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Syllojism Episode 4 - Logical Amoebas, Mathematical Intelligence, Algorithms, Marketplaces, and Quines
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Syllojism Episode 4 - Logical Amoebas, Mathematical Intelligence, Algorithms, Marketplaces, and Quines

Playing economic games with Noah Healy

Syllojism is a bi-weekly, culture, and philosophy challenge podcast on the edge of chaos.


CHALLENGE: What question is its own answer?

This week's challenge was to demonstrate mathematical or logical intelligence, but the challenge actually demonstrated the need for an integrated, well-rounded intellect. I found Noah through a podcasting network, and he has been on a TON of podcasts. (More about this story in the Bonus content coming out tomorrow.)

What I observed was that Noah’s profound mathematical reasoning had granted him the ability to create an interesting product, but a dearth of written and (potentially) interpersonal skills have left him (logically) going on as many podcasts as possible to use his verbal skills to explain his product and the benefits of it. We had a few audio/technical snafus, but I think it bonded us, LMAO - again, more on that tomorrow.

And as usual, we had an absolute blast.

Show Notes:

2:46 The moral imperative that has driven Noah to be on a million podcasts in the last year

5:11 Noah’s CDM system reduces transactional costs by increasing the signal:noise ratio

7:58  How marketplaces help decrease transaction costs

14:29 Explanation of “Futures”

18:59 Why Google can’t publish their algorithms 

20:20 One Pixel attack

22:12 What Noah’s predicts his algorithm could do

25:12  Who would win and who would lose from cutting transaction costs in economic markets

27:20 The language of talking about math and economics, and the value of analogies stories etc

28:45 The Quine Challenge: Can you think of a question that is it’s own answer?

32:01 DNA/viruses as biological quines

34:12 Brett’s (WRONG) answer to the quine 

38:40 The value of self-reflection in mathematics, computing, and science

39:49 Computing is completely changing our industrialized society, but life is not incompatible with computation

42:35 Is the human brain a computer?

44:26 HP Lovecraft’s pessimism about human understanding

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

H.P. Lovecraft

45:48 Are all things subjective quantifiable? Information theory says “Yes”.

46:50 Tristram shandy, DFW, The Mezzanine, and the Balrog Scene in LOTR - literary and cultural examples of fractal recursion

49:36 Intersectionality and the quantification of human subjective experience

51:45 The time it takes to get to a Big O

52:52 Is Mathematical intelligence entirely captured by IQ?

55:45 Communal intelligence in James Burke’s Pinball Effect

57:28 How marketplaces can foster communal intelligence

Be sure to subscribe on YouTube for full video episodes.

For more on Noah, peep his website or connect with him on LinkedIn!

For bonus footage from this episode and much more, you can upgrade for a latte a month!


Next Challenge Episode 5: To test your visual/spatial intelligence, can you create an original work of visual art?

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