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[Auxiliary] Norman Wildberger interviews Curt Jaimungal on Free Will, Physics, Mathematics, and UFOs
March 8, 2022
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The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze.
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This is an auxiliary episode where Professor of Mathematics Norman Wildberger interviewed me on February 18th, 2022 for his channel, Insights into Mathematics. The topics of this episode are mathematics, why theories of everything aren't more studied in academia, and even the in-vogue UFO topic.
The link to Norman's YouTube channel is in the description and I recommend you visit and subscribe. He makes learning advanced mathematics like algebraic topology so simple that it spoils the experience of almost every other lecturer online.
If you'd like to hear more from the Toll Podcast, then do consider going to patreon.com slash KurtGymUncle and supporting with the contribution of whatever you can, as long as it's reasonable to do so, as I'm able to do this only because of the patrons and the sponsors' support. Also, it would be great if you could review this podcast on whichever platform you're listening to it from, as this greatly aids distribution. Thank you and enjoy this supplementary episode taken from Professor Norman Wildberger's channel, Insight Into Mathematics.
Well, hello, everyone. I'm Norman Wahlberger, and it's a pleasure for me to be interviewing Kurt Jaimongel, who is a Toronto based film director, producer, and also is engaged in a very interesting online YouTube direction with his theories of everything YouTube channel. So welcome, Kurt, and thanks very much for joining me on this little conversation. Pleasure is all mine. Thank you.
So I'm hoping that we can explore a number of the directions that you're interested in in your channel. And, you know, and maybe at the end, I'll be able to connect it a little bit with my interest in sociology of mathematics and maybe how that contrasts with sociology of physics.
But maybe a good place to start with is just with, you know, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself. Obviously, it's a big story. But, you know, in terms of your film career and the background in maths and physics, how do those things fit together?
I've always been interested in math and physics since I was a kid particularly these fundamental questions like what is the origin of the universe and especially the origin of the fundamental laws because even if you can come up with them why these laws and not some other law how is it that an electron follows the law which is a metaphysical question and questions about the origins of life I guess you can think of it as large mysteries of the universe consciousness as well though the question as to what consciousness is and how it arises came about much later in my life
Then I lucky enough that I happen to be great at or good at least good at what I like, which is math and physics. So I went into school for that. That's always a great combination when you like what you do and you're not bad at it. Absolutely. And I left it to go into filmmaking because I used to do standup when I was in university. And when I was doing standup, I thought I'll write a script. And when I couldn't get that script produced, I thought I may as well produce it. So I learned directing and producing. Then I went into that after I graduated.
for various reasons but my nature is math and physics and these large questions so they've always been there at the background and I thought since the pandemic started and I couldn't do much filmmaking and I frankly was somewhat tired of it I thought I may as well elucidate or edify myself and edify the audience simultaneously by interviewing people and making it public and then somehow that took off and it was in exactly what I like to do which is theories of everything.
So somehow all of these pieces of the puzzle of my life managed to come together with this channel. Very interesting. Now, I think it's quite an unusual combination that you have. Your film Better Left Unsaid, which I watched and I really enjoyed, it's a kind of a
overview of the role of the, maybe we could say the extreme left in modern political landscape. And you're somehow engaging in a thoughtful way with sort of a high level intellectual content, which is sort of unusual for sort of a film kind of scenario, I think.
Can you tell us a little bit about that film and maybe its reception and how it's going and what was involved in making it? Sure. I didn't know that you watched that. I'm extremely flattered. Do you mind telling me when did you watch it? Was it recently? It was recently. It was recently. That's extremely flattering. Okay, as a background for people who are unfamiliar, there's this film called Better Left Unsaid which tackles the problem, perhaps problem because maybe it's not a problem, of the extreme left. What is the extreme left?
one first has to define what the left is and one has to define what makes particular political position extreme and those aren't easy questions at all there's many disagreements anytime i put my foot down at one position i can find two or three counters almost immediately so it's a meandering film where i'm exploring that topic and it's not because i dislike the left or
Yes, it's not because I dislike the left. At the time of making the film, I would have considered myself to be left. I also excoriate the extreme right in the film as well, so it's not just against the left. Now I consider myself apolitical, partly because if you're following Professor Weilberger's channel, then you're interested in math. And perhaps one of the reasons you're interested in math, much like myself, is that it's extremely simple. Relatively speaking, sociology for me is far more complicated.
I find chemistry complicated also, actually.
Better Left Unsaid was my attempt to understand what the heck is going on with the extreme left. The reason why was
Much like yourself, Norman, you probably see that in the universities, at least politically and especially with the administration, perhaps not so much with the faculty, but with the administration, there's a push in a certain direction. And then the question is, well, what is that direction? Where is it coming from? Is it good? Does it have any connection to what people say, which is communism is, and even if it does, is communism bad?
It's a meandering film where I take you through my thought process which is extremely baroque
and academic and I couldn't think of another way of presenting the film other than that in order to do the subject justice. And also frankly, because my mind is somewhat convoluted, it's difficult for me to, that was as simple as I could possibly make the film in other words. It's interesting because it seems to me as if you're engaged in a project to use film in quite a somewhat different way than usual. I mean,
Usually film is there to entertain, I suppose that would be the primary kind of thing, or maybe secondary to inform. But I sort of felt that you're trying to move into a space where you're also trying to engage in some kind of discourse, you know, and have the level of discourse be somewhat deeper and wider and more concentrated than even in a documentary. Much like you have probably found, Professor, there's so many people
Your lectures are so popular. And then you wonder when you teach in school, maybe you teach to 20 students, 100 students, if it's a first year class or 200 max. And you're wondering, wow, the reception for this. These are people who are high school educated. Perhaps some of these people didn't even graduate high school, yet they understand some of the second, third year level courses, sometimes even graduate level courses. I think that the intelligence of the general population has been greatly underestimated. And we're seeing that with
The rise of these intellectual podcasts like Sean Carroll and Lex and Brian Keatings and so on. And Euro? At its best. Yep, thank you. I think there's two factors. There's the interest in it and then there's the intelligence. Rather than those two have to be there.
And perhaps intelligence is not the right word because people get hung up on that. People don't like the concept of IQ, so perhaps I shouldn't say the word intelligence. Either way, interest, let's just say that interest is there. And there are historical reasons why perhaps it's been underestimated. One is because on cable news, that's what it used to be. And then the early internet was modeled after cable news. Cable news has to appeal to an extremely wide variety and people can't choose per se what's going on the channel.
whereas on YouTube and the internet you can choose and you can have algorithms that then send you more of what you like that wasn't precisely there on, well, cable news. Yeah, and I guess the opportunity to delve deeper into non-trivial and interesting kind of topics I think appeals to people with curiosity and, you know, and as you say, some kind of intellectual leaning. They don't have to be, you know, intellectual or academic. They can just be ordinary people, you know,
But I think there's a wide range of people who are just looking for deeper, more meatier kinds of kinds of things. So which brings us to your channel, your theories of everything channel, which, you know, I think by any measure is doing really, really super well. I mean, you've only been doing this for what, a year and a half or two years? Technically, the channel has been around for three years. And then
When I renamed it as theories of everything that was a year and a half ago, that's when I actually started to
Talk about theories of everything. Whereas before that, it was somewhat political. And like I mentioned, I don't particularly like the political. I consider myself apolitical. I consider itself to be a distraction in many ways. I don't like to think about being anti-woke, which is now a trend. I feel like that's disparaging. So I'm not a fan of interviewing people about politics at all. One, if you think consciousness is ill-defined, talk about certain political positions. Those are much more difficult to prove to be correct or incorrect.
