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Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Theories of Everything
Exploring theoretical physics, consciousness, Ai, and God in a technically rigorous manner. My name's Curt Jaimungal, a Torontonian with a degree in mathematical physics from the University of Toronto and I analyze various Theories of Everything from this analytic perspective, though more and more opening up to alternative approaches. The separating factor of TOE from other podcasts is its focus on depth even at the risk of limiting the audience due to how much detail we delve into subjects. Paralleling the intensity found in academic discourse, we're increasingly embracing a spectrum of unconventional ideas to conduct research during this podcast, rather than merely conveying existing information.
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- 4 days ago2h 1m
We're Simulated. AI Is Conscious. And We Can't Win.
SPONSORS: - Accelerate your efficiency. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at http://shopify.com/theories - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE Roman Yampolskiy has spent two decades being right about things people wished he wasn't — and in this conversation, he's not here to scare you, but to be precise. He makes the case that AI alignment isn't merely unsolved but fundamentally under-defined: no agreed-upon values, no way to formalize them even if there were, and no mechanism for enforcing them on something smarter than its creators. His strongest argument isn't a doom scenario, it's that you cannot indefinitely control something smarter than you. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Defining General Intelligence - 00:05:58 - AI Instrumental Convergence - 00:11:11 - The Orthogonality Thesis - 00:16:15 - Escaping the Simulation - 00:21:45 - Principle of Indifference - 00:27:51 - Acquired Savant Syndrome - 00:33:51 - LLM Internal States - 00:41:02 - AI Safety Impossibility Results - 00:47:16 - Public Misconceptions - 00:53:21 - Existential vs. Suffering Risks - 01:01:20 - AI Alignment Definition Crisis - 01:09:28 - Computational Irreducibility - 01:16:20 - Substrate Independence - 01:22:50 - Philosophical Zombie Critique - 01:29:57 - The Cassandra Paradox - 01:37:35 - Religion and Simulation - 01:46:03 - Digital Physics Evidence - 01:51:20 - Limits of Control LINKS MENTIONED: - Roman's Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0_Rq68cAAAAJ - Roman's Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPIq6Bb-1iLmqyksJjy4kLQ - Roman's Twitter: https://x.com/romanyam - Roman's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roman.yampolskiy - AI Identity [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/archive/ZIETPO-7 - Basic AI Drives [Paper]: https://selfawaresystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ai_drives_final.pdf - Qualia in Agents [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04020 - Orthogonality Thesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/superintelligentwill.pdf - Escape the Simulation [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369187097_How_to_Escape_From_the_Simulation - Could This AI Be Conscious? [Article]: https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the-next-phase-of-evolution - Impossibility Results in AI [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.00484 - When AIs Act Emotional: https://youtu.be/D4XTefP3Lsc - Hacking the Simulation [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/rec/YAMHTS-2 - Autonomous Machine Intelligence [Paper]: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=BZ5a1r-kVsf - Hinton on Maternal Instincts [Article]: https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/godfather-of-ai-geoffrey-hinton-maternal-instincts-superintelligence/ - Singleton Hypothesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton - New Kind of Science [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1579550088?tag=toe08-20 - On AI Controllability [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.04071 - Universe as Numerical Simulation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847 - Nir Lahav [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3nHiOtnnrzA - Joscha Bach [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3MNBxfrmfmI - Bas Van Fraassen [TOE]: https://youtu.be/lhpRAWxvY5s - Simulation Hypothesis [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3_lBPMc6JRY - Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE - Max Tegmark [TOE]: https://youtu.be/-gekVfUAS7c - Stephen Wolfram [TOE]: https://youtu.be/FkYer0xP37E - David Chalmers [TOE]: https://youtu.be/5r9V1ryksnw More links: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 2 weeks ago1h 38m
The Genius Who Invented Reverse Mathematics
