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There are 2 main approaches to AI (symbolic vs connectionism), and they are very different in how they think about producing intelligence in the machine. One approach believes in programming what we know about the world into the machine, and the other ignores any pre-existing knowledge by relying on large datasets and correlation.There is a long-standing debate between which approach is best, despite only one of these approaches having much success. The reason this debase still exists is because it gets to the heart of a deeper discussion on the role knowledge plays in intelligence. In this episode I use the AI debate to uncover what I believe is a deeper problem in how people think about learning, and relate this to implications for our everyday lives.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

The modern narrative frames structure and systems as oppressive. As though we should never be held back by systems that interfere with our ability to express our unique selves.But being ourselves at all times with no system to govern our behavior is its own trap. The unfiltered and unstructured life is an unproductive and unfulfilled one. I argue that there is a difference between the real you and the true you, with the latter being realized through a system of ideals, and made possible thorugh things like ritual. In this episode I talk about the importance of structure, and how it paradoxically leads to more freedom.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

We all depend on our environment to survive. We need food, water, friends, family, coworkers. We participate in the economy, pay for entertainment, post on social media. But all these things bear the seeds of our destruction. We need things to grow, but past a point these same things can destroy us. The real challenge in life is finding the right dosage for the things we depend on. Analytical approaches tend to fail when it comes to finding the right dosage. I offer an alternative based on complexity and signals.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

Hey everyone, Sean here from NonTrivial. Just a quick announcement for the upcoming season 4. In season 3, I used a book to anchor our conversations. I did this so that I could show how many of the core patterns we encountered in seasons 1 and 2 appear universally in many different contexts.In season 4 I will be returning to the original format of discussing the patterns themselves, without specifically using a book to showcase the example. In truth, not a lot changes, as the focus remains on the deep patterns I believe to be at the intersection of science, complexity, and philosophy. While I still may refer to the odd book as an example, the core focus is on the pattern itself and the real-world use it has in our lives.I'm looking forward to kicking off a new season of NonTrivial, and as always, thanks so much for listening.Hope everyone had an awesome holiday, and of course I wish you all a very Happy New Year.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I take a look at the nature of time, try to figure out what it is, what today’s physics can and cannot tell us, whether or not it’s an illusion, and how memory and consciousness might play a fundamental role in the realization of time.  I discuss Einstein's Relativity, review some thought experiments related to time, and describe what I think is wrong with the current physics approaches to explaining what time is. In the end I offer some ideas regarding the problem of time.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

AI is a promising and inevitable technology. But today’s AI is too brittle to trust fully, and without trust we cannot push the needle on AI progress. So, must we wait around until AI is good enough before we can truly trust it? I argue that we have to trust AI before it can make the next great leap in intelligence. This has to do with the fact that genuine intelligence works via flawed people working in groups. I argue that the next paradigm in AI research will need to have humans and AIs cooperating and competing with each other, biases and flaws included.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

We define a thing’s value by its characteristics; what it does and doesn’t do. But a thing cannot adequately be defined outside its environment. There are countless dependencies that make a thing, a thing. We need to shift our focus “up” to a more holistic level if we are to move levers that produce positive outcomes. This is because nature chooses what survives by operating on parameters that form in aggregate. In this episode I use examples from Max Boot’s book War Made New: Technology, Warfare and the Course of History¹ to show how an understanding of what occurs in combination can be used to solve hard challenges as nature does.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

Economists are known for attempting to treat economics like a genuine science. But upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that their methods are quite outdated. As a consequence, most of today's economists are providing an extremely naive "understanding" of our economy, and worse, damaging society's ability to improve people's lives. In this episode I'll use Eric Beinhocker's book The Origin of Wealth, Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics, to anchor my conversation around how today's economists conveniently misunderstand our world.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

We've looked at one side of the equation, the changes we put in place at the societal level to possibly solve the gun problem in America. But what about the individuals who commit crimes in the first place? Is there something deeper to the gun problem that is making America the so-called "country of homicides"? Is there a higher moral standard or philosophy society is missing that might make individuals less likely to use guns in the first place? I argue there is a real utility to morality, and that in addition to putting in place a tangible solution like a well regulated militia, there might also be a moral solution society need to embrace. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

The gun debate is one of America’s most polarized issues. Large mass shootings always bring this debate to the forefront, eliciting strong emotions from both sides of the aisle. Many believe the answer is stricter gun laws, while others see this as government overreach and believe average citizens can better protect themselves by keeping and bearing arms. I argue that neither of these choices are likely to be effective, and put forward a third option that better aligns to how information and decision making work in systems that survive. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

NonTrivial is of course free for all listeners, but I do offer bonus content to my Patreon subscribers. I'm publishing this week's bonus talk for free so regular listeners can get a taste of what this additional content sounds like. Enjoy.Given today’s networked economy, with its extreme wealth disparity, many wonder how they can contribute. How does one not get discouraged by the concentration of wealth? What can you do to exist within this kind of asymmetric economy and still find meaning and make a good living? The usual solution offered by many is where people on YouTube and other social media sites say they can teach you how to make money online, or generate a ton of followers. I argue that these kind of methods are more akin to “get rich quick schemes” because they fail to acknowledge that asymmetric network properties guarantee that only a few nodes will have the overwhelming number of links, and therefore wealth. I argue that rather than following someone else’s so-called recipe for success you should learn to create and scale value for others by focusing on building things you find fascinating. By doing so you can attract a decent number of links to your node, creating real value for others and enriching your own life, all the while operating within an asymmetric, rich get richer network.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

