SCIENCE WRITER: author of WSJ book-of-the-month Persuadable EXPERIMENTALIST: designed some of the largest RCTs in healthcare LECTURER: Google, Microsoft, NASA
New York City
Joined March 2009
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My new Psychology Today article is featured on the home page today. Check it out!
Thanks to @DavidDeutschOxf for the inspiration and @ToKTeacher for the peer review.
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/…
Al Pittampalli retweeted
Blake Eastman is a psychologist and expert at reading other people's non-verbal cues. In this episode, he teaches you exactly what he knows (and explains how it can go terribly wrong...)
'The Non-Verbal Expert: These Behaviors Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Someone'
Al Pittampalli retweeted
My conversation with David Deutsch (@DavidDeutschOxf).
David is the author of The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. He is known as the father of quantum computing for his contributions to the field. He is an advocate of Taking Children Seriously, a new, non-paternalistic view of children.
Topics we discuss are well captured by the timestamps below.
Links to YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and transcript in thread below.
Timestamps:
0:22 - Happiness is a state of continually solving one’s problems
4:54 - Both free-will and the self exist
12:06 - The principle of optimism
17:28 - Any ultimate explanation is a bad explanation
20:22 - The origins of Taking Children Seriously
25:33 - Why children are the most coerced members in society
31:33 - Anarcho-capitalism
Still making my way through @WiringTheBrain's new book Free Agents, but so far it is BRILLIANT. A stunningly comprehensive, cohesive, and lucid narrative on how humans evolved the ability to choose. Highly recommended . amazon.com/Free-Agents-Evolu…
Al Pittampalli retweeted
A tour de force by Popper.
youtube.com/watch?v=EqutSKK7…
And by Brett.
Now that I've watched a number of these, greatly outnumbering what I've heard by other Australians, the neural net within me keeps telling me to expect everything said in an Australian accent to be a deep truth.
Al Pittampalli retweeted
What you can never extract from experiments are new good explanations. It doesn't work that way. That's the empiricist mistake and is still the popular conception of how science works and is often lurking behind statements like "evidence-based (science)" or similar formulations.
Al Pittampalli retweeted
I’ve been secretly writing a book this past year… and it’s ready! Rich Instinct out now on all major platforms!
Al Pittampalli retweeted
Bayesianism Podcast - Twitter version
First, I cover the basics of epistemology & decision theory.
Then I go into the various "species" of what is grouped under "Bayesianism" including:
Bayes' Theorem
Bayesian Statistics
Bayesian "Reasoning" &
Bayesian "Epistemology"
Al Pittampalli retweeted
My friend @Pittampalli wrote a great book on this.
Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World
amazon.com/Persuadable-Great…
Al Pittampalli retweeted
Dogmatism: it is impossible to be objectively wrong about something(s).
Relativism: it is impossible to be objectively wrong.
Fallibilism: it is always possible to be objectively wrong.
youtu.be/VxeXbTv1dug
SCIENCE IN 3 STEPS:
1. We stumble over some problem.
2. We try to solve it, for example by proposing some theory.
3. We learn from our mistakes...by the critical discussion of our tentative solutions...which tends to lead to new problems.
Popper, Myth of the Framework
WHY 1492 WAS A LANDMARK YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE:
"Before Columbus discovered America in 1492 there was no clear-cut and well-established idea of discovery; the idea of discovery is...a precondition for the invention of science."
The Invention of Science by @ProfWootton
THE CREDO OF MODERN SCIENTISTS:
"Make a thorough study of the masters..then...identify the errors in the masters' thinking, correct them, and in so doing improve our understanding of the world." - @carlorovelli (Anaximander)
Al Pittampalli retweeted
Inductivism is the misconception explanations can be extracted purely from trends (i.e via induction: the supposed process of generalising from particulars).
Al Pittampalli retweeted
It was literally dispensed with decades ago. Changing the branding hasn't changed the product.
THE TRUTH ABOUT INDUCTIVE REASONING
Today is March 10th.
After that comes the 11th, 12th, and so on until ultimately the 31st.
But the million dollar question: what comes after that?
Induction is the idea that humans derive theories from observations.
And if induction were true, we would naturally predict after March 31st comes the 32nd.
But not one of us will commit this blunder. Not one.
Here's why:
Al Pittampalli retweeted
"Its, Bits, Qubits"
A two-part podcast on @DavidDeutschOxf's "It from Qubit" (2002). Here in *Part 2* I focus exclusively on that paper. This is the deepest stuff we know about reality. Ignore untestable conjectures about all this! Here’s the real stuff:
youtube.com/watch?v=9pS3h71f…