by rigorous mathematical laws. We will discuss Arrow’s theorem and how it shapes the landscape for democracies, and will ponder on how new, better systems are created. |
| 4 | Jan 6, 2024 | The Beginning of Infinity: Objective Beauty Is it possible that all beauty is subject to yet unknown but stringent laws? May all paintings and sculptures and songs be described by some complicated but precise formula? Arguably the most speculative part of the book, and closest to the field of human endeavor that is least prone to established ways of scientific inquiry. |
| 5 | Feb 3, 2024 | The Beginning of Infinity: Universal Explainers “Because of the necessity for error-correction, all jumps to universality occur in digital systems.” Is that really so? Do we need to invent some kind of code for any universal language to exist? And what does universality mean in the first place? How far do universal ideas reach? In this Salon, we will discuss all that and more. |
| 6 | March 2, 2024 | The Beginning of Infinity: (Artificial) Creativity What makes us creative? How do we boost our creativity? And why the so-called AI models haven’t succeeded in building good “maps of the territory”? While we certainly cannot answer these questions (otherwise we would be capable of creating the AGI), we can try to invent new definitions and with that, to reach new levels of understanding. |
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