Prof. Brian Keating

The Cognitive Scientist Who Says You Don't Exist | Joscha Bach (@Plinz) Timestamps: 00:00 You Don't Live in the World — It Lives in You 10:05 Why Scientists Refuse to Explain Reality 14:50 Where Joscha Disagrees with David Deutsch 21:10 What Would a Truly Intelligent Machine Actually Do? 25:00 Why Chess Destroys Good Minds 30:40 Can You Upload a Brain? What Neuroscience Gets Wrong 38:45 Why Einstein Needed a Body to Discover Relativity 46:00 AI Companies as Prophets of the New Religion 50:10 You Don't Die Because You Were Never Really Alive 57:50 Religion as a Civilizational Operating System 1:04:00 What the Torah Knew That Sam Harris Doesn't 1:12:00 What Is God, Actually? 1:18:00 What Bach University Would Teach 1:27:50 Confronting Your Own Death

d V_sphere / V_cube 2 0.79 10 2.5 × 10⁻³ 50 1.9 × 10⁻²⁴ 100 1.9 × 10⁻⁷⁰ 500 ~10⁻⁶¹⁶ 1000 ~10⁻¹⁴⁶⁴

My intuition about geometry was catastrophically wrong. I never knew that, in high dimensions, spheres effectively disappear. By 100 dimensions, an inscribed sphere occupies a smaller fraction of its cube than a proton occupies of the observable universe. By 500 dimensions, the volume is smaller than what standard floating-point arithmetic can even represent. The equations are real. Here’s the wild horror hidden in higher-dimensional geometry:

Now we consider a d-dimensional hypercube: [-1,1]ᵈ Its volume is: V_cube(d) = 2ᵈ Inside it: an inscribed hypersphere of radius 1. Its volume is: V_sphere(d) = π^(d/2) / Γ(d/2 + 1) where Γ is the gamma function, aka the “continuous factorial.”

So far, so good. Let's go to d=3:

Moral of the story? In high-dimensional space, geometry is ruled by corners. The “middle” disappears. Everything hugs the boundary. The sphere? It’s basically a ghost.

By d = 100, the sphere occupies a smaller fraction of the cube than a proton occupies of the entire observable universe. By d = 500, the ratio has fallen below ~10⁻⁶¹⁶. That’s so small it blows past the limits of standard double-precision floating point arithmetic (~10⁻³⁰⁸). At that point, the sphere is numerically indistinguishable from zero.

Scientists may have built something bizarre: a molecular “sun battery” that stores sunlight in liquid form for months, then releases it later as heat on demand. Not electricity. Rearranged chemical bonds holding sunlight like a compressed spring. In some ways it’s closer to photosynthesis than to a Tesla battery. And before the Reddit perpetual-motion crowd declares the Second Law of Thermodynamics officially deceased: no, this is not “free energy.” It’s delayed energy. Big difference. Physics remains undefeated. Still, the deeper idea is fascinating. The Sun has always been a fusion reactor. That works for free, never takes a day off, never goes on strike. The new molecule absorbs sunlight, remains charged for months, and releases the energy as heat when triggered. Inspired by the reversible shift of photochromic sunglasses, the material surpasses lithium-ion batteries in energy density and could potentially be used in rooftop collectors that capture sunlight by day and heat homes overnight. It could be real. Or it could be another case of the ‘infinite free energy' phenomenon that I posted about on Reddit [please follow me there for the hottest takes outside of the Sun] reddit.com/r/skeptic/comm…

San Diego showing off tonight

@snailtracks All of it and more

@briankeating In San Diego? I wonder how much of that still remains.

50 years before Apple Park there was General Atomics

Sam's claim: nearly every state of psychological suffering is anchored to a self that vanishes the moment you look for it. Does the felt sense of "I" survive close inspection?

Sam Harris (@wakingup) parts ways with Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra): meditative experience can tell you a great deal about why you suffer, but absolutely nothing about the Big Bang. The contemplative data is real. The metaphysical woo riding on top of it usually isn't. youtu.be/oDa1Dakkza8

As a teenager, his father told him: "You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." He went on to write several books, including this one. Nobody knows what you're going to become. Including your parents.

The Cognitive Scientist Who Says You Don't Exist | Joscha Bach (@Plinz) Timestamps: 00:00 You Don't Live in the World — It Lives in You 10:05 Why Scientists Refuse to Explain Reality 14:50 Where Joscha Disagrees with David Deutsch 21:10 What Would a Truly Intelligent Machine Actually Do? 25:00 Why Chess Destroys Good Minds 30:40 Can You Upload a Brain? What Neuroscience Gets Wrong 38:45 Why Einstein Needed a Body to Discover Relativity 46:00 AI Companies as Prophets of the New Religion 50:10 You Don't Die Because You Were Never Really Alive 57:50 Religion as a Civilizational Operating System 1:04:00 What the Torah Knew That Sam Harris Doesn't 1:12:00 What Is God, Actually? 1:18:00 What Bach University Would Teach 1:27:50 Confronting Your Own Death