philosophertoby's channel

In this video, I discuss the Problem of Induction, largely attributed to David Hume, and why inductive reasoning is a valid form of reasoning.

In this video I make a case against the possibility of free will by arguing that it can never be more free than random chance. My website: http://www.tobypereira.co.uk

In this video, as well as giving an in-depth discussion on medians, percentiles and means, I discuss the "missing" fourth part of this quartet: the statistical tool that is to the mean that percentiles are to the median - the "permeantile".

I don't mention any potential applications for permeantiles in the video. But it can have applications.

For example, you might want to compare your marathon running time with your competitors. If you finish around the middle, you might want to compare your time against the median and mean. You might find, for example, that your time was quicker than the mean time but slower than the median time. But if you are much quicker or slower than the average runner, you would ordinarily only have percentiles to look at. Your time might be quicker than 90% of the runners, so on the 10th percentile of time taken, but because you're not an average runner and the mean is of no use to you, you only have one method of comparison. This is an asymmetry that permeantiles fix.

Similarly you might want to compare your personal best half marathon time with your personal best full marathon time. A half marathon might have a median finishing time of 1 hour and 45 minutes, and a full marathon a median time of 3 hours and 45 minutes (these times are made up so don't use them as real averages). So you could say that in some sense, a time of 1 hour and 45 minutes in a half marathon is equivalent to (as good as) a time of 3 hours and 45 minutes in a full marathon. And If your personal best half marathon time is 1 hour and 30 minutes, you can see what percentile that puts you at, and then find the equivalent percentile for a full marathon. This way you can find an equivalent full marathon time for any half marathon time, or vice versa.


But this is not the only way of calculating equivalent times. A half marathon might have a mean finishing time of 1 hour and 45 minutes, and a full marathon a mean finishing time of 4 hours. So you could say that in this sense, a time of 1 hour and 45 minutes in a half marathon is equivalent to a time of 4 hours in a full marathon. But if you can run a half marathon in 1 hour and 30 minutes, you can't use the mean to find an equivalent full marathon time. Instead you would have to look at the relevant permeantiles.

I discuss Roger Penrose's argument that human thought cannot be represented on a digital computer, based on Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem. I argue against it. My website: http://www.tobypereira.co.uk

In this video I present some thought-provoking (hopefully) thought experiments about personal identity where identical copies of you are created in different situations. Everything here is discussed in my forthcoming book on consciousness. My website: http://www.tobypereira.co.uk

*The Beginning of Infinity* includes, in the chapter on Choices, a discussion of electoral systems, their paradoxes, and the criterion by which they ought to be judged. But it does not specifically mention the AV (Alternative-Vote) system. Since a referendum on changing the British electoral system to AV is imminent, I thought I'd summarise here what I think is the decisive argument for voting 'No'.

This is a complete playthrough of Super Monaco GP, for the Game Gear. In this game you have to drive 3 laps in 16 circuits from all over the world. This is NOT tool-assisted, in fact there are a few mistakes here and there as well. It is a simple playthrough. It is also my first longer video (not limited to 10 nor 15 minutes), yay.
Note that at the end it is unclear who won since you don't know the points of the other drivers and there are no names mentioned.
By the way, for those people out there who prefer imperial units, the highest speed I reach, 321km/h, is approximately 200 mph.