[Recording Start] Rick Rosner: So, Seth MacFarlane has a new series with Ted, the Talking Teddy Bear. They made two movies with Mark Wahlberg and Ted, the talking teddy bear. Now it's a TV series, and they had a scene that takes place on Fridays, which is an East Coast ice cream parlour/ restaurant, and it …
Ask A Genius 871: Persistence is Consistency and a Tangle of Information, Embedded
[Recording Start] Rick Rosner: When we talk about persistence, we're talking about interesting persistence instead of a rocky planet with no life. I mean, yeah, it can exist and will exist for maybe tens of billions of years, but not so interestingly. So, interesting persistence is life and things that can respond and survive via thought …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 871: Persistence is Consistency and a Tangle of Information, Embedded
Ask A Genius 870: Large-Scale Information Exchange in a Relational Cosmology
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, we've had some disagreements on IC over the last few years. One of those is the idea that consciousness is required for large-scale information exchange; it's a simplified way of saying it. I don't think it's necessarily derivative if you think like large-scale physics, that you get a mind out of …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 870: Large-Scale Information Exchange in a Relational Cosmology
Ask A Genius 869: Hey, guess what? More on IQ Tests!
[Recording Start] Rick Rosner: All right, so, talking about high IQ tests, IQ tested 120 years ago, or when they were first conceived of by Binet, they were supposed to be on a scale of one to five given to kids to see what kind of educational resources they might need. So, score a one, you're …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 869: Hey, guess what? More on IQ Tests!
Ask A Genius 868: Some Reflection on Norms and Statistical Analysis: or, Getting Jiggy with It
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Does proper statistical analysis… Ron Hoeflin tips the hat to him. Now, I have gotten responses from some members of the high IQ community on this particular one. When I point out these new norms and Ron Hoeflin's statement that I am not a statistician, they will say I still stick to …
Ask A Genius 867: Long-Term Collaboration
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, I wanted to do a little session or even a medium or long session, depending on how it goes about interacting and working and writing about you for nine years or almost a decade. It's been a long trip. When we first started collaborating, I reached out to you just …
Ask A Genius 866: Edward Witten’s Productivity
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I had another topic for today about Edwin. As you know, he’s a colleague of mine and is a professor in cosmology at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. Mir Faisal, he's a devout Muslim; really smart guy and much more liberal than even me and has very interesting takes …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 866: Edward Witten’s Productivity
Ask A Genius 865: The Bullshit of Metaphysics, Sorta
[Recording Start] Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I wanted to talk about the bullshit of metaphysics. I think that metaphysics, in so far as we currently understand it and have historically taken it in its existence, is outmoded in many ways. In that sense, I would argue for it being bullshit. I take that as a shorthand …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 865: The Bullshit of Metaphysics, Sorta
Ask A Genius 864: Big Dongs
[Recording Start] Rick Rosner: So, in the 70’s which seemed like a very white era in terms of sex symbols, you had Charlie's Angels and Farrah Fawcett and it was a very skinny era in America. People jogged and also did a lot of cocaine and so some of our biggest sex symbols were assless …
Ask A Genius 863: Updates on Rick’s Novel
[Recording Start] Rick Rosner: I'm working on this novel about a very smart individual. At some point you're going to have to read it. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay. Rosner: And this individual is, to some extent a version of me, and has a lot of exciting things going on in his life and has neglected …
Rick Rosner 