I mean, that's somewhat false. Now, I guess maybe your initial, I mean, usually when one thinks of theories of everything, one thinks of physics and fundamental physics and particles and trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and quantum field theory and general relativity and things like this. But maybe that umbrella is potentially a bigger one. So what do you think, what is a theory of everything?
My training is in physics, particularly in mathematical physics, and then that's always a strange word because what kind of physics is not mathematical? Well, mathematical physics, just for people who are unfamiliar, means you focus a bit more on the rigor. For example, in physics, you're constantly told just tailor expand this, but not every function can be tailor expanded. That's just one. And then you wonder, well, why? Well, maybe you'd prove some theorems around that in a
or here's another one bra-ket notation you just use and perhaps even abuse in physics but the fact that you can have a bra so the left side it depends on something called Reese's Lemma or Rice's Lemma in functional analysis that says that there's a one-to-one correspondence between the dual space and then the actual space itself yeah the point of that is to say that i went into this project thinking that theories of everything was just about unifying general relativity in the standard model
But then there are some larger, perhaps larger, looming questions such as what is consciousness? Well, if you're a physicalist or materialist, then you would think it just emerges and that's a problem for perhaps the chemists or perhaps the neurobiologists. But it's not so simple. It's not that simple at all. And then it's also not simple as to what the heck is physics? What is it? Is it just a model that describes, well, is it material at its bottom? See, even talking about this is
Much of my thoughts are at the pre-verbal level, if it even could be verbalized potentially, so perhaps it's just non-verbal. So, I have a difficult time with this. The point is, you ask, what is the theory of everything? I went in thinking that it's the standard physics terminology in your unifying GR with SM, and then I was looking into other people who claim to have tolls, TOEs, so theories of everything. And some of them are more cognitive tolls, such as Ian McGilchrist or John Vervecky.
What would be an example of a cognitive TOE? What would be an example of something that was more in the cognitive side of a TOE? Someone like John Vervecky, a cognitive TOE would be one that's based in cognitive science, and it's an explanation for all phenomena, usually what we experience, and then how we model what we experience. And then you think, well, that's not exactly
A theory of everything that's not exactly reality that's just starting from cognition yes well embedded within that is the reductionist idea that your cognition is then based in your neuro biology which is based in the chemistry based in the physics and so ultimately you should have a physics toe which gives rise to that but that's not exactly clear like i mentioned before it's unclear if consciousness has a
constitutive role to play in reality which sounds like such a woo idea an ill-defined obtuse superstition of people from hundreds of years ago and why are we even entertaining that idea now yes sure some physicists a minority of physicists in the past have thought maybe there's some connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics but that's been dispelled and decoherence explains that and many worlds explains that
collapse the wave function. But not all of that's entirely clear, at least not to me. And I don't have the certainty that other materialists have, nor do I have the certainty that
I'm wondering if maybe a philosopher might say, oh, you need to, if you want a theory of everything, you should start with philosophy, which is sort of some blanket approach, which investigates already the very origins of how you're going to look at things and what you're
your fundamental bases are, whether you're going to be sort of materialist and think everything's kind of reductionist, or whether you're going to embed your understanding in sort of a human oriented point of view, and it has to be sort of subjected to our, you know, to our consciousness and such things. So, yeah, I can imagine that this is quite a potentially all embracing or multi-faceted kind of investigation.
which maybe sort of explains why you are interested in not just consciousness, but also free will. And I guess one of the things that your channel has become quite known for is rather intense discussion of the UFO phenomena and how that fits in. How do we understand that? I'd also like to apologize for stumbling so much over my answers.
Langlands Program
connections can be made in different fields of mathematics. This umbral moonshine, I haven't looked into that, but that's similar in that there are disparate fields of mathematics and there may be connections. And then I have written down here, Norman Wildberger, because that would be a very modest and initial kind of foray. And then there's also Wolfram's physics project. Indeed, yes. Which also is a mathematical toe because Wolfram believes that at its core,
Reality is computational, everything is computational, even mathematics itself, and we can use the physics project to provide a mathematical toe as well as a physical toe. Yeah, so that's pretty interesting. So there's also sort of the computer science side of all of these things, you know, as represented, at least partially by Stephen Wolfram, the algorithmic approach to reality, which I think is very enticing kind of possibility.
Even though it's maybe it's preliminary, we don't have maybe enough really to be able to decide at this stage, but it's certainly an intriguing possibility. Right. If it's true, it would give an explanation for or would give a justification for your idea that we should base it all in base mathematics and what is computable. I know that's not exactly your view, but I'm straw manning your view.
When you ask for cognitive toes, I have them listed down here. I haven't explored them. I'm going to be exploring them much later this year. So some examples for people who are wondering what the heck is a cognitive toe. The Unified Theory of Knowledge by Greg Henriques would be an example. Object Oriented Ontology by Graham Harman. Daniel Schmottenberger apparently has a cognitive toe, quote unquote, but I'm attaching that label to his and I also don't know if it has a title. It's just his worldview.
And I also put the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, but I think that goes under what you referenced before, which is the philosophical toes, that there are certain ideas about what exists and what could possibly exist and what we could know possibly exists, that's epistemology, and that is where I should have put Immanuel Kant.
And then there's Wittgenstein who also has, who's also similar to Kent. So those are ones that I'm extremely interested in exploring at some point. And I don't think I answered your question. I'm sorry. No, that's a good, that's a good answer. So that's, that's covering a huge amount of territory. So if we go back to the physics, which is maybe, you know, at the heart of your initial interest, how would you, how would you describe the, the landscape, let's just say, or the, the, the, the main contenders for physical toes at this stage?
Yep. I should also mention that one of the great underpinnings, so there are frameworks of a toe, it's almost like a meta toe. And one of the great ones is Carl, sorry, Chris Lang is CTMU. And you can, people who are watching this can obviously search Chris Lang and see my interview with him or just look up Chris Lang directly. Okay, as for
the physics-based Toes. There are GUTs, so those are Grand Unified Theories, and that's what, sometimes you hear the word GUT and Toe used synonymously. They're not, GUTs are a way of, if you look at the Standard Model, to me the way that I think of the Standard Model is much like, it's much like the way my dad makes products, so he's a great builder, he makes houses, or he used to make houses. Sometimes though, when you look at what he builds,
there's a shelf and then there's and then he realizes he needs a router so then he'll cut a hole in that and then he realizes he needs someone and then there's duct tape behind that it works it all works but it's so inelegant it's a kludge it's a poorly hastily assembled collection and that's what the standard model looks like it looks like there's duct tape here and then there's a there's a piece sticking out here and so on and but it works so remarkably well and you look at it and the human sense is that it's
It's not beautiful. And physicists generally like to think, and I'm not a physicist, but I'm saying physicists generally like beauty. And when you look at that, it just seems like there's got to be some underlying principle that explains this. And then there's obviously the beautiful GR, which is on its own beautiful, perhaps we can unify them. There's no theory that explains them both.
