full transcript

From the Ted Talk by The TED Interview: David Deutsch on the infinite reach of knowledge

Unscramble the Blue Letters


CA: But you believe that human creativity is a fundamental part of the whole knowledge liftoff. And the ehiesttc exrsspoien of that is certainly a big part of who we are. To me, one of the puzezls is not that we don't see spaceships coming, it's that we don't see any evidence of the glaaxy having been engineered. You know, if dolphins were to make a breakthrough and start developing periscopes that could look up and examine the wlrod around them, and they poked them up and looked at the surface of the Earth, they would see buildings and astonishing structures that seem to cry out for an explanation, that look like they were the objects of inanitnteol construction. We look out at the galaxy and see nothing, you'd think at the very least you'd see some sort of -- you know, some stars had been converted into a spectacular artistic displays, or there'd be some evidence of erienienngg. The fact that there's no evidence of engineering suggests that the main game in town out there is still the same old physical processes that filled the prior 13 bililon boring yreas.

Open Cloze


CA: But you believe that human creativity is a fundamental part of the whole knowledge liftoff. And the ________ __________ of that is certainly a big part of who we are. To me, one of the _______ is not that we don't see spaceships coming, it's that we don't see any evidence of the ______ having been engineered. You know, if dolphins were to make a breakthrough and start developing periscopes that could look up and examine the _____ around them, and they poked them up and looked at the surface of the Earth, they would see buildings and astonishing structures that seem to cry out for an explanation, that look like they were the objects of ___________ construction. We look out at the galaxy and see nothing, you'd think at the very least you'd see some sort of -- you know, some stars had been converted into a spectacular artistic displays, or there'd be some evidence of ___________. The fact that there's no evidence of engineering suggests that the main game in town out there is still the same old physical processes that filled the prior 13 _______ boring _____.

Solution


  1. intentional
  2. engineering
  3. billion
  4. world
  5. years
  6. expression
  7. puzzles
  8. galaxy
  9. esthetic

Original Text


CA: But you believe that human creativity is a fundamental part of the whole knowledge liftoff. And the esthetic expression of that is certainly a big part of who we are. To me, one of the puzzles is not that we don't see spaceships coming, it's that we don't see any evidence of the galaxy having been engineered. You know, if dolphins were to make a breakthrough and start developing periscopes that could look up and examine the world around them, and they poked them up and looked at the surface of the Earth, they would see buildings and astonishing structures that seem to cry out for an explanation, that look like they were the objects of intentional construction. We look out at the galaxy and see nothing, you'd think at the very least you'd see some sort of -- you know, some stars had been converted into a spectacular artistic displays, or there'd be some evidence of engineering. The fact that there's no evidence of engineering suggests that the main game in town out there is still the same old physical processes that filled the prior 13 billion boring years.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
explanatory knowledge 8
billion years 5
david deutsch 4
human minds 4
scientific revolution 4
supermassive black 3
karl popper 3
knowledge liftoff 3
ted talk 2
human beings 2
stephen hawking 2
black holes 2
light years 2
everyday life 2
space exploration 2
causal power 2
philosopher karl 2
knowing subject 2
physical effects 2
phase change 2
human creativity 2
explanatory theory 2
single generation 2
human history 2
ancestor species 2
memes tend 2
error correction 2
liberal democracy 2
special relationship 2
bone tastes 2
good guys 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
supermassive black holes 2

Important Words


  1. artistic
  2. astonishing
  3. big
  4. billion
  5. boring
  6. breakthrough
  7. buildings
  8. coming
  9. construction
  10. converted
  11. creativity
  12. cry
  13. developing
  14. displays
  15. dolphins
  16. earth
  17. engineered
  18. engineering
  19. esthetic
  20. evidence
  21. examine
  22. explanation
  23. expression
  24. fact
  25. filled
  26. fundamental
  27. galaxy
  28. game
  29. human
  30. intentional
  31. knowledge
  32. liftoff
  33. looked
  34. main
  35. objects
  36. part
  37. periscopes
  38. physical
  39. poked
  40. prior
  41. processes
  42. puzzles
  43. sort
  44. spaceships
  45. spectacular
  46. stars
  47. start
  48. structures
  49. suggests
  50. surface
  51. town
  52. world
  53. years