{"id":2643,"date":"2016-02-04T17:53:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-04T22:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=2643"},"modified":"2017-01-13T07:02:27","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T12:02:27","slug":"heres-some-video-of-me-spouting-about-deep-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=2643","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s some video of me spouting about Deep Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In January 2014, I attended an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/fqxi.org\/conference\/destination\">FQXi conference<\/a> on Vieques island in Puerto Rico. \u00a0While there, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Robert_Lawrence_Kuhn\">Robert Lawrence Kuhn<\/a> interviewed me for his TV program\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.closertotruth.com\/\">Closer to Truth<\/a>, which deals with science and religion and philosophy and you get the idea. \u00a0Alas,\u00a0my\u00a0interview was at the very end of the conference, and we lost track of the time&#8212;so unbeknownst to me, a plane full of theorists was literally\u00a0sitting on the runway waiting for me to finish philosophizing! \u00a0This was the second time Kuhn interviewed me for his show; the first time was on a cruise ship near Norway in 2011. \u00a0(Thankless hero that I am, there&#8217;s nowhere I won&#8217;t travel for the sake of truth.)<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, after a two-year wait, the videos from Puerto Rico are\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/scott-aaronson\/profile?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_content=new-contributor-video-promotion&amp;utm_campaign=aaronson-tweet-2-3-2016\">finally\u00a0available online<\/a><\/strong>. \u00a0While my vignettes cover what, for most readers of this blog, will be very basic stuff, I&#8217;m <em>sort of<\/em>\u00a0happy with how they turned out: I still stutter and rock back and forth, <em>but not as much as usual<\/em>. \u00a0For your viewing convenience, here are the new videos:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/what-happens-black-holes#video-49249\">The black hole information paradox, firewalls, and Harlow-Hayden argument<\/a> (6 minutes)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/physics-free-will#video-49247\">Physics and free will<\/a> (8 minutes 24 seconds)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/what-things-are-conscious#video-49254\">Which entities are conscious?<\/a> (6 minutes 3 seconds)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/what-cant-be-predicted-physics#video-49248\">Quantum mechanics, the predictability of nature, the Bell inequality, and Einstein-certified randomness<\/a> (5 minutes 12 seconds)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/why-philosophy-science#video-49255\">What&#8217;s the value of philosophy, and can it make progress?<\/a> (3 minutes 42 seconds)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/what-causation#video-49250\">Newcomb&#8217;s Paradox<\/a> (4 minutes 13 seconds)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/series\/what-truth#video-49253\">G\u00f6del&#8217;s Theorem and the definiteness of mathematical truth<\/a> (8 minutes 20 seconds)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I had one other vignette, about why the universe exists, but they seem to have cut that one. \u00a0Alas, if I knew why the universe existed in January 2014, I can&#8217;t remember any more.<\/p>\n<p>One embarrassing goof: I referred to the inventor of Newcomb&#8217;s Paradox as &#8220;Simon Newcomb.&#8221; \u00a0Actually it was <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/William_Newcomb\">William Newcomb<\/a>: a distant relative of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Simon_Newcomb\">Simon Newcomb<\/a>, the 19<sup>th<\/sup>-century astronomer who measured the speed of light.<\/p>\n<p>At their website, you can also see my older 2011 videos, and videos from others who <em>might<\/em> be known to readers of this blog, like\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/marvin-minsky\/profile\">Marvin Minsky<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/roger-penrose\/profile\">Roger Penrose<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/rebecca-goldstein\/profile\">Rebecca Newberger Goldstein<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/david-chalmers\/profile\">David Chalmers<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/sean-carroll\/profile\">Sean Carroll<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/max-tegmark\/profile\">Max Tegmark<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/david-deutsch\/profile\">David Deutsch<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/raphael-bousso\/profile\">Raphael Bousso<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/freeman-dyson\/profile\">Freeman Dyson<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/nick-bostrom\/profile\">Nick Bostrom<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/raymond-kurzweil\/profile\">Ray Kurzweil<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/rodney-brooks\/profile\">Rodney Brooks<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/stephen-wolfram\/profile\">Stephen Wolfram<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/gregory-chaitin\/profile\">Greg Chaitin<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/anthony-lisi\/profile\">Garrett Lisi<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/seth-lloyd\/profile\">Seth Lloyd<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/leonard-susskind\/profile\">Lenny Susskind<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/lee-smolin\/profile\">Lee Smolin<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/steven-weinberg\/profile\">Steven Weinberg<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/wojciech-zurek\/profile\">Wojciech Zurek<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/fotini-markopoulou\/profile\">Fotini Markopoulou<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/juan-maldacena\/profile\">Juan Maldacena<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/don-page\/profile\">Don Page<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/closertotruth.com\/contributor\/david-albert\/profile\">David Albert<\/a>. \u00a0(No, I haven&#8217;t yet watched most of these, but now that I linked to them, maybe I will!)<\/p>\n<p>Thanks very much to Robert Lawrence Kuhn and Closer to Truth (and my previous self, I guess?) for providing <em>Shtetl-Optimized<\/em> content so I don&#8217;t have to.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: red;\"><b>Update:<\/b><\/span> Andrew Critch of CFAR asked me to post the following announcement.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We\u2019re seeking a full time salesperson for the Center for Applied Rationality in Berkeley, California. We&#8217;ve streamlined operations to handle large volume in workshop admissions, and now we need that volume to pour in. Your role would be to fill our workshops, events, and alumni community with people. Last year we had 167 total new alumni. This year we want 120 per month. <a href=\"http:\/\/rationality.org\/hiring\/inside-sales\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In January 2014, I attended an\u00a0FQXi conference on Vieques island in Puerto Rico. \u00a0While there, Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviewed me for his TV program\u00a0Closer to Truth, which deals with science and religion and philosophy and you get the idea. \u00a0Alas,\u00a0my\u00a0interview was at the very end of the conference, and we lost track of the time&#8212;so [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,33,12,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-meatspace","category-bells-theorem-but-a-flesh-wound","category-metaphysical-spouting","category-nerd-interest"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2647,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2643\/revisions\/2647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}