• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch; (Mindscape interview). Are humans just a chemical scum on the surface of a typical planet in orbit round a typical star on the outskirts of a typical galaxy...? Not according to David Deutsch! This is a brilliant and inspiring book about the nature of knowledge, how we acquire it, and the central role of explanation in creating new knowledge. David argues that all progress, both theoretical and practical, has resulted from a single human activity: the quest for good explanations (also see The Fabric of Reality).   

• The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald Hoffman. Argues that we don't see the world as it truly is, but instead see what we need in order to survive. Visual perceptions are not a window onto reality, but instead are interfaces constructed by natural selection.

• Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen:  Lex Fridman interview of Annie; Nukemap

• Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds & Emergence of Spacetime by Sean Carroll; Lecture. 

• The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion by Sean Carroll; Biggest Ideas video series

• Closer To Truth Leading philosophers and scientists exploring humanity’s deepest questions (Website)

• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!  by Richard Feynman

• Chaos by James Gleick; The Elegant Universe & Secrets Of The Universe by Brian Greene  

• A Brief History of Time by Steven Hawking

• The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker.   Human Nature  Linguistics and the brain

• Veritasium ; 3Blue1Brown

• The New Science of Breath by James Nestor

Intelligence, Technology, AI and Robots

• The Techno-Optimist Manifesto 

  • • "Techno-Optimists believe that societies, like sharks, grow or die. We believe that advancing technology is one of the most virtuous things that we can do."

    • "We believe free markets are the most effective way to organize a technological economy."

    • "Combine technology and markets and you get what Nick Land has termed the techno-capital machine, the engine of perpetual material creation, growth, and abundance."

    • "We believe intelligence is the ultimate engine of progress."

    • "Energy is life. We take it for granted, but without it, we have darkness, starvation, and pain. With it, we have light, safety, and warmth."

    • "We believe we should use the feedback loop of intelligence and energy to make everything we want and need abundant."

    • "While not Utopian, we believe in what Brad DeLong terms “slouching toward Utopia” – doing the best fallen humanity can do, making things better as we go."

• Andreessen Horowitz ; The a16z Show

• The Thinking Game;   Nobel Prize lecture: Demis Hassabis, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024

• Moonshots podcast

• Dwarkish podcast

• Google DeepMind podcast

• The Innermost Loop

Climate Science 

• Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters.  Steve Koonin  Podcast Discussion

• False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.  Bjorn Lomborg

• Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All. Michael Shellenberger Interview Tedx talk1  Tedx Talk 2

• Climate: The Movie

• How to Think About Climate Change. William Happer  

• Alex Epstein Interview

• Climate Science: What Does it Say? Richard Lindzen