Ever wanted to know how music affects your brain, what quantum mechanics really is, or how black holes work? Do you wonder why you get emotional each time you see a certain movie, or how on earth video games are designed? Then you’ve come to the right place. Each week, Sean Carroll will host conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the world. From neuroscientists and engineers to authors and television producers, Sean and his guests talk about the biggest ideas in science, philosophy, culture and much more.
Every time you see an apple spontaneously break away from a tree, it falls downward. You therefore claim that there is a law of physics: apples fall downward from trees. But how can you really know? After all, tomorrow you might see an apple that falls upward. How is science possible at all? Philosophers, as you might expect, have thought hard about this. Branden Fitelson explains how a better understanding of probability can help us decide when new evidence is actually confirming our beliefs.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/05/19/315-branden-fitelson-on-the-logic-and-use-of-probability/
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Branden Fitelson received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. He is a co-founder of the Formal Epistemology Workshop, and winner of the 2020 Wolfram Innovator Award.
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