Episode

Episode 121: Beliefs

Podcast
The Theory of Anything
Published
Nov 18, 2025
Duration seconds
9806
Processing state
processed
Canonical source
https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/four-strands/episodes/Episode-121-Beliefs-e3a1di7
Audio
https://anchor.fm/s/14b6fc10/podcast/play/110195719/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-9-25%2F9c8ea9bb-6eb1-c58a-280c-25c67eae2bf9.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/the-theory-of-anything-859886/episodes/episode-121-beliefs
Markdown
/podcast/the-theory-of-anything-859886/episode-121-beliefs.md

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Summary

In our previous episode covering Strevens' critique of Popper, we briefly touched on why Bruce believes it it a mistake for CritRats to say they don't believe in beliefs. This time Bruce takes a deep dive into beliefs -- and walks back his previous statement a bit. Do humans need beliefs? Are beliefs dangerous? What is the critical rationalist position on beliefs? What did Popper say? And can we even realistically live without beliefs? And along the way, Bruce criticizes "the disobedience criteria" as a way to make his point about the value -- and dangers -- of mythic belief systems and why we need them and why they can confuse us rationally. ⁠Support us on Patreon