So a GUT would be to find a beautiful standard model. You can think of it like that. Technically, what a GUT is, what a grand unified theory is, is there's electricity, electromagnetism, there's strong and weak. And the weak and electromagnetism have been unified, but the strong hasn't been unified. So there's electroweak. That's the terminology for this. And the strong hasn't been unified. Now you can unify these and that's called a GUT. Getting back to your question.
What is the state of toes, physical toes?
I remember when I was speaking to Eric Weinstein, I said, I have a list of 15 toes here. And I was listing them each to him. And he's saying, that's not a toe. That's not a toe. Only mind is a actual toe and string doesn't even count because it hasn't produced any so and so. So depending on who you ask, there are anywhere from one to 15 toes that are candidates. Can I interject with a question here? So what actually do do physicists think about this terminology? Do they use TOEs? You know, do they talk in these terms or they try to distance themselves from
These are, does it depend on which field we're talking about? They do use this term, but it's a tongue-in-cheek term because it doesn't explain everything, nor in principle can it explain everything. So for example, if you've watched, or if anyone's watched the conversation with Nicholas Justin or David Walpart, there are limits to knowledge, even if we knew the fundamental laws. Stephen Wolfram says computational irreducibility. So that would be an example of even if we knew a principle, it's not as if you can predict what that principle would entail.
short of running the principle itself. So Stephen Wolfram has, I think rule 130 is his famous example of his cellular automata. It's a system that's so complicated that if you want to figure out what is it doing, the only way to figure out precisely what is it going to do, let's say 100 time steps in the future is to run it. You still run it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. As for you wondered what the heck do physicists use this term TOE? They do, but they do rarely.
It's strange to me, I find it extremely strange, but sociologically perhaps there's a reason we can talk about that after, I find it extremely strange that most physicists aren't pursuing totes because to me ever since I learned about physics that's all I've been interested in and that seems to be what captures the public's imagination most is the fundamental laws. It's partly tied to maybe it's because we're trying to understand ourselves and our place in the universe and why is this here and
How could it be that there's something rather than nothing that's tied to those questions, or at least the drive to understand a toe is tied to the drive to understand those questions. I think that the reason why physicists don't pursue it more is because it's so firstly, it's so difficult and second, all the low hanging fruit have been plucked. And then
Third, because of that, if you're a grad student or PhD student and you're proposing some some line of research, if you say, I'm going to develop a theory of everything, they'll just laugh at you. And your supervisors are thinking, well, look, there's this particular problem. You pick a particular problem that you can solve. That's what you should do if you're a PhD student and there are particular problems in string theory and loop quantum gravity and so on. So solve those. And then you have the extremely, extremely, extremely talented people that are just solving particular problems. And now
They've either lost their drive or they've invested so much into that particular problem that they've convinced themselves that this is the approach that should be taken, a rationalization that comes about, a post hoc rationalization. So it could be that that's a sociological reason. Hear that sound?
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I guess a standard question that outsiders have, there's quite a lot of debate in physics about
string theory, which was for a long time sort of championed as the primary candidate for theory of everything. But that's seen heated debate, you know, as to as to the merits, pros and cons. And I think the physics community is somewhat divided. Even though mathematically, a string theory has had all kinds of beneficial, you know, influences in mathematics. So mathematicians are quite, you know,
Are you on one side of this fence or the other on that or not?
See, Professor, when you ask me some questions, the reason why I pause so often is because firstly, I'm trying to make sure that what I'm saying is actually how I feel rather than something that I've packaged beforehand and then I'm presenting it to you glibly. And that's not easy to do. At least not for me. It's decidedly not easy. I found that many of my opinions are ones that I've adopted unconsciously and I think they're mine.
I think that they're mine. So when you asked me that question about two or three months, no, perhaps about six months ago, I would have said, yeah, string theory, it's just, it's unfalsifiable. And it's been going on for, for decades now, and we should spend money elsewhere. And it has no merit. But that was me. And I didn't know any string theory. But I would just say that. And I would feel like that's absolute. That's the correct view.
But it's only because I've heard people say that, but I've heard them say it so much, I've adopted it and not even realized that I've adopted it. It wasn't until I thought, you know, let me, I would like to learn string theory. So let me interview. That's partly also how I choose some of the guests is I have certain topics I'd like to learn. I may as well book someone. So I have to learn it now. So I forced myself to learn it. I was interviewing someone named Stefan Alexander, who's a string theorist. And I thought, okay, this is great. Let me learn at least the rudiments of string theory. And then as I was learning it,
It is an extremely beautiful theory. It is extremely natural. And I'm still I'm looking at it. And I think, wow, it would be so strange if the universe didn't work like this. Because it's and I even saying this right now, I don't have enough of an understanding to say this with absolute confidence. It's a natural looking theory. And so my criticism of it is much more tempered than it would have been six months ago, because I've actually studied some of it. But as for whether or not it reflects reality,
I don't know, but it is extremely interesting and there are plenty of dualities in string theory. So Lee Smolin mentioned this in one of his books, but I wasn't able to find any other source. But apparently there's a duality between string theory and loop quantum gravity. And I emailed Lee about this and he didn't respond to me. So Lee thinks that string theory could be correct in that it's a dual to his theory, which he thinks is correct. And there's obviously some adious
cft correspondence which is a duality for something called holography i mean some sorry it's a duality and when people speak about holography that's what they're referring to so there are plenty of dualities strange dualities that pop up over all over the place it may be the case that that if string theory is wrong perhaps there's some duality and what is dual to is correct but then mathematically if it's a dual then they're equivalent so how do you know which one is the true which one is actually primary well i don't know i think it's extremely interesting and i'm
Very much looking forward to learning more. Yeah, I think it's good to have a sort of agnostic point of view on these things and to be, you know, acknowledging as you are that, you know, there's clever people on both sides or on many different directions on these things and they all have different insights and coming from different understandings. So as an outsider, one should be hesitant about judging too quickly as to, you know, what exactly is correct and how correct various things are.
But this brings us to, you know, I think another really interesting aspect of your thing is that all these remarkable guests that you have on your on your channel, you know, and you've got this wide range of luminaries. So how do you go about this guy named Norman Wildberg? I couldn't believe I got a present company excluded, of course. But how do you go about how do you go about, you know, getting such really interesting people and and then deciding on the direction of your conversations with them?
