TOKCAST

Motivation and Purpose

Each week ToKCast publishes new content ranging from shorter "special focus" videos on singular topics to long form audio only explorations of books and papers and even multiple part series on technical areas (eg: an 8 part series on Everettian quantum theory). Now well beyond episode 100 ToKCast has remained true to providing Brett's interpretation of these foundational ideas so that listeners who might be reading "The Beginning of Infinity" or wanting a different perspective on physics and philosophy have an alternative version expressing the same ideas - but in a different way. Brett not only explains these ideas and their significance for the world but at times applies them to open questions provide an indication of why journal articles, books, communities and podcasts have arisen to promote this particular shield that is "intellectual self defence". Many public intellectuals give speeches on and interviews about books (often theirs) that they say provide lessons to the masses to improve their knowledge of the world and thinking in general. Readers of David Deutsch and Karl Popper find many of these alternative "rationalist" and "scientific worldview" expositions converge upon celebrating misconceptions like empiricism, inductivism, Bayesianism, subjectivism, pessimism and a more or less subtle anti-human tone. ToKCast provides an antidote to the prevailing intellectual view that remains on the ascendency and is increasingly amplified by the accelerating demand online for serious intellectual discussions is matched by a rapid proliferation of high quality podcasts hosted by well informed erudite hosts with highly respected and renowned expert guests. All of that is very much for the good: I just observe that almost all approaches to science, philosophy, reason - how all that works, the significance of people and what is said about the future across the vast and diverse new media ecosystem nonetheless provides a highly uniform and predictable worldview arising out of outdated ideas, refuted philosophies and rather often a morality and epistemology inherited directly from what modern rationalists say they reject: Judeochristian religion. They promote "belief" in science and deferring to those who claim authority given their credentials and experience, they speak of "confidence" in the truth of their theories and spend chapters of text and hours of talk ruminating in serious tones as they lurch from the discussion of one looming catastrophe to another. ToKCast is an antidote - a unicorn among horses - that can explain what all that those other podcasts are saying about how the world works, explain why they are saying it, explain where it is wrong and why and, most importantly, provide a better, optimistic alternative where you, the individual, can play a part in improving the world through solving your problems by creating good explanations. ToKCast embraces being "outside the mainstream", flirting with "cringe" and accepts that there is a history in academia and intellectual circles of rejecting common sense realism and optimistic, human centred rationality. But it is necessary someone publish a perspective rarely heard elsewhere in the podcast space where science and "the big questions" are discussed as they are elsewhere: but with that special ingredient of unrivalled clarity and fresh insight uniquely as most fully captured in "The Fabric of Reality" and "The Beginning of Infinity" by David Deutsch.

ToKCast champions science while rejecting calls to "believe the science", takes seriously our most pressing problems without asking first what governments should do to solve some societal ill or other, and finds it fun and important to discuss "existential threats" while simultaneously taking seriously the idea that none of them doom us to extinction for problems are always soluble while perhaps most of all ToKCast advances the thesis that rational people can reject the supernatural without denigrating the significance of people in the universe. A major theme, perhaps the central theme running through almost all episodes of ToKCast is the background hum explaining, reminding or re-emphasizing perhaps the deepest of the conclusions we draw from the nexus between the strands of the fabric of reality that: human beings are cosmically significant. Once rejected as dogmatic religious doctrine or naive metaphysical hubris for the first time a coherent, logically consistent conjunctions of our deepest scientific and philosophical theories all converge to tell us that people really are the nearest thing the physical reality has generated that has the capacity to alter the fundamental structure and evolution of universe itself. This is because people have a special relationship with the laws of physics through a capacity to generate explanations of anything at all - without bound. They are universal explainers. All of this means ToKCast aims to employs a uniquely uplifting, universal worldview as a lens to explore the deepest scientific and philosophical theories. Alongside timeless principles a more complete appreciation of this knowledge  provides practical intellectual tools for individuals navigating the 21st century no matter their interests, background, concerns or skepticism. Our aim is to explain the cutting edge of what humans have learned about the objective conditions under which liberty is preserved, wealth creation maximised and our problems reliably solved. We emphasize that thread connecting libery & wealth to objective progress in science, technology, morality and philosophy broadly. 
 
ToKCast So far:

