Ep 35: David Deutsch & Humanity's Infinite Reach

The Christian Transhumanist Podcast

David Deutsch explains the physics of humanity’s profound place in the cosmos—and our potentially unlimited future.

Bio:

David Deutsch is an Oxford Physicist, a pioneer in the field of Quantum Computing, the founder of Constructor Theory, and the author of the books The Fabric of Reality, and The Beginning of Infinity.

Takeaways:

• Humans occupy a profound place in the cosmos, because of our “special relationship with the laws of physics”
• Human minds have reached a sort of escape velocity. There is nothing in the universe we cannot understand, and nothing that is possible in the universe that we cannot do.
• This means there is no categorical difference between any of us—or between us and any alien species, or super-intelligent AI
• We need a culture of problem-solving, not problem-avoidance
• Knowledge confers power without limit

Relevant links, essays, and talks by David Deutsch:

• The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch (**Must read!**)
• The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch
• Artificial Intelligence is a Philosophical Problem—on the relevance of understanding human intelligence to the creation of AI
• TED talk—chemical scum that dream of distant quasars—on our place in the cosmos
• TED talk—a new way to explain explanation—what explanatory knowledge actually is
• David Deutsch’s Interview with Sam Harris
• David Deutsch’s website

How might religion engage with these ideas?

• Micah Redding on The Infinite Morality of Jesus (essay)
• Micah Redding on Christianity as Transcendent Humanism (talk)

Pull-quotes:

“The one advantage that good has over evil…is that the bad guys are wrong” — David Deutsch (click to tweet!)

“Wayward teenagers are also AIs” — David Deutsch (click to tweet!)

Key concepts and definitions:

• Knowledge is the defining characteristic of life
• Explanatory knowledge is the defining characteristic of persons
• Humans are the only persons we know of
• Explanatory knowledge means:
  • We have a “special relationship with the laws of physics”
  • We have infinite reach
  • We can understand anything in the universe
  • We can do anything that is possible in the universe
  • We are the most significant phenomenon in the universe
• The creation of new explanatory knowledge is what persons do
  • We don’t yet know how this works—which means Artificial Intelligence is a Philosophical Problem, not a technical one
  • Because humans are persons, with infinite reach, there is no categorical difference between us and any alien species, or future AI, no matter how intelligent
  • Human minds have reached a sort of escape velocity
  • Human Universality is a consequence of the theory of computation—and demonstrates that we have no fundamental limits, and that our biological differences are irrelevant
• We need a culture of problem-solving, not problem-avoidance
  • We are guaranteed to have problems, but we can solve them.
  • Pursuing knowledge will not prevent problems, and will sometimes create them, but it is the only way for good to triumph.
  • “The one advantage that good has over evil…is that the bad guys are wrong” — David Deutsch
  • The pursuit of new knowledge is the one area where good has an advantage over evil. To stop the pursuit of knowledge is to sacrifice good’s one advantage.
• “Traditions which stabilize change” are the paradoxical phenomenon necessary for ongoing progress, and must be “traditions of criticism”
  • The scientific revolution was one particular tradition of criticism, involving the pursuit of “good explanations”
    • “Good explanations” are explanations which are hard-to-vary
    • Micah’s maxim: “Truth is the thing that’s hard to shake”
    • The scientific process itself is subject to evolution and change
  • Democracy, and many other institutions which achieve ongoing progress, are other examples of traditions of criticism
    • The one criterion by which we judge political systems should be, does this make it more or less easy to remove bad policies, and bad leaders, without violence?
• David Deutsch’s take on The Omega Point Theory and other cosmological models: One way or another, we have a virtually unlimited cosmological future