As for how I go about getting them, I just email them. Most of the time, about 70% of the time, they'll say yes. And what I do is I'll send an email saying that I'm interested in speaking with you as for exactly what I'm going to speak with you about. I have no clue, but here's what the channel's themes are. And here's some of the other types of interviews I've had. Are you interested? I just gauging your interest right now. I'm not going to send you a full question list because why would I spend my time? That's also
That takes hours and sometimes days, sometimes weeks to come up with the questions. So why would I spend my time doing that? I just want to find out. Are you potentially interested? And so I have plenty of potential yeses. I have perhaps right now I have 50 people who have said, yes, I want to come on. I think it's better if I give specific examples. So one was string theory. I want to learn comes from a personal quest. I want to learn some more about string theory so that I'm not parroting what other people say.
Okay, who can I speak to about that so that I pretty much force myself to learn it? Okay, what about, hmm, sometimes they line up like cards, almost like prerequisites in a course. So there's someone named Garrett Lisey who has E8. And that's, if I want to learn E8, it would be great if I learned
Something called SO10, which unifies potentially unifies Pati Salam and then Georgie Glashow. And so then if I want to learn them, it will be great to speak to someone who's an expert on them first. And then almost like dominoes, almost like if I want to take a graduate course, well, the graduate course has prerequisites at the undergraduate level, which has some more prerequisites. So then if that's my goal, then I work backward. So sometimes it's like that. Most of the time it's like that. It's funny that you mentioned the E8 and SO10.
Those are things, those are sort of mathematical objects. They're groups of symmetry, sort of classical Lie groups. And that's actually, it's something that sort of interests me because I have a background in Lie theory and representation theory. And one of my little projects is to talk about what I call diffusion symmetry. And my aim is to explore some of these concepts. But, you know, it's,
It's so interesting, I think, how really complicated mathematics like not the EEH is the largest sort of exceptional simple Lie group. And then there's an associated, maybe not associated, but there's also the monster group, which is the largest simple finite group.
And, you know, these are sort of at the apex, let's say, of their respective ecosystems within mathematics. And it's curious how modern physics, or at least part of it, seems to be moving towards these. And, you know, like Lisey's theory of E8 is quite enticing. I'm not sure if it's correct or not, but it's certainly, you know, quite a remarkable possibility that this remarkable mathematical object could be playing the central role in physics.
and even more so with the monster group, which is even more intractable, but remarkable in mathematics. So I think that there's really incredible interaction between these fields, but it's hard to access. The mathematicians don't know enough physics, and well, the physicists are actually these days quite knowledgeable about mathematics, so we can't say it the other way around.
It's challenging for people who are trying to understand these things to get more than just a generalist kind of understanding of things. Like the popular literature is often at not a mathematical enough level to really engage with the meat of what's really going on with these things. So I think there's a lot of room for
for the people in both areas to explicate in more depth and more explicitly so that aspiring learners can sort of engage with these really interesting concepts.
Yeah, in some ways, that's what the theories of everything podcast is trying to do. It's that there is a distinct lack of rigor in podcasts. Now, obviously, the rigor, when I say rigor, it's a relative term. There's nothing in any of the theories of everything podcasts that approaches anywhere near even the simplest of papers that would have to get peer reviewed. When I say rigor, I mean rigor, it's rigorous relative to for podcast standards, not rigorous relative to a mathematician's rigor or even a physicist's rigor.
I'm trying to address... That's false. That's false. See, these are post hoc rationalizations. This is why I'm being extremely careful with what I'm saying. I'll tell you what I was about to say. I was going to say I'm trying to address that lacuna, but that's false. What I'm trying to do is just trying to edify myself selfishly. Like when I was speaking with you, I treat each guest, so for example yourself, as if it's a professor, which you are, that I have in
office hours and I'm a confused student and I'm like so wait what about this oh what about that oh okay interesting but I don't understand that can you explain that to me and the audience is just there for the journey there are some times where I will I wouldn't say play dumb it's not an affectation per se but I would say oh some simple concept and I'll say oh can you explain that in this way because I know that there's an audience watching but those are rare instances yeah I think that's part of the the key to the success of your channel is that you
you're thinking about your audience, you know, and try to explain it, try to bring things out for them so that they can understand. And, you know, it's sort of a concern for their understanding that I think is really apparent. I was thinking about what is it that makes a great teacher? And obviously many people have their own opinions on that. And I think for one, perhaps is sufficient, but not necessary.
criteria would be a deeply confused person someone who's had so many confusions that you understand what it's like to not know this and you know what the common traps are and that's one of the reasons why if you've been distanced from the subject for so long it's teaching it is the students have a difficult time understanding because one isn't meeting the students at their level one is teaching it as if it's obvious when it's not always entirely obvious most of the time it's not obvious what's being taught
So I'm a completely hear that sound. That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the Internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms.
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The deeply confused person. So I can think of what the typical audience member may not understand or where they're coming from. And it's just because I'm so I know so little
or know what it's like to know so little, and then to just... Man, you have a... I'm gonna steal something that you said, which is that understanding isn't like a light switch. It's more like a volume knob. You understand a bit more, and then a bit more, and it's almost never at 100%. And the reason I say it's... I don't know if you said that, but I'm gonna say that. The reason why I say it's not at 100% is because if you question someone about why is this the case, why is this the case, this the case, eventually you get down to philosophical questions which no one has the answer to.
So it cannot be 100%. Otherwise, you'd have a toe. If you 100% understood any one phenomenon, I would say that you have a toe, because it would have to use that to ground the rest of your knowledge. If you believe this and you understand it with 100% certainty. Yeah. Okay, but I'm and I would modify what you said about the volume knob. I would say that it's more like a stove. And the reason why is that
When you're learning, you're adding some heat to the stove. And then as you stop learning, it's like you're turning off the stove and the heat transfers to the rest of the room. So the filaments or the coils get less hot and your understanding decreases with time. Whereas with the volume knob, there's no notion of decay. I'm amending yours and I'm going to say it's a stove. That's that's that's reasonable. Yep.
Kurt, another interesting aspect of your channel is discussion of free will. I think that's a topic that interests you quite a lot. Now, you know, do humans have free will or not? I mean, I think that this is somehow intimately tied in some ways with modern physics, because in quantum mechanics, there's this notion of observer and you know, what exactly is an observer is something that the physicists have debated for a long time. And
I guess the standard story is that it's someone who's making decisions and turning this detector on or off or whatever, so there's sort of an implication of free will somehow at the bottom of quantum mechanics. But perhaps with general relativity there's a four-dimensional space-time and when we have our trajectories on it and there's
something more of a deterministic aspect of the flow of that. So it's not so clear how free will plays a role in GR. And I think it's probably the case that maybe because of advances in neurobiology that in the last few decades, more and more people are coming out saying that maybe we don't have free will, maybe this is an illusion.
So can you tell us about, you know, what have various people who have come on to your show, you know, how have they explored this topic with you? And what are your conclusions, if any, on this interesting question?
