🛡️Defend the West Conference🛡️ WHEN: 1/13/2027 WHERE: Online Over 300 people have registered so far. Speakers include: @DavidM_Friedman @sapinker @SRCHicks @yaronbrook @alananewhouse @johanknorberg @DeirdreMcClosk @michaelshermer @ToKTeacher @jasoncrawford Nadine Strossen Save your spot (link below)

...the problem of ‘squaring a circle’—given a circle, how can one construct a square with the same area as the circle?—was first asked by the thinkers of ancient Greece, well-known for their study of geometry. Mathematicians would continue to work on the problem for the next two thousand years within the framework of geometric theory without success. The problem was finally solved in 1882, when German mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann stepped outside of geometry and approached the problem from abstract algebra. The puzzle of squaring a circle had its origins in geometry, but its solution had its origins in an altogether different mathematical field—and one that the Greek geometers had never even imagined. AI could not have helped the ancient Greeks in solving this problem, trapped as they were in the prevailing mathematical paradigm. No amount of automation could have discovered the solution within geometry, since the solution was not in that theory but in an altogether different theory whose discovery would require genuine creativity. In short: if a problem requires either a new method or a new theory, then AI as it is currently constituted is hopeless to solve it—and no amount of increasing its efficiency or computational power can overcome this limitation. ~Conjecture Institute Fellow @PaulRRobichaud & President @ChipkinLogan 👇

Welcoming @mboudry to the @ConjectureInst

I'm immensely proud to be the first Senior Philosopher at the Conjecture Institute! At @ConjectureInst, we're dedicated followers of Karl Popper and @DavidDeutschOxf, championing bold conjectures and ruthless refutations. They hired me in a heartbeat—but if I turn out to be wrong about something (or everything), they should kick me straight back out. As fallibilists, we learn from our mistakes! 😉 "Let our hypotheses die in our stead!"

The “Defend the West” conference by @ConjectureInst and @ChipkinLogan, January 13th, 2027, is going to be outstanding. Some truly brilliant speakers: @johanknorberg, @sapinker, @DavidDeutschOxf, @michaelshermer, @nickgillespie, @yaronbrook and more. conjectureinstitute.org/even… 🗽

Privacy prevents you from conflating an idea with the person. You have no choice but to judge an idea by its content alone, regardless of who's offering it. ~@tyler with @cameron & Conjecture Institute Fellow @maxdesalle

It's great to have @mboudry, a deeply thoughtful and insightful writer, as part of CI. I recently attended a wonderful talk he gave about his book The Betrayal of the Enlightenment. It was refreshing to hear a philosopher defend progress so unequivocally.

Israel is defending the Enlightenment. Its enemies are not. ~Conjecture Institute Ambassador @ToKTeacher

Follow Conjecture Institute Senior Philosopher Maarten Boudry on Substack: maartenboudry.substack.com Read his academic papers: scholar.google.com/citations…

Conjecture Institute is thrilled to welcome our first Senior Philosopher: @mboudry! Dr. Boudry is a philosopher of science and first holder of the Etienne Vermeersch Chair of Critical Thinking at Ghent University. He has published over 50 academic papers and co-edited two volumes: Science Unlimited? and Philosophy of Pseudoscience. He has also written six trade books in Dutch on science and philosophy. Boudry's book, The Betrayal of Enlightenment, will be published by @PitchstoneBooks. He’s also a @rootsofprogress fellow and a regular contributor to @Quillette, @JoinPersuasion, @ConversationUS, @Independent, and @HumanProgress.

piped.video/ogK8yb77E7c?si=kkjt… Lovely video. I’m honoured to have colleagues like these.