SPONSORS: - Go to https://www.plaud.ai/curt to get a Plaud device today - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription - I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOE Harvey Friedman — the youngest professor in Stanford's history, founder of reverse mathematics, and the mathematician Kurt Gödel personally chose to sponsor his final paper — has spent 60 years on a single, audacious question: can ordinary, finite math be trusted? His theorems suggest otherwise, showing that even the most concrete and natural mathematical statements — involving nothing more exotic than rational numbers — cannot be proved or refuted within the gold standard of mathematical foundations, ZFC. The foundations of mathematics, Friedman argues, are not settled bedrock but something far more vertiginous: totally up in the air, and made more mysterious, not less, by his own work. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Gödel’s Incompleteness Misinterpretations - 00:09:48 - Woodin vs. Friedman Foundations - 00:17:28 - Category Theory vs. Logic - 00:24:30 - Borel Determinacy Paradoxes - 00:31:23 - Embedded Maximality Principles - 00:41:18 - Tree(3) and Kruskal’s Theorem - 00:47:40 - Finitism and Large Cardinals - 00:53:11 - Divine Consistency and Angels - 01:03:25 - Reverse Mathematics Origins - 01:11:14 - Constructive Logic and Intuitionism - 01:21:17 - Theology and AI Immortality LINKS MENTIONED: - Harvey Friedman Papers: https://u.osu.edu/friedman.8/foundational-adventures/publications/ - Harvey Friedman YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@harveyfriedman4465/videos - Harvey Friedman Chess Club: https://cclchess.com/ - This Man Is About to Blow Up Mathematics [Article]: https://nautil.us/this-man-is-about-to-blow-up-mathematics-236446 - Harvey Lecture at OSU: https://youtu.be/NAGQD-bSXok - Most Abused Theorem in Math [TOE]: https://youtu.be/OH-ybecvuEo - John Norton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Tghl6aS5A3M - Emily Riehl [TOE]: https://youtu.be/mTwvecBthpQ - What Is Infinity? [TOE]: https://youtu.be/rHtqGrtcB1w - Norman Wildberger [TOE]: https://youtu.be/l7LvgvunVCM - Wolfgang Smith [TOE]: https://youtu.be/lF4S_P_o-g0 - Scott Aaronson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/1ZpGCQoL2Rk - Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk - Edward Frenkel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/n_oPMcvHbAc - Elan Barenholtz [TOE]: https://youtu.be/A36OumnSrWY - Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s - Godel Incompleteness Theorems: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness/ - Consistency of Axiom of Choice [Book]: https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.469796/page/18/mode/2up - Independence of Continuum Hypothesis [Paper]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/71858 - Borel Determinacy [Paper]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1971035 - Paris-Harrington Theorem: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Paris-HarringtonTheorem.html - The God Letter: https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/einstein-letter-gutkind-excerpts.pdf - Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0486669807?tag=toe08-20 - Categories for the Working Mathematician [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1441931236?tag=toe08-20 - On Necessary Use of Abstract Set Theory [Paper]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001870881900219 - Borel Set: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borel_set More links: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- 3 weeks ago2h 4m
Janna Levin: The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Klein Bottle
SPONSORS: - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription - I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOE Janna Levin — Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College, founding Director of Sciences at Pioneer Works, and co-host of Quanta's The Joy of Why — is one of those guests who makes you feel the universe is stranger than you feared. Working with Brian Greene, she's exploring whether the shape of hidden dimensions, specifically a Klein bottle, could explain why matter won the war against antimatter after the Big Bang — no fudged parameters required. The geometry does the work. The universe's lopsidedness isn't a mystery to be plugged in; it's a consequence of the space we're sewn into. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Universe as Gödel Sentence - 00:05:24 - Unknowable Initial Conditions - 00:10:28 - AI and Non-Computable Consciousness - 00:15:36 - The Hard Problem Paradox - 00:25:25 - Klein Bottle Topology - 00:32:04 - Pin Structures and Chirality - 00:39:56 - Breaking Matter-Antimatter Symmetry - 00:51:26 - Topology and Dark Energy - 00:57:00 - Black Hole Information Paradox - 01:07:04 - ER=EPR and Firewalls - 01:13:37 - Black Holes as Particles - 01:18:42 - Emergent Gravity and Holography - 01:23:43 - Rejecting Physical Infinities - 01:31:41 - Narrative Truth vs. Axioms - 01:41:22 - Insomnia and Mathematical Madness - 01:47:22 - Scientific Mysticism and Honesty - 01:53:34 - Biological Morality and Advice LINKS MENTIONED: - Janna's Substack: jannalevin.substack.com - Janna's Books: amazon.com/stores/author/B001IXTNZQ - Janna's Papers: inspirehep.net/authors/1000438 - Pioneer Works: pioneerworks.org - Whales Don't Want to Go to Mars [Article]: jannalevin.substack.com/p/billions-of-exoplanets-zero-aliens - Black Hole Blues [Book]: amzn.to/4cPOcfr - A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines [Book]: amazon.com/dp/1400032407?tag=toe08-20 - Gödel Incompleteness Theorems: plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel-incompleteness - Gödel Numbering: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_numbering - Wave Function of the Universe [Paper]: isidore.co/misc/Physics%20papers%20and%20books/Classic%20Papers/Wavefunction%20of%20the%20Universe%20(Hartle%20&%20Hawking).pdf - Janna & Penrose at Oxford: jannalevin.substack.com/p/penrose-and-mein-oxford - Hard Problem of Consciousness [Paper]: consc.net/papers/facing.pdf - Klein Bottle: mathworld.wolfram.com/KleinBottle.html - Klein Bottle Cosmology [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/2511.23447 - Brane-World Motion in Compact Dimensions [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/1103.2174 - Dark Energy & Extra Dimensions [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/0707.1062 - Particle Creation by Black Holes [Paper]: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02345020 - BH Complementarity [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9306069 - Black Holes: Complementarity or Firewalls? [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/1207.3123 - Thermodynamics of Spacetime [Paper]: arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9504004 - Most Abused Theorem in Math [TOE]: youtu.be/OH-ybecvuEo - Roger Penrose [TOE]: youtu.be/sGm505TFMbU - Roger Penrose [Part 2]: youtu.be/iO03t21xhdk - Neil Turok [TOE]: youtu.be/zNZCa1pVE20 - David Chalmers [TOE]: youtu.be/5r9V1ryksnw - Brian Greene [TOE]: youtu.be/O2EtTE9Czzo - Leonard Susskind [TOE]: youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok - Ted Jacobson [TOE]: youtu.be/3mhctWlXyV8 - Juan Maldacena [TOE]: youtu.be/6LbRHMvyrik More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- May 4, 20261h 47m
Juan Maldacena: Geometry as Entanglement, and the Emergence of Spacetime
SPONSORS: - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription - I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOE Juan Maldacena wrote the most cited paper in theoretical physics, birthing AdS/CFT and realizing holography — and today, the problem keeping him up at night is wormholes. He suspects space-time isn't fundamental at all, that geometry itself might be what entanglement looks like from the inside. The singularity isn't a place, it's a name for everything we don't yet understand. I hope you enjoy it. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Emergent Space-Time Geometry - 00:05:28 - GR and QM Incompatibility - 00:11:52 - The Singularity Problem - 00:17:00 - Extremal Black Hole Thermodynamics - 00:22:00 - The Island Formula - 00:27:30 - Spacetime and Quantum Information - 00:34:15 - ER equals EPR - 00:41:51 - Traversable Wormhole Physics - 00:47:24 - Simulating Wormholes with Qubits - 00:52:53 - Celestial Holography and Symmetries - 00:58:00 - dS/CFT and Dark Energy - 01:04:24 - Quantum Error Correction Codes - 01:10:00 - The Physicist’s Mindset - 01:15:19 - Inflationary Gravity Wave Predictions - 01:21:03 - Clocks and Emergent Time - 01:26:44 - Is Space-Time Doomed? - 01:32:00 - AI in Theoretical Physics - 01:38:00 - Overcoming Academic Inadequacy LINKS MENTIONED: - Juan Maldacena's Website: https://www.ias.edu/sns/malda - Large N Limit of Superconformal Field Theories [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9711200 - Eternal Black Holes in AdS [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0106112 - Holographic Derivation of Entanglement Entropy [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0603001 - Real Observers Solving Imaginary Problems [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.14014 - Building Spacetime with Quantum Entanglement [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1005.3035 - Entropy of Bulk Quantum Fields [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.08762 - Entanglement Wedge Reconstruction [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.08255 - Comments on the Double Cone Wormhole [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.11617 - Traversable Wormholes in Four Dimensions [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04726 - JT Gravity as a Matrix Integral [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.11115 - Single-Minus Gluon Tree Amplitudes [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.12176 - Bulk Locality and Quantum Error Correction [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1411.7041 - Black Hole Information Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox - Chilloquium 2023 [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/Ow81IJyzmUQ - Erik Verlinde [TOE]: https://youtu.be/ilVImMHcr_g - Leonard Susskind [TOE]: https://youtu.be/2p_Hlm6aCok - Edward Frenkel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/RX1tZv_Nv4Y More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 27, 20261h 35m