This is the question of what are my conclusions. That's another reason why I take a while to speak. It's because I'm not terribly comfortable with being interviewed. Obviously I'm super flattered to be here, but it's that my answers change with the seasons or with every three months or four months or so that go by and perhaps sometimes even weeks. Partly the reason why is because I know what it's like to tell myself that I know and then be unceremoniously shown to be false and it's not a pleasant feeling. So I'm extremely careful about
What I say I know
Just a fact, and it doesn't mean that it's false. It doesn't mean that just because it's easy to say that there exists no free will, that there does exist free will. That's not what I mean. I just mean that it's simple to show, and the reason you can show that it's simple to show is that any teenager has the argument that, well, look, your neurology is based on your chemistry, which is based on your physics and so on, and unless you have some role to play with the physics, then
It's not as if you have free will. And when you were referencing the role that we have interacting with the physics, that's more consciousness than it is free will. At least that's what people would... Yeah, I haven't heard much said about the quote-unquote collapse of the wave function and free will. I've heard about that and consciousness. One of the reasons why I like interviewing people who say there is free will is just because it's so difficult to defend. At least I think it is. I can't defend free will. I find it much more easy to attack free will. And I like having people on who have opinions
where 90% of their colleagues disagree vehemently with them. In that regard, do you have a feeling as to how the physics community feels sort of en masse on this question? Yeah, I would say that I think there's been some polls, and the conclusion is that most physicists don't believe in free will, or if they believe in free will, it's compatibilism, which means that it's not free will. It just means they're redefining free will, to mean actually will.
Most academics don't believe in free will. That's my experience and I haven't seen any studies on that. That's usually at odds with the general population, right? The working assumption in ordinary life is that we're free will free agents and responsible for our choices, etc. In some sense, it's the basis of our legal systems and societal setup.
So if a majority of physicists feel in this quite different way, that could have repercussions, societally, if people started to appreciate that more. I don't know if physicists or people in general who make these claims like physicists,
Even, sorry, even the people who say free will exists and the people who don't, I don't know how much they've thought of, they've thought their positions through. Because once you ask them two or three or four questions, you find that it doesn't take much prying before you get to an I don't know answer. And so then why are you saying that free will exists or doesn't exist when just two or three digs of the shovel, you land upon something you don't know. You're basing it on such shallow ground, but you say it so adamantly.
So I don't know. And yes, you're absolutely correct about our society being contingent on free will, at least with respect to the fact that we put people in prisons and our legal system and so on. Though there are ways around that I haven't explored much, like Sam Harris says, yes, you can still have that. And Daniel Dennett, I believe, though Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist, but
There are certain philosophers who would say yes free will doesn't exist but we should still act as if free will exists and it doesn't matter as an observer anyway because it's like you're an agent and sure maybe you don't have this metaphysicist the way that I think of free will and the only definition that I think makes sense is a somehow metaphysical role that somehow we influence physics has to be that otherwise it doesn't have to be that that's false but
that's the way that I think libertarian free will because otherwise then you're just determined by what's not even if it's indeterminate beside the point you're determined quote-unquote determined by something that isn't you so then how can you say that you made that decision that you engendered this I don't see how that could be the case but regardless you can say that the calculation happened somewhere inside this autonomous body and as long as that is what occurred then you have free will then you can treat that agent as having free will
But that's not exactly what I think you and I or the legal system means when we say free will. Yeah. I mean, I think there's all kinds of potential. Hear that sound.
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of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase.
Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash theories. So these circular conundrums that appear once we start to engage with the possibility that we don't have free will.
Because we're still talking about it and we're making supposed decisions on the basis of this knowledge. But on the other hand, we're supposing that it's all predetermined and that our conversation has been somehow hardwired into the initial software of the universe or some such thing. So it's easy to get lost in circles in your mind on this topic.
You have to think of free will as first in the quote-unquote logical order because if not then if you make a decision if you say yes I believe this scientific theory or this line of argumentation whatever it may be then what basis do you have to believe that if you're just why do you think that's correct all you can say is that just happened because this plinko ball to make a
Wheel of Fortune, I believe, analogy. This plinko ball happened to land here. There's nothing that says that this is true. All that you can say is that your brain was set up in such a way that this input produced this output. At the same time, I don't find Nicholas Jisson's point of view particularly convincing. It's just interesting. And judging from the comments, many other people feel the same. But it also doesn't mean it's false. Yeah. Yeah, it's not an easy thing to settle.
And speaking of topics which are not easy to settle, what about the UFO aspect of your channel, which I think is super interesting. And I think especially these days, really important, it's great that we are able to hear the views of guys like Lou Alessandro and others.
I was someone who was thinking that there can't be any way that UFOs are real. When I say real, I mean that they're anything more than some atmospheric effect or some reflection of some distant object, some pedestrian terrestrial explanation. And one of my reasons was that imagine they're coming from far away. Well, if they're from sufficiently far away, if you look at the, this is not a great argument, but I thought it was a great argument.
If you look at our technological speed it's like an exponential curve. Obviously exponential curves have to be S-curves because otherwise there would be some... I think everything around us would be much different if that wasn't the case. It doesn't look to me as if these objects are at the peak of their technological capability. I can imagine just with my childlike fanciful and naive surmising I can imagine that there's... I can imagine much more efficient objects or much more differently shaped objects. I can imagine grey goo that they would just be
dust. I don't understand why they are even physical objects like that. Why do they look so similar to craft though? Why is it that we can even identify them as craft? It should be so far removed from anything that we could think of or even perceive, perhaps. And perhaps that is the case. Perhaps we just don't see what are the true UFOs. Yeah, maybe they're nano devices flittering around inside our brains or something. Yeah, and that's extremely terrifying. So one of the speculations I've heard is that there are orbs that are associated with UFOs and
The orbs are about the size of a fist or they could be about the size of a soccer ball, but they're the size of a fist and they're often associated. They're also associated with strange phenomena like Bigfoot. So then that automatically makes at least two years ago, Kurt just shut off and say, come on, this has got to be BS. If you're bringing up Bigfoot and then UFOs and orbs. Well, anyway, one of the ideas is that these orbs are much like, like the NSA, they're monitoring us.
As for UFOs,
I was saying that, look, there's certain arguments for why I don't think they exist. Also, why do they look so much like us, at least in the depictions that we've heard? Well, then someone said, one of my friends or colleague actually said, check out a couple of videos. I forget what they were. I think one was Bob Lazar and Joe Rogan, and then some other documentary and perhaps some PDF. I don't recall.
And I remember thinking, hmm, maybe there's something to this. This is interesting, but let me just explore this. So I interviewed Jeremy Corbell, who did the Bob Lazar documentary, and I thought, I wasn't convinced. I'm just thinking, firstly, I interviewed him as a filmmaker. That's why most of the questions in part one of my conversation with him are regarding creativity and filmmaking. And then I thought, okay, let me interview Kevin Knuth, who's a physicist. I want to hear from someone who I feel like is not, because remember, I was
Extremely judgmental. I like physicists. I feel like they're the type of people that I understand the most So how about I speak to someone who speaks my language who believes in this strongly and I well, let me just hear him out so I did and and I started to realize maybe there's something more to this maybe there's something more so started to ask other people for interviews and now I'm at that point where I find it so interesting that there are people who are
If this was any other criminal case, like a rape trial, something that's extremely serious, if there was even four of these people who attested, yes, I saw that person raped that person, and all it was was witness testimony, that's it, you would say these people, one of them is credible, two of them, for sure, three of them, okay, you're going to jail, buddy, four of them. Yeah, okay, for sure. You hang this person.
