Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss whether the universe operates in a purely algorithmic fashion or allows for non-algorithmic, contextual, or indeterminate behavior. They explore quantum mechanics, contextual truth, intuitionist logic, temporal logic, and the foundational role of non-contradiction in shaping reality, arguing for a mostly stable, logic-grounded universe.
*Interview conducted in October-November, 2024.* Rick Rosner: Speaking of something related but different, it’s less than two weeks until the election—12 days to be exact. Everyone’s on edge, waiting for any October surprises. This is a new topic. Perhaps the big October surprise concerning Trump could be some footage of him groping a teenager at …
*Interview conducted in October-November, 2024.* Rick Rosner: So, we were talking about people being glued to their phones. I’m not sure if it’s as bad in semi-rural Canada as it is in L.A., or in places like Hong Kong. Carole and I were in Hong Kong 30 years ago. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was that …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1172: The Big Arc of Technological Integration
Rick Rosner: In the Spike Jonze movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with his phone’s operating system, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Spoiler alert, but the movie is already nine years old? I believe it was released in 2015. One of the factors leading to their separation is that the operating system becomes increasingly frustrated with …
Rick Rosner: So I watched all the episodes of America’s Sweethearts, the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is it about? Rosner: It’s part of that team. It messes you up physically. They looked at one young woman who had to get a hip replacement after three or four years of being on the …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 973: Dallas Cheerleaders and Centaurs
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: All right, so today I saw the term integrated cognition pop up. I looked it up, and I don't know how common a term it is, but it refers to AI, and it's what we call multimodal. It's kind of the way we think, which is we have inputs from a number …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 972: Analytic Systems and Integration of Cognition
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How has the landscape of bullshitting evolved in the early 21st century? It’s been about a quarter century. How has it changed? Rick Rosner: In general, in American culture, the main change in bullshitting is that about a quarter of American adults have been broken. It’s no secret. For political reasons and …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 971: The Landscape of Bullshitting
Rick Rosner: I like making political bets because I feel like I can find odds that are askew in politics, where I can't find them in sports. I'm not good enough to find that stuff in sports. Most people aren't. I found online odds on who's going to win the presidential debate. Biden and Trump …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 970: Betting on Biden or Trump
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The mind of God, informational cosmology, and what if the universe is processing information, but it's not actually creating anything associated with a mind? It's not really consciousness-associated, it's just information processing on a large scale, like information shuttling without any explicit purpose. Rick Rosner: I doubt that's the case, though it's …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 969: The Mind of God, a mind of a god, and not quite
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have been arguing that an informational universe can be taken as, in the final analysis, deriving the universe reflected as the process of some mind. That mind or its processes reflect some armature, which is its framework. Regardless, the fundamental idea is that the universe has a mind. You are more inclined …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 968: Rick is Tired, also The Universe
Rick Rosner 