Many argue that the internet has destroyed more jobs than it’s created, and that as such our information economy has obliterated the middle class. The common “solution” proposed for this problem is to create systems that pay users for their data. If you join Twitter or Facebook (Meta) then you should somehow be compensated since it’s your data that make these companies successful. This is the argument Jaron Lanier makes in his book Who Owns the Future. I will argue that compensating users for data is a non-solution because of the way networks convert user data into product features. I will argue that rather than compensate users for their data it makes more sense to change the network topology such that more people can create lucrative enterprises under the current model.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In part II of Imprecise Destinations we continue our look at democracy by discussing so called "monitory democracy" as it exists today. We'll see both its strengths and weaknesses, and lead into some ultimate questions about the universality of democracy going forward. I end the episode with a look into how we can mathematically model democracy and play around with some scenarios on the NonTrivial Playground. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I take a look at the topic of democracy. Using John Keane's book The Life and Death of Democracy I show that the usual Western narratives we've been taught about democracy fall short of reality.  I discuss the many contributions to assembly and representation that came to us from a variety of societies throughout history, and challenge the perhaps quixotic picture many of us have of this form of government. I also highlight democracy's strengths, and end with a look at the way in which democracy can be modelled mathematically. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I take a look at leadership, specifically the idea of the “strong” leader. Those individuals who stand by their convictions, and dominate the room with their charisma and commanding attitudes. These are often the people we gravitate towards when we see them on screen giving their speeches. These are the people we often help bring to power.  But history shows that it’s often the calm, tranquil and reasoned leader who fares much better when it comes to bringing about positive change, implementing effective foreign policy and gaining the support of their party and the general public. I will pick apart some of the underlying mechanisms that show how calm leadership can be much more effective, even though it can appear “weak” from the outside. I’ll explore how leadership can be modelled mathematically, and how all of this speaks to the power of remaining calm; something that can dramatically improve our ability to be successful in this world. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I look at the "delusions" that happen when a large number of people get together in groups. We'll explore a number of prominent economic bubbles and end-of-times cults to reveal the core properties of groups that lead to mania. I discuss the Terra Luna collapse as a recent example, explore human biases, and ultimately show that the so-called "delusions" that occur in groups is really just one of the costs to complex tractability. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I take a look at the sordid history of the library. The library has been a beacon of knowledge, and a marker of civilization for hundreds of years. But the library’s journey from the scriptoriums of medieval monasteries to massive cultural institutions like The Library of Congress has been perilous.  This is a journey that touches on many modern concerns we have around information, including propaganda, censorship, access, elitism and the conquests of both political leaders and rich industrialists.  To own the information society is exposed to is to own society itself, to control what people think, and believe. The library has always been caught in the middle, between the power struggles of the elites, and a public hungry for knowledge (and the opportunities such knowledge brings). In this episode we will use the library’s history to showcase fundamental patterns related to unification, censorship, critical thresholds, growth and variation, replication and scale, growth and destruction, crossover opportunities, resiliency and simultaneous discovery. And you thought a talk on libraries was going to be boring. Let’s get started.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

David Deutsch, in his book, The Beginning of Infinity, argues that “good” explanations are how knowledge grows, and thus good explanations are what lead to progress. Deutsch believes that the Enlightenment was only possible because of Western society’s quest for good explanations. As such, Deutsch believes quite optimistically that humanity’s ability to “cure all evils” has infinite reach, as long as we keep searching for good explanations. Deutsch disregards philosophies that are “explanationless” and instead believes elegant explanations of our world are the ultimate guide to truth. Deutsch argues that substantial creativity has only existed since the Enlightenment, since creation must depend on a culture of critique using “good” explanations.  I will argue that explanations are indeed needed, but not in the way Deutsch thinks. Rather than “good” explanations leading to progress, it is “bad” explanations that move us forward, and in fact, almost all explanations are bad. I argue that ultimately it does not matter if an explanation is correct, as long as we believe they are, since this is what motivates us to keep trying. More to the point, it is not an explanation’s proximity to truth that solves problems, but rather movement and naivete that make problems tractable. I will argue that explanations are not truly testable for most natural phenomena, and as such, are not aligned to the culture of critique as Deutsch suggests. I will argue that the notion of unlimited knowledge growth is problematic, running counter to what we know about the convergence and cyclical nature of ideas. I will contend that philosophies that reject explanation should be preferred, and that ultimately, knowledge is not required for progress.Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

In this episode I talk about the role that magic, superstition, irrationality has played in human progress, specifically the so-called Enlightenment. I will use the life of Paracelsus, the Swiss physician, alchemist and lay theologian of the German Renaissance, as an exemplar of one who paved the way for progress, yet believed wholeheartedly in things that today we would not associate with intellectual advancement. I want to show how much of science and engineering came not from some departure from myth and magic as the usual narrative goes, but because of beliefs in things that today seem counter to enlightened thinking. I will argue that there are strong evolutionary mechanisms behind superstition and irrational thinking, and that to continue making progress humanity will need to return to magic. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/

The way we normally think of technology is as an extension of what humans do in the absence of technology. Technology extends our eyes, ears and muscles, and also our memories and even our thinking. But in this episode I argue that technology and humanity are actually one in the same; that technology is not an extension of humanity but rather an integral, and inevitable, part of human evolution. I'll be touching on a number of fundamental patterns and concepts, including external stressors, emergence, complexity thresholds, feedback loops and negentropy (negative entropy). I'll end with some deep questions about the fate of humanity, and ultimately, what it means to be human. Support the show https://seanamcclure.medium.com/