Yet when these are experts in their own field, so they're not even experts at criminal identification, but when there are these four individuals or more who are let's say pilots and they all agree this is what they do and they say that this defies the laws of physics and this is what I saw and it was a craft and and yes my superiors are telling me not to talk about this and yes this is known that this occurs
on the way to battlefields, for example, so it's not a US technology or it's unlikely to be because the US wouldn't want to scare its own soldiers directly before battles. Why are we not taking it more seriously? As the public, the government seems to be taking it extremely seriously, but the public isn't.
So I find that to be interesting. I think that you mentioned to me that you have some probabilities that you associate with certain outcomes or certain viewpoints on this. And I would say my probabilities, even though this changes on a day-to-day basis, is that it's 75% likely that there's something extremely interesting, whether it's extraterrestrial or it's us from the future, whatever that means, or it's even technology that is US-based, that is highly advanced. That's extremely interesting. Or Russian technology or Chinese technology. I find that all extremely interesting. Yeah.
I think this idea of assigning probabilities or levels of certainty in a sort of a quantitative sense is an interesting thing because I'm a mathematician. So, you know, I don't think we need to have a binary approach to these things in terms of yes, I believe in UFOs. No, I don't believe in UFOs that it's more nuanced and realistic to have to try to
at least roughly, you know, put the dial somewhere in between. And I like to think in terms of bookies, you know, bookies who are having to make a decision about some future event like a horse race or a presidential election based on, you know, on imperfect information and estimation. And their object is to find the line, you know, where they're willing to accept bets on either side of this position.
And to me, somehow that's a kind of a litmus test of honesty. When you say, oh, I'm 75% sure. That means that I'm willing to take bets on this side at three to one or on this side. That's somehow a guarantee. Well, if somebody says, oh, I'm 100% certain, and you say, okay, well, do you want to put up a million dollars for my $1 on it? And they say, no, actually, I'm not that certain. Okay.
So I think it's kind of a useful way of trying to allow a little bit of quantitative probability into these discussions so that people can maybe more clearly elucidate their level of confidence about certain statements.
I think that your statement that you're 75% pretty sure that there's something interesting going on here is interesting. I would be interested in what other people's perception of that number is for them. If a lot of people have more than 50% certainty that this is interesting, then it should be a much wider
topic of public debate. In fact, even if the numbers are less than that, it should still be still be pretty interesting. And I think a large percentage of the population is going to ascribe bigger numbers than that. Like I would probably say I have a 90% chance that 90% confidence level that there's something really interesting going on in this space. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that there is.
I'm so glad you articulated it like that. I don't think I've heard anyone else say that, and that's something that I've thought. It's actually something that I've wanted to bring up to some of these people who consider themselves skeptics. I don't think they're skeptics. I think that they're just chest-beating with their rational intellectual, or appearing to be rational intellectual, because they feel like that's what their colleagues believe. I feel like they get the same satisfaction as they do from saying that UFOs don't exist, how dare you, what's the evidence, and so on. They get the same satisfaction that they do
Okay, Neil.
You're 99% sure. So that means that if I put up $10,000, you're comfortable putting up $100,000 and you feel like that's a great bet. You feel like that's the odds are way in your favor. Let's do that then. Are you willing to do that? And even if you want to do it as a percentage of income, well then, hey man, like I have almost nothing, then we can change the numbers much more. And then if that's not the case, if we do this analysis and we find out that you actually believe when you put your money where your mouth is, that it's something like 70% that you believe against it at the probability of 70%,
then perhaps you shouldn't be so arrogant in your dismissal of all these people as being foolish for believing in the phenomenon. Because 70%, sorry, saying it's 30% likely to be true, that it's something extremely interesting. Well, that to me doesn't equate to the amount of derision and condescension that they output toward these people who believe in this phenomenon. They scorn and deride and have such snide remarks and they look down upon those people as just
you poor people who don't understand what evidence is this is the scientific extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and other such glib remarks by the way brian keating who's an experimentalist and almost won the noble prize said you know i never tell my graduate students okay now let's get some extraordinary evidence all evidence is evidence there's no separate bin for extraordinary evidence
Do you think the government or the academic community in Canada or Australia or the US should be doing something different about this subject?
about UFOs, UAPs, should there be a change in public policy towards either disclosure or investigation or discussion? I don't know because maybe some of the more wild theories is that, and these can keep you up at night man, some of these the more wild theories is that there is a good reason for the cover-up if this phenomenon is true. There's a good reason for it and you would be terrified to know and you would want to go back to the place where you had no clue. That it's a pleasant place to be
And that sounds like that sounds so anti scientific.
And sure, many people feel like, you know what, I'm just a truth seeker, I want the truth no matter what. I used to think of myself as that. And I'm not even talking about the UFO phenomenon, just in general. It's only up until about one year or actually, well, a couple of years ago that I feel like the truth is so eviscerating. I don't know if I would accept the truth, whatever it is, no matter what. I've had some experiences recently, nothing like UFO experiences, but experiences that I can barely talk about without almost sending myself into a mental
crisis that if I was to truly think it was true, I would, I am begging, begging, begging to go back to that blissful state of ignorance. Some people say that you, yeah, you're not a truth. Okay. Well, I don't, I don't know if they truly thought about the consequences of I'm going to truth seek no matter what, no matter what, even if it meant your mom is going to die, even if it meant you're going to kill yourself or kill your, the people you love. Somehow if the truth could lead you down there and you feel like, Oh, I'm going to pursue that.
Or what about the development of the nuclear bombs? That's a truthful endeavor in a sense that it's a scientific enterprise. There's nothing false about it. So you think that should be done? I don't know if people truly examine what it means to be a truth-seeker no matter what. Unless you already have embedded in that the assumption that the truth is good, which is a faith, an assumption on faith. That's actually a religious statement. It may be the case that the truth is good. So I hope that's the case. And I also hope that
Sometimes I use that as a barometer to test if these more speculative thoughts are truthful. Are they leading me somewhere adaptive? Are they leading me somewhere that is life-affirming? If they're not, perhaps that's a sign that what you're down is a deceptive path. Well, that was a great answer, Kurt. Lots to think about there. I think you've touched on a really important point, a delicate point.
that underneath this, there's the potential for unpleasant realizations. And maybe we are being shielded from some of these things. That's a possible explanation, at least for some of the things that have gone on. And that's unsettling, I agree. And I think that question of, are we going to seek truth at all costs?