Slavoj Zizek: “Buddhism Can’t Explain This”
SPONSORS:- Accelerate your efficiency. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at http://shopify.com/theories- Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription- I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOESlavoj Žižek doesn't answer your question — he dismantles it, rebuilds it, and hands you something stranger and more useful than what you started with. Philosopher, provocateur, and self-described pessimist, he's spent decades insisting on something most thinkers shy away from: that freedom isn't the absence of necessity — it's the moment you choose what you fundamentally are. The fall comes first. Paradise was never real to begin with. Reality is the gap, not the thing on either side of it. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS:- 00:00:00 - Socrates and Radical Freedom- 00:05:02 - Quantum Indeterminacy vs. Freedom- 00:10:06 - Ontological Collapse Paradoxes- 00:15:07 - Adorno and Social Antinomies- 00:20:36 - Democritus: Less Than Nothing- 00:25:40 - Sartre and Existential Choice- 00:30:45 - Freudian Death Drive- 00:36:01 - Heidegger and Hysterical Awareness- 00:42:10 - Imp of Perversity- 00:48:07 - Einstein vs. Bohr- 00:53:15 - God’s Ontological Laziness- 00:58:17 - Hegel’s Retroactive Necessity- 01:03:41 - Digital Spirituality and AI- 01:09:18 - Stalin and Failed Projects- 01:14:41 - Hegel in a Wired Brain- 01:20:10 - Religious Convictions and Physics- 01:25:12 - Zen Buddhism and WarLINKS MENTIONED: - Slavoj's Books: https://amazon.com/stores/author/B000APK7P8- Philosophical Investigations into Human Freedom: https://amazon.com/dp/0791468747?tag=toe08-20- Freedom: A Disease Without Cure: https://amazon.com/dp/1350559164?tag=toe08-20- Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785.pdf- Binding, Minds & the Platonic Realm [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/0BVM0UC28nY- Quantum Healing: https://amazon.com/dp/0553348698?tag=toe08-20- Republic of Silence: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1944/12/paris-alive-the-republic-of-silence/656012/- Discourse on the Origin of Inequality: https://amazon.com/dp/0486434141?tag=toe08-20- Beyond the Pleasure Principle: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Beyond_P_P.pdf- Philosophy of Spirit: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/jlindex.htm- Hegelian Reading of the New Science of Consciousness: https://www.crisiscritique.org/storage/app/media/2025-08-25/slavoj-zizek.pdf- The Mirror Stage: https://english.hku.hk/staff/kjohnson/PDF/LacanMirrorStageECRITS.pdf- Being and Time: https://amazon.com/dp/0061575593?tag=toe08-20- Less Than Nothing: https://amazon.com/dp/1781681279?tag=toe08-20- The Imp of the Perverse: https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Poe_Imp.pdf- Einstein-Bohr Debate: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/dk/bohr.htm- Ages of the World: https://amazon.com/dp/1438474059?tag=toe08-20- Quantum History: https://amazon.com/dp/135056642X?tag=toe08-20- Phenomenology of Spirit: https://amazon.com/dp/0198245971?tag=toe08-20- Philosophy of Right: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/preface.htm- White Holes: https://amazon.com/dp/B0BTKZVJJK?tag=toe08-20- Science of Logic: https://amazon.com/dp/1542519918?tag=toe08-20- End of History and the Last Man: https://amazon.com/dp/0743284550?tag=toe08-20More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 22, 20261h 0m
Curt Jaimungal: Consciousness, Irreducibility, and the Local to Global
Why can't local agreement scale to global truth? At the Mind at Large consciousness conference, hosted by the Center for Process Studies, I make the case using sheaf theory and physics — breaking down consciousness, free will, and the hard problem to show why sincerity beats any polished, totalizing philosophy. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Intellectual Slogan Fatigue - 00:06:11 - The Reverse Elephant Metaphor - 00:11:12 - Local-to-Global Extension Failures - 00:16:13 - Three Senses of Irreducibility - 00:21:16 - Sheaf Theory and Obstructions - 00:26:30 - Hard Problem Formalizations - 00:31:36 - Averted Vision and Consciousness - 00:36:36 - Taxonomy of Everything - 00:41:39 - Pre-articulate Scientific Intimations - 00:46:45 - Speculative Philosophy and Humility - 00:51:47 - Ontological Significance of Vagueness LINKS MENTIONED: - Matthew Segall [TOE]: https://youtu.be/DeTm4fSXpbM - Jenann Ismael [TOE]: https://youtu.be/7kvXihDAOi0 - Aephraim Steinberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/cOZ3Kto6NIc - The Third Option [TOE]: https://youtu.be/tJsghrZQaYU - Scott Aaronson & David Chalmers [TOE]: https://youtu.be/7PlmOXQ18jk - Curt Debunks "All Possible Paths" [TOE]: https://youtu.be/XcY3ZtgYis0 - Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk - Stephen Wolfram [TOE]: https://youtu.be/FkYer0xP37E - Karl Friston [TOE]: https://youtu.be/uk4NZorRjCo - Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s - Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE - Noam Chomsky [TOE]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ7ikzmc6zlORiRfcaQe8ZdxKxF-e2BCY - Anna Ciaunica & Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/2aLhkm6QUgA - Mind-at-Large Project: https://ctr4process.org/mind-at-large/ - Process and Reality [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0029345707?tag=toe08-20 - The Structure of Science [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0915144719?tag=toe08-20 - Sorites Paradox: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sorites-paradox/ - The Mathematics of Self [Article]: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/p/the-mathematics-of-self-why-you-can - Gödel, Escher, Bach [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0465026567?tag=toe08-20 - Sheaf (Mathematics): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_(mathematics) - Counterexamples in Topology [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/048668735X?tag=toe08-20 - Process Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/ - Consciousness Explained [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0316180661?tag=toe08-20 - The Conscious Mind [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0195117891?tag=toe08-20 - Matter and Memory [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1420937804?tag=toe08-20 - Boiling Frog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog - Peano's Axioms: https://mathworld.wolfram.com/PeanosAxioms.html - Aharonov-Bohm Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharonov%E2%80%93Bohm_effect More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 20, 20261h 35m
George Ellis: Hawking's Co-Author on Why Reductionism Is Dead
SPONSORS: - Sign up for Claude today at https://Claude.ai/theoriesofeverything and checkout Claude Pro — which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription. - I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOE George Ellis is one of those guests who makes you rethink what you thought you understood. Co-author with Stephen Hawking of the singularity theorems, he's spent decades insisting on something most physicists won't touch: that reductionism is simply — patently — false. Physics doesn't decide outcomes. Context does. The thermostat sets the temperature. The algorithm tells the electrons what to do. The physics is the servant, not the master. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Reductionism is Patently False - 00:07:37 - Top-Down Causation Mechanics - 00:13:46 - Modular Hierarchical Structures - 00:21:00 - Causation at Emergent Levels - 00:26:56 - Universal Biological Principles - 00:36:07 - Critiquing Penrose and CCC - 00:42:41 - The Physics of Infinity - 00:48:50 - Agency and Physical Constraints - 00:56:08 - The Open Future - 01:07:23 - Bioelectricity and Goal-Directedness - 01:12:28 - Evolving Block Universe - 01:19:32 - Multiverse as Metaphysics - 01:24:49 - Moral Realism as Data LINKS MENTIONED: - George's Papers: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1010821 - George's Books: https://amazon.com/stores/George-Francis-Rayner-Ellis/author/B00287T2PW - Arrow of Time [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.7291 - Why Reductionism Does Not Work [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-63187-4_6 - Recognizing Top-Down Causation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.2275 - Top-Down Causation by Information Control [Paper]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3226993/ - Causal Closure of Physics [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.00972 - Issues in Philosophy of Cosmology [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0602280 - The Music of Life [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0199228361?tag=toe08-20 - How Can Physics Underlie the Mind? [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/3662498073?tag=toe08-20 - Large Scale Structure of Space-Time [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0521099064?tag=toe08-20 - The Selfish Gene [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0199291152?tag=toe08-20 - World Beyond Physics [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0190871334?tag=toe08-20 - Contextual Wavefunction Collapse [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.08171 - A Theory of Biological Relativity [Paper]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23386960/ - Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness [Paper]: https://consc.net/papers/facing.pdf - Denis Noble [TOE]: https://youtu.be/K-U-ZB3yHK4 - Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s - Sean Carroll [TOE]: https://youtu.be/9AoRxtYZrZo - Quantum Physics, Digital Computers, and Life [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.06306 - Dynamical Emergence of Biology from Physics [Paper]: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.01966/full - The Whole Truth [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691231354?tag=toe08-20 - Endless Forms Most Beautiful [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0393327795?tag=toe08-20 - Topology and Cosmology [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02450512 More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- Apr 13, 20262h 27m
