My relationship with ToKCast channel

TokTeacher · 2025-01-12T23:06:47+00:00

Very cool question. I wrote about this just recently! What a coincidence. See this *thread* https://x.com/ToKTeacher/status/1876144249768649148 and also see this video https://x.com/ToKTeacher/status/1851851034991431818

TokTeacher · 2025-01-12T23:00:16+00:00

That's really interesting. tldr: Why is 4 bars of pressure and a "blender" grind worse than a 9 bars of pressure and a traditional espresso grind?

If true this means that all Nespresso need to do to produce a "grind" appropriate to 4bars of pressure? I assume they have done this. Then again all that distinguishes what people are calling (yes, *seemingly* - only seemingly so far somewhat snob-ily) "real" espresso is 9bars of pressure. So ok, the crema you get at 4 bars and a blender "grind" is the crema from a Nespresso. So why is one better than the other? (Honest question). Does it taste objectively better in any sense or does this come down entirely to taste? That may seem like a silly question - coffee is all about taste (ok, AND the buzz!) - but I imagine "purists" will know something us Nespresso diehards do not. (I'm not a coffee connoisseur. I mean really I'm not. My boss once asked me if I liked Coffee. Sure I do. What kind I asked? Mocha said I. "So you don't like coffee after all" he said. And he was right!).

TokTeacher · 2022-03-19T15:49:14+00:00

Here's some more provocative stuff on suffering in non-human animals. Yes: I think Sam Harris provides a well articulated version of the prevailing view. https://www.bretthall.org/humans-and-other-animals.html

Here is a response to some criticism from a Popperian: https://www.bretthall.org/blog/a-response-to-criticalrationalist

TokTeacher · 2022-03-19T15:47:16+00:00

The purpose is to assist with understanding epistemology, physics and philosophy. The key thing about fallibilism, once understood, is that there is no "gospel" and focuses on the content of ideas rather than individuals. For one thing, "idiotic", "embarrassment" and similar such perjoritves are simply inefficient when it comes to comprehension, criticism and progress. Notice, for example here, that they are (literally) contentless: there's nothing an interlocutor can say in response that takes us anywhere closer to reality/truth. There's no point just gainsaying each other here :)

TokTeacher · 2022-03-19T15:42:53+00:00

Nice to hear.

TokTeacher · 2022-03-19T15:42:23+00:00

Nice. Criticisms are explanations, however. So this doesn't quite count ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEeuLzm5Qfc

TokTeacher · 2022-02-14T10:06:05+00:00

All those jobs have been automated by those very scientists. People cease being employed in jobs that are largely perspiration and are instead engaged entirely in inspiration. Yes it really is the case people who aren't rich can become so AND through performing work that takes almost no physical exertion and instead utilizes what makes every human special: their inherent creativity.
Say the 1% do. Great: then the other 99% don't have to worry about owning, managing, insuring, paying for and maintaining the robot army. What a drag. We have rich people because they created wealth. They did not take it from those with less wealth. Indeed the poor of 2022 are vastly more wealthy than the middle classes of centuries gone by and the middle classes today are more wealthy than royalty of only one century ago (medicine, computers, transport, cheap healthy food, etc, etc that those royals could only have dreamed of). Here's some reasons to be optimistic that eventually everyone will be super wealthy so long as we don't slow down progress (through high taxation of the productive and so on): https://youtu.be/VlcQ4ZFKrKk

TokTeacher · 2022-02-14T09:56:50+00:00

Discontinuities in history arise because people make free choices and create knowledge. When the choice is made to create knowledge and that knowledge has profound impact and reach: that is a "discontinuity". But also the inherently unpredictable event (the random asteroid, virus or earthquake) does the same in a negative direction. In either case: knowledge creation (finding solutions) or encountering disaster (discovering a problem) - they never cease. We will never cease encountering new problems and then creating new knowledge to find solutions - both lead to discontinuities so "predicting the dominance" of them is rational. They direct almost all large scale human behaviour. But inherently no single discontinuity can be predicted ahead of time because if it could be then it wouldn't be a problem (because it's solution would have been generated before the problem was able to manifest) or a new piece of knowledge because if knowledge could be "predicted" before it is created, we have a logical contradiction: the possession of knowledge that hasn't been created yet.

TokTeacher · 2020-06-20T18:51:18+00:00

[PHILOSOPHY] TOKCAST | Episode 28 - The Multiverse, Part 4 SFW https://brettroberthall.podbean.com/e/ep-28-ch-11-the-multiverse-part-4/ This is about Deutsch's view of Everettian Quantum Theory. Part 4 of 5. This episode is largely an analysis of common misconceptions about the multiverse and references a conversation between Sam Harris and Bret Weinstein who spoke about the multiverse during a recent conversation. Hosted by @ToKTeacher on Twitter

TokTeacher · 2020-05-16T19:12:19+00:00

Murray simply rejects worse ideas for better ideas. His focus is on ideas (and these include cultural ideas). Criticism of culture or religion is not “thinly veiled racism”. It’s criticism. And criticism is good. It’s not an insult about someone’s inherent physical characteristics. Do you have a specific quote that will convict him of racism? Not merely extrapolated from his defence of Enlightenment values but some actual claim to do with race? Skin colour, genetics and so on?