That's a very, very interesting and profound question that maybe people individually have to answer. Yeah. Well, so maybe we could sort of finish by just going back to more sort of ordinary kinds of things and sort of coming back to the sociology of maths and science. I was going to ask you about, because you are sort of operating in this area with a sociological aspect and also your math physics background,
I'm sort of interested in the sociological differences, if any, between say mathematicians and physicists or between mathematics and physics. Do you see that there's any sort of interesting differences between the way those two groups act or navigate on a sociological level? Sociologically, I don't know. I know mathematically physicists
loves hand waving because it just allows you to skip so many steps and that there's something called there is physical intuition which i don't think i have i actually think i i'm much more of a mathematician in that respect i don't have anywhere near the understanding like perhaps no one does but i have perhaps one percent of the understanding quote unquote understanding of physics that Feynman had Feynman had such an understanding an intuitive level of understanding of
a physical phenomenon such that you could bring to him a novel situation that would require pages of calculation to determine if if this would go upward or downward and he could say oh it goes upward and that's obvious and it's because of this this and this and you realize oh that's actually correct but you have to understand this so deeply in order for you to see those connections as for sociologically and by the way that's not as if that's not a knock on mathematicians and mathematicians mathematicians are rigorous to the core and
There's much that we would think physically could happen, but you examine the math and it turns out it doesn't. I'm partial to John von Neumann. Have you heard this von Neumann story about the flies in the car? Yeah, that's a famous story. That just humiliates me. It was calculated in his head. Yeah, geez. Okay, so as for sociologically, I don't know. Can you give me an example of an answer so that I can see, okay, that's what you're referring to?
Oh, you know, let's say in terms of, you know, like in physics, I think there's more of like, we were talking about these different, different approaches to theory of everything, you know, there's quantum loop gravity or whatever, there's string theory, there's competing, there's almost competing ecosystems, you know, and they're they're struggling to
to impose their point of view on others. I think in mathematics, we have a much more cooperative landscape where I have my territory and I work in my territory and you work in your territory and we're not really competing for rightness or truth in the same kind of way. So that would be one aspect where I think sociologically we're different. Another might be that mathematicians
have maybe a rather long history, see themselves as part of this very long trajectory. Well, physics is maybe a more youthful science, maybe more vigorous in terms of, you know, 20th century physics is very different from 19th century physics. And maybe 21st century physics will be very different from 20th century physics.
So I was just trying to sort of muse on the differences between the two disciplines. I have heard that there used to be plenty of unsaid animosity between the loop quantum gravity people and then the string people. And then I've read in this book with Carlo Rovelli, which he still hasn't responded to me about, that recently, and recently because this book was published in 2005 or so, 2006, so 15 years ago, 20 years ago,
that recently there has been at the conferences, now there's no longer string conferences, or there are, but there are conferences just on quantum gravity that invite both speakers and they talk with one another and it's pleasant and they see connections. So it's not as adversarial as it used to be, at least with respect to loop and string. Interestingly, see there's the rise of the Eric Weinsteins and the Stephen Wolframs, and when I say
I shouldn't have put an S beside them because they're individuals, but there's the rise of people who have come out with their own theory of everything. Actually, there's only been two, Stephen Wolfram and Eric Weinstein. Peter White has also come out with a toe, but he's in academia. And it seems like they get no attention from academia. And from my examination of Wolfram's theory, it's extremely interesting. Eric's I haven't had a chance to get to.
But I am looking forward to getting to it. And I don't know why. So maybe the adversarial aspect is from those that are in academia and those that aren't. I don't know enough to say that with any certainty. I don't know. What do you see? Have you heard of that? Have you heard of people like Wolfram and Eric saying, why isn't it that there aren't any articles on our theories of everything? They're rigorous. They're not just from quote unquote loons who are the academia typically deals with when people from the outside come in and propose a toe. At least that's what academia calls.
Yeah, I don't know. I think Stephen Wolfram is a very special case. There might be a number of reasons for that. I mean, first of all, he's hugely successful with his, you know, Mathematica and developing Wolfram, Alpha. So you think it's jealousy? I think there probably is some of that around for sure, because he's sort of hugely successful in a commercial sense. And he's had sort of major impact in that direction.
But it also may be that his approach is so different from the others. He's really positing an entirely unfamiliar framework where we have these graphs that are evolving in some automata kind of fashion. And you have to have a computer science background, perhaps, and have some experience with automata to maybe appreciate the potentialities of that.
I mean, I know that even in my own discipline, so I have this theory of rational trigonometry. So it's kind of a new approach to trigonometry, right? So, but that's just trigonometry. That's like high school level stuff, you know, it's not that sophisticated. But my, my fellow mathematicians have a hard time wrapping their heads around that because it's, it's different from, from what they're, what they're used to. So there's,
You know, I can appreciate that in Stephen's case, because he's venturing further in an unfamiliar direction, that a lot of physicists are going to maybe resist or maybe just not put in the effort required to get on top of that and to be able to assess it properly. But I'm just speculating here, you know, those are just some aspects that might play a role.
It makes sense. I'm wondering if one of the reasons is also, so I also agree that there's at least an element of jealousy. And I know because I'm a jealous person, and I know how often that I've said, no, no, I'm, I'm not jealous of so and so, but I am. And it took me months or even years to realize that I, that I was despite myself saying, no, there's no way I'm rationally dispassionately assessing this. And I've come to the conclusion that this is not worthwhile or that this person's
product is not as good as this person's product or whatever it may be, but it was jealousy underneath as the primary motivator. It also may be that unless what you're doing is solving a problem that they feel like needs to be solved, if you're giving a new way of looking at an old problem and it requires and it's an entirely new way, then perhaps they're thinking, well, what's okay. Great. You go and do that. You Wolfram do that. You Norman do that with your rational trigonometry. Are you, does it help Goldbach's conjecture or, or the prime did twin prime, et cetera.
That's right. So maybe it's maybe there's that as well. Yeah, I mean, there's a there's inertia in learning. I mean, it's, you know, it's a challenge to learn something new. And we can't blame people for being time poor and having a lots of pressures. And you can't just go off and say, I'm going to spend the next two months learning person, Professor X's new theory, you know, unless there's some, you know, compelling reason to do that.
Perhaps one of the reasons why this, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but that's one of the reasons why this theories of everything project hasn't been done, perhaps, because it requires so much energy and I'm so lucky that now this is what I can do full time. That's a unique position to just be able to, hey, you can study exactly what you like and carte blanche, you can do whatever you like. And it's also by the time someone gets that, they've usually already committed themselves to a particular line of study.
Whereas right now I'm in my early thirties and I still haven't committed myself. Maybe, by the way, like talking about how I take these consciousness theories so seriously and sometimes these physics theories so seriously that it puts me into a spiral and I need to stop taking them so seriously. When I say taking seriously, I mean, I want to give them their due. And so some people say you need to meditate in this manner for two months before you could truly understand this toe. That's my big toe, for example, Thomas Campbell's.
And I take other people's theories of consciousness seriously like Bernardo Castro and Yoshi Vox and so on. And I felt like I was almost about to get myself committed to the institution just thinking about them and I need to distance myself from them. But anyway, the point is that perhaps there's this childlike part of me that's wondering like, why are more people just studying theories of everything if you're a physicist?