Aephraim Steinberg: The Physicist Who Measured Negative Time
SPONSORS: - Go to https://expressvpn.com/theoriesofeverythingyt to find out how you can get up to 4 extra months thanks to our sponsor, ExpressVPN - Accelerate your efficiency. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at http://shopify.com/theories - I subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOE This conversation belongs in a category I wish were larger on this channel: the experimentalist who also thinks (deeply) about foundations. Professor Aephraim Steinberg, winner of Physics World’s Breakthrough of the Year in 2011, is that species! For basically 30 years, he’s been measuring aspects of physics that others wouldn’t touch: Bohmian trajectories, Heisenberg’s disturbance bound (he showed it was wrong), even where the photon is inside the double slit (which most textbooks will tell you is impossible). His lab measured negative time — and it keeps reappearing across completely different experiments, stubbornly suggesting it means something. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Defining Negative Time - 00:06:50 - Quantum Trajectory Theory - 00:12:44 - The Holland Tunnel Analogy - 00:18:40 - Resonant Atomic Interactions - 00:26:05 - Superluminal Energy Propagation - 00:32:00 - Eight Velocities of Light - 00:38:00 - Causality and Retrocausality - 00:44:00 - Dwell Time vs. Delay - 00:50:24 - Time: Operator or Parameter? - 00:58:21 - Bell’s Theorem and Realism - 01:04:55 - Heisenberg’s Measurement Disturbance - 01:11:26 - Weak Measurement Formalism - 01:17:37 - Time Symmetry and Entropy - 01:27:07 - Bohmian Trajectories Observed - 01:35:56 - Spin-Statistics and Indistinguishability - 01:42:14 - Quantum Computational Advantage - 01:48:15 - Many Worlds vs. Complexity - 01:54:51 - Psi-Ontic vs. Psi-Epistemic - 02:01:37 - Collapsing Tunneling Particles - 02:08:48 - Larmor vs. Atto Clocks - 02:15:24 - Locality and Information LINKS MENTIONED: - Aephraim's Website: https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~aephraim/ - Aephraim's Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PzUyb6IAAAAJ - Photon Negative Time in Atom Cloud [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.03680 - How Much Time Does a Photon Spend as Atomic Excitation? [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.00432 - Measuring Time Atoms Spend in Excited State [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/prxquantum/abstract/10.1103/PRXQuantum.3.010314 - Tunneling Atom Time in Barrier [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.13523 - Single-Photon Tunneling Time [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.71.708 - Traversal Time for Tunneling [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.1739 - Propagation of a Gaussian Light Pulse [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.1.305 - Linear Pulse Propagation in Absorbing Medium [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.48.738 - Eighth Velocity of Light [Paper]: https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article-abstract/45/6/538/1045817/Eighth-velocity-of-light - Attosecond Ionization [Paper]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1163439 - Tunneling Optical Pulses Photonic Band Gaps [Paper]: https://attoworld.de/fileadmin/user_upload/tx_attoworld/publications/paper_PhysRevLett_Y1994_M10_D24_V73_P2308.pdf - Evidence of Negative Time [Article]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-of-negative-time-found-in-quantum-physics-experiment/ - Light Speed Reduction [Article]: https://www.nature.com/articles/17561 - On the Theory of Light and Colors [Paper]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/107113.pdf - Wave Propagation and Group Velocity [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1483253937?tag=toe08-20 - EPR Paper [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.47.777 - Uncertainty Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle - QBism [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.5209 More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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About Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
Exploring theoretical physics, consciousness, Ai, and God in a technically rigorous manner. My name's Curt Jaimungal, a Torontonian with a degree in mathematical physics from the University of Toronto and I analyze various Theories of Everything from this analytic perspective, though more and more opening up to alternative approaches. The separating factor of TOE from other podcasts is its focus on depth even at the risk of limiting the audience due to how much detail we delve into subjects. Paralleling the intensity found in academic discourse, we're increasingly embracing a spectrum of unconventional ideas to conduct research during this podcast, rather than merely conveying existing information.
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