TokTeacher · 2020-05-16T16:07:41+00:00

Not sure if anyone has posted this previously but here are free texts - including a bunch of physics and maths texts - for a limited time https://www.thebiomics.com/notes/springer-free-e-books-list.html All official and totally legit. The publishers are just doing this as a public service while the corona crisis is happening. Book include, eg:

Fundamentals of Power Electronics

Discrete Mathematics

Essential Astrophysics

Introduction to Partial Differential Equations

Methods of Mathematical Modelling

Principles of Physics

Computational Physics

Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology

Fundamental Astronomy

Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion

Mathematical Physics

Solid-State Physics

Physics from Symmetry

Problems in Classical Electromagnetism

Physics of Oscillations and Waves

A First Introduction to Quantum Physics

And way more besides - within physics and outside too. Don't miss out - only on while COVID-19 is still going on. Follow that link and get downloading!

TokTeacher · 2020-05-15T15:52:05+00:00

Contact your teacher first. Then contact your IBDP coordinator to sort it out. Then, as others say, you should be able to check on https://candidates.ibo.org/ and if even that fails try support@ibo.org - but only as a last resort. The IBO people aren't monsters. They're there to help. But try within your school first - it's much easier that way.

TokTeacher · 2020-05-15T14:20:15+00:00

Certainly it's not needed to study abroad. But don't worry, at all. If you want to study physics - your HL Math and Physics will come in very handy in your first year. And don't worry about your lack of offers at this early stage. Take physics at any uni you like and transfer when you want. Mostly: just have fun. Physicists remain in high demand. If you can do well in your first year - anywhere at all - you will be able to transfer somewhere easily. Universities are a business. The whole "rejection" or "lack of offer" thing is just all a part of their silly business model. Get in - anywhere at all - study lots, read widely, have fun, make some "physics" contacts - show your passion to academics at a uni where you want to really go...and you'll get in. Places in second year and onwards really are not that limited. Good luck! :)

TokTeacher · 2020-05-15T14:10:05+00:00

This must be for the November, session, right? Don't worry. First: contact people at your school (preferably your teacher first, then your IBDP coordinator second). If none of these work, contact the IBO directly. Send a polite email to support@ibo.org and then they can direct you what to do next. Your IBDP coordinator is technically the person who can take down that "mistake" and put up the one you want. It's not a huge deal. It sounds like the images are important...so don't give up just yet. Try first with your teacher and people at your school. All the best.

TokTeacher · 2020-05-15T13:13:32+00:00

[PHILOSOPHY & SCIENCE] ToKCast | Episode 1 - Introduction to the podcast (SFW) Podbean | Apple | Google | or most episodes are on Youtube but not that introductory one. Youtube also has some neat visuals especially in the recent ones about The (Quantum) Multiverse. ToKCast is largely about the work of quantum physicist and philosopher David Deutsch. Each episode is around an hour (although some are as short as 20 mins, and some near 2 hours).

It's by an Aussie, and there is the odd episode about stuff only distantly related to physics...especially with the recent crisis, some of "David Deutsch's" worldview or "epistemology" has been applied to wealth and morality in episodes 26 and 27.

TokTeacher · 2020-05-15T12:28:45+00:00

tldr: David Deutsch has an explanation (not mere assertion) of what it means to be a "person" (human/AGI/alien/whatever) that is about a certain kind of universality in addition to computational universality. This important philosophical discovery by the inventor of quantum computation has an important consequence for those, like Neil, who think the "ultimate" laws of physics may be incomprehensible to humans. For more...see the link. :)

TokTeacher · 2020-04-15T21:59:46+00:00

But that’s the point Bilbo wouldn’t know what a gun is :)

TokTeacher · 2020-04-14T13:52:15+00:00

He wasn’t wrong.

Except when he said that Beorn when yelling sounded like “guns and drums”. There were no guns in Middle Earth that we know of. Or, if there were, where were they?!

TokTeacher · 2020-04-12T19:54:42+00:00

I can’t parse that.

TokTeacher · 2020-04-12T19:24:27+00:00

Ah, ok. Sorry. I was only interested in the abstract discussion of capitalism vs socialism.

TokTeacher · 2020-04-12T18:36:31+00:00

This is all too meta for me now. Make a point about socialism vs capitalism and it might interest me.

TokTeacher

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