HeyJaredThe Theory of Anything
A podcast that explores the unseen and surprising connections between nearly everything, with special emphasis on intelligence and the search for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) through the lens of Karl Popper's Theory of Knowledge.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 6
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
Episode 148: Pascal's Improved Wager (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This week Bruce discusses a possible improvement to Pascal’s Wager: If believing in God makes your life legitimately better, is it better to believe on those grounds alone? And what does this have to do with the fun criteria and anarcho capitalism? Support us on Patreon
Episode 147: Decisionalism (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This week Bruce asks more hard questions: Is our legal system “decisionalist”? In other words, are we outcome-based rather than reasoning-based creatures? Is there something deep in our brains they tells us to go with what feels correct, even if we are Supreme Court justices? Is our reasoning mostly de facto when we are really honest with ourselves? Does a careful look at the state of the critical discussion really help us decide between theories, especially in politics and morality? This episod
Episode 146: The Put Up or Shut Up Principle (opens the original)
Read excerpt
What Bruce has called the “put up or shut up principle” is the idea we should want our theories to take on the burden of explanation as must as we can. We need to "put up" an at least equally content filled theory as a competitor to another content filled theory. He argues that this may be central idea behind critical rationalism. We strengthen our theories by increasing the potential set of falsifiers. This is how knowledge grows. Bruce is pointing out that we all like to change the goal post w
Episode 145: Pascal’s Wager and Probability Theory (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This week Bruce takes a deep dive into Pascal’s Wager. If there is even a small chance that God exists, and believing could lead to an infinite reward while disbelief risks an infinite loss, then believing is the rational choice... right? Blaise Pascal was one of the founders of probability theory back in the 17th century. Even aside from the potentially problematic theological point his famous wager makes, it also raises important questions about probability theory, Bayes’ theorem, and even mod
Episode 144: Memes, Words, and Concepts (opens the original)
Read excerpt
This week we talk about meaning memes, words, concepts, and conceptual leakage. How is a meaning meme turned into a broader concept and then a theory? What is the role of language in this process? And what is conceptual leakage? And why does it make it difficult to communicate to others? And was Popper right to eschew questions of meaning? And what does this have to do with AGI? Support us on Patreon
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Not enough subject data for this period yet.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.