253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation

<p>David Deutsch is one of the most creative scientific thinkers working today, who has as a goal to understand and explain the natural world as best we can. He was a pioneer in quantum computing, and has long been an advocate of the Everett interpretation of quantum theory. He is also the inventor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructor_theory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">constructor theory</a>, a new way of conceptualizing physics and science more broadly. But he also has a strong interest in philosophy and epistemology, championing a Popperian explanation-based approach over a rival Bayesian epistemology. We talk about all of these things and more, including his recent work on <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/302687a0" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the Popper-Miller theorem</a>, which specifies limitations on inductive approaches to knowledge and probability.</p> <p>Blog post with transcript: <a href="https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/10/16/253-david-deutsch-on-science-complexity-and-explanation/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/10/16/253-david-deutsch-on-science-complexity-and-explanation/</a></p> <p>S<em>upport Mindscape on </em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Patreon</em></a><em>.</em></p> <p>David Deutsch received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Oxford. He is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at Oxford. He is a pioneer in quantum computation as well as initiating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructor_theory" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">constructor theory</a>. His books include <em>The Fabric of Reality</em> and <em>The Beginning of Infinity</em>. Among his awards including the Dirac Prize, the Dirac Medal, the Edge of Computation Science Prize, the Isaac Newton Medal, the Breakthrough Physics Prize, and a Royal Society Fellowship.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.daviddeutsch.org.uk/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/deutsch" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Oxford web page</a></li> <li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&amp;as_sdt=0%2C21&amp;q=david+deutsch&amp;btnG=&amp;oq=da" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APOF56" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Amazon author page</a></li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_after_billions_of_years_of_monotony_the_universe_is_waking_up?language=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TED talk: After Billions of Years of Monotony, the Universe is Waking Up</a></li> </ul> <p><br /></p>