The Beginning of Infinity, Part 1

Science Is the Engine That Pulls Humanity Forward 0:00

This Book Changed the Way I Think 2:13

Nullius in Verba 4:11

Explanations That Reach the Entire Universe 6:25

Read the Best 100 Books Over and Over Again 8:19

We’re at the Beginning of an Infinity of Knowledge 10:21

People Are a Force of Nature 12:18

It’s Impossible to Predict the Growth of Knowledge 14:36

Humans Are Unique in Our Ability to Understand Things 16:30

Good Explanations Are Acts of Creativity 17:36

Good Explanations Are Hard to Vary 19:15

There Is No End of Science 21:41

There Is No Settled Mathematics 23:48

The Methods of Mathematics Are Fallible 26:43

All Knowledge Is Conjectural 29:27

Is the Universe Discrete or Continuous? 32:36

Every Theory Is Held Inside a Physical Substrate 34:44

We Can’t Prove Most Theorems with Known Physics 36:27

Probability Is Subjective 38:03

Is Light a Particle or a Wave? 40:09

The Multiverse 43:28

We Explain the Seen in Terms of the Unseen 45:10

Science Expands Our Vision of Reality 46:36

Science Is an Error-Correcting Mechanism 48:08

Theories Are Explanations, Not Predictions 50:12

Make Bold Guesses and Weed Out the Failures 52:44

Science Advances One Funeral at a Time 54:56

It’s Rare to Have Competing, Viable, Scientific Theories 56:13

We’re All Equal in Our Infinite Ignorance 59:13

It’s Easy to Extrapolate How Things Will Get Worse 1:00:38

Pessimism Seems Like an Intellectually Serious Position 1:02:14

Rational Optimism Is the Way Out 1:04:11

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Transcript http://nav.al/infinity

This is Part 1 of my interview with ‪@bretthall9080‬ about The Beginning of Infinity. Also see Part 2:    • The Beginning of Infinity, Part 2