ToKCast began as a video series but is now largely focussed on an audio-only format. Now and again I produce a "bells and whistles" video which is heavy on the visuals - often covering more speculative or controversial topics (eg for the former see "The Nexus" that approaches issues about the fundamental nature of personhood given what we know from quantum theory, computation and epistemology - and for the latter see "Are we running out of resources?" which takes a cosmic view of the environmental view and resource "depletion". In the main however, I draw on material in the two books authored by David Deutsch providing my own exposition and spin on the significance of the ideas: many of which originated with David himself. The motivation for this at all is that those ideas are very new and yet to be understood widely and so are yet to have the full impact that they will. A simple example is David's explanation of the theory that underpins the field of quantum computation. Once an actual universal quantum computer is constructed: the world will change in ways not seen since the proliferation of the desktop computer or World Wide Web. But that is just one example. ToKCast serves as a means of introducing oneself to the joy of reading the books, learning the ideas and updating your thinking, perspective and worldview from the ground up. Like most popular podcasts, ToKCast is easily located using google and appears on all Podcast players/clients I am aware of. As I wrote this in late January 2022, the 107th episode of ToKCast is in production, titled "What is a good explanation?" which is one of my occasional shorter episodes which attempts to really tighten up some of the otherwise prosaic sounding terms used throughout the books we discuss but carry far more profound implications compared with how the term has traditionally been used or ignored in philosophy.  Direct mp3 downloads of all episodes can be made here: https://brettroberthall.podbean.com or subscribe via a player including the Facebook App. The Facebook App allows for comments which, if people make them, I will read and respond to.

For those who find value in ToKCast

I am happy to respond to requests and questions from anyone wherever you can find me (submitting comments or questions to the new ToKCast Facebook page may turn out to be useful for this)  - but I especially like to engage with those who are able to support the podcast. You can support it any of 5 ways by following the links below:
1. Patreon through a per month donation.
2. Patreon through a per episode donation (On average 1 to 2 episode per week are produced at present except during the traditional Australian summer period from late December to late January where I produce a little less than this).
3. Paypal - with the option to make a one off or recurring monthly donation.
And for the rare few who understand the following cryptic option:
4. ETH: 0xda0318034cd9b1cbb787f3962eab294f60535ca1
5. The "cash donation button" on my Twitter profile that links to Bitcoin.

Finally, there is an "About" tab above for more detail but for those who have wondered "Where's this guy get the chutzpah to think he can comment on fundamental ideas in physics and philosophy especially given world renowned experts like David Deutsch and Karl Popper wrote exceedingly clear books on all this! Who are you, Brett Hall, to rephrase or pick and choose what you think is most interesting? My basic answer is: well, I'm a layperson still trying to understand all this and so from episodes 1 and 2 of the series I emphasise how this is my way of understanding this and as I do the work to learn these ideas, perhaps you can gain some insight into these ideas yourself by following my attempts, error prone though it all remains. I am a layperson in almost all the matters I speak about in ToKCast - which is to say I am not paid as a professional research scientist or academic philosopher, I do not publish papers in journals and I do not deliver seminars at conferences. All that said, I have spent almost a quarter of a century - since 1997 - very closely focussed on what David Deutsch in particular has published in books, professional journal articles, lectures, public talks, interviews, tweets (!) and private correspondence to clear up my misconceptions about any of it. I'm not unique in that respect as David has an enthusiastic following - fans - who likewise appreciate the significance of his contribution across physics and science more broadly, philosophy, history, political commentary, moral philosophy, epistemology and more - and those fans like to promote his ideas.  But as I concede in the "About" section, I appreciate that some potential listeners/subscribers a still in the mind of expecting  more traditional measures of credibility and credentials. Are you actually an authority or trustworthy expert on this? If you listen to 5 or 10 episodes one may begin to see why that question is perverse, but until that bar has been reached, here is a brief academic backstory of the host:

Brett Hall completed undergraduate degrees at Australian Universities throughout the early 2000s in science at The Uni of New South Wales (a focus on Philosophy of Science and 3 years of physics/astronomy/mathematics with units in chemistry, geophysics, psychology, sports science and more) followed by a teaching degree from "The Uni of Western Sydney" then a graduate certificate in English language (grammar) and teaching from Macquarie University and then a similar credential in pure mathematics from The Australian Catholic University. The final degree completed was a "Master of Science" focussing on Astronomy/Astrophysics (from Swinburne in Victoria) for which he was awarded the "Sky and Telescope" prize in 2015 for "best performance" due in part to a GPA of 4.0 - the maximum possible and which included work in "computational astrophysics" using supercomputer simulations to investigate galaxy collisions (link above under "Physics" then "Galaxy Collisions"). Brett commenced graduate work in geology/geophysics but withdrew from Macquarie University which then discontinued that course. All up, Brett was enrolled at a university in either a full or part time capacity continuously for 19 years. To pay for all that he worked first in retail security as a Mall cop, and later taught senior physics, chemistry, mathematics and epistemology, tutored and lectured mathematics to undergrad education students, travelled and taught English to non-English speaking visitors to London, consulted on international curriculum development and worked as a science communicator with the University of New South Wales for 5 years.

Since early 2020 Brett has been working with Naval Ravikant on projects exploring possibilities of new modes which could facilitate novel research in fundamental breakthrough physics through eliminating encumbrances in the present incentives for promising young physicists and how current funding for risky, open ended and long term research is thwarted by the recent capture of science funding culture through a misconceived emulation of political and corporate practises.

Brett has also during this time been the most recent, regular guest on The Naval Podcast where together they explain optimism, wealth creation, the quest for good explanations and the work of David Deutsch in the most succinct way yet attempted.

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