Firstly, that's false. There's Stuart Rabi, who has a book on Grand Unified Theories. But that's GUTs, not TAUs in general. Doesn't include Wilfrums, doesn't include Eric Weinsteins. So why is that? Perhaps it's because by the time that they get sophisticated enough to understand other TAUs, that means that they're at the PhD level, they're extremely difficult to understand. Extremely, extremely difficult. And one should get paid to do that because you can't just spend your years or months and months working on this.
And by the time you're at that level, you've already found that you're traveling down the path of string or traveling down the path of loop. There's that inertia to learn a new theory. So I'm lucky in that I can hop between theories. Yeah, and it's extremely arduous. And I feel like I'm so all I do is, is take a whip and constantly beat myself beat myself up like self mortification for not trying hard enough for not learning this fast enough. And I feel like
I never thought of myself as someone who's hard on myself up until a couple weeks ago. I would always say I'm not hard enough on myself. Some people say that in the comment section, you're too hard on yourself. It's only until a couple weeks ago where I had, it was like worse than burnout and it was worse than a panic attack. It was like an existential crisis from, it sounds so strange, but I can't talk about the precise experience without, without shaking. And I had this feeling that man, Kurt, what you've been doing
I was spiraling out of control, Norma. I'll just say it like that. I was spiraling out of control to the point where I wasn't sure if I was the only thing that existed. And even saying that right now sounds so strange. But by the way, it sounds strange. Okay, you proved to me, anyone who's listening to this, that that's not true. That you're the only... What if I say that you're the only one that exists? If you truly thought about that, that would drive you mad. At least it almost did for me. And there's no way for you to disprove that. There's zero way. It's a faith. It's an article of faith for you to say that there exist other minds.
And then you can say, look, you can say, well, look, it's because you're similar to me. And so I'm just going to use some notion of similarity. Yeah. What the heck is this similarity that you're using?
that's such an ill-defined concept because you already have to have well we can talk about that another time anyway i was spiraling and i felt like what happened was i had this insight that kurt you have been thinking far too much you're so analytical and i wouldn't think of myself as someone who thinks or is analytical i would say i'm not analytical enough i don't think enough i need to try harder i need to study more i'm lazy i'm
I give myself too many excuses. I could do much more. I had this feeling that you've been thinking too much and you need to feel more. So, so ridiculous to someone like me and you, at least, maybe not you, maybe you understand this, but I didn't. I'd be like, no, what the heck do you mean think, feel more? Sorry, what the heck do you mean feel more? I'm like a physicist. I'm not a physicist, but akin to a physicist, akin to a mathematician. You think, you think, that's what you do. You play in abstractions. You don't feel. Feelings lead you astray.
Yeah, well, that was leading me astray. That spiraling thought, those spiraling, it was so, so it was the worst experience. Well, sorry, you want to interject? Well, you know, I think I think the kinds of things that you're talking about are probably experienced by some academics, too, and maybe many academics at some points in their lives where maybe they get, you know, really focused on on some problem or agenda. And maybe it's actually
promoted by their success. You're successful and you're moving in a certain direction and suddenly maybe you're the spearhead of some new initiative. And so you end up putting a lot of pressure on yourself to push it further and to go further and to live up to other people's expectations. Maybe in some sense, the traditional academic has to balance teaching with research and
almost automatically that's kind of a break or a reprieve because okay now I have to teach for the next three months and so I don't have I have to put my my research aside for a little while and one regrets having to do that perhaps but there's maybe a therapeutic aspect of being able to take a break and to take some time off and then to come back to it and renew it with more vigor.
So I think maybe probably the pandemic and our isolation and so on hasn't helped, but it probably is the case that it's important to maintain a balance and to take some time off and to say, okay, the next three weeks I'm not doing anything and to let yourself recharge and so on. So I would just think about that as an important thing to keep in mind. Yeah, I certainly
Looking forward to going on a mini vacation with my wife even today. So this is my third podcast for today. That's a bit much. It's a lot. It's a lot much. Yes. But I'm happy like you're the one that I'm excited for of all the podcasts. So I'm lucky that it's last rather than first. Well, it's been really fun talking with you. I think, you know,
You've shed a lot of insights into the way of what you're doing and some of the things you've gleaned from the many remarkable people that you have on your show. So I do hope that you continue to carry on, but that you do so in a balanced way. So don't get too caught up and take some breaks. And I hope that we can touch base again
Some time and chat further more about these these issues because I think we're you know, there's there's all kinds of really interesting things to talk about in these directions. And if you're ever in Toronto, I know that you used to go to U of T. So that's my yes, I used to be in my family and in that area. So yeah, next time I'm in Toronto, let's let's get you know. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you so much again, Kurt, for for for chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Oh, and for people who are interested in these subjects, there's a channel that I have called Theories of Everything, like I mentioned. Check it out. And if you want, there's an interview with Norman Weilberger, which is a great interview that touches on Norman's castigation of the concept of infinite processes. And you can see it explicated clearly. I think it's a great introduction to some of the problems inherent in
See, I wouldn't say like that. I think it's a great explication of finiteism, because whether or not there exists actual problems with infinite processes, that depends on some other predilections and philosophical assumptions. So maybe there isn't, but it seems like there is. So I'm trying to be careful with my words, but you understand what I mean. Yeah. So yeah, so there will be definitely in the description, there'll be links to Kurt's channel and also putting a link to his, his movie.
Thank you for putting up with my babbling. I appreciate it. Thank you. The podcast is now finished. If you'd like to support conversations like this, then do consider going to patreon.com slash c u r t j a i m u n g a l. That is Kurt Jai Mungal. It's support from the patrons and from the sponsors that allow me to do this full time. Every dollar helps tremendously.
Thank you.
▶ View Full JSON Data (Word-Level Timestamps)
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"text": " The Economist covers math, physics, philosophy, and AI in a manner that shows how different countries perceive developments and how they impact markets. They recently published a piece on China's new neutrino detector. They cover extending life via mitochondrial transplants, creating an entirely new field of medicine. But it's also not just science they analyze."
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"text": " Where senior editors argue through the news with world leaders and policy makers in twice weekly long format shows. Basically an extremely high quality podcast. Whether it's scientific innovation or shifting global politics, The Economist provides comprehensive coverage beyond headlines. As a toe listener, you get a special discount. Head over to economist.com slash TOE to subscribe. That's economist.com slash TOE for your discount."
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"text": " This is Martian Beast Mode Lynch. Prize pick is making sports season even more fun. On prize picks, whether you're a football fan, a basketball fan, you'll always feel good to be ranked. Right now, new users get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. The app is simple to use. Pick two or more players. Pick more or less on their stat projections. Anything from touchdown to threes. And if you're right, you can win big. Mix and match players from"
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"text": " This is an auxiliary episode where Professor of Mathematics Norman Wildberger interviewed me on February 18th, 2022 for his channel, Insights into Mathematics. The topics of this episode are mathematics, why theories of everything aren't more studied in academia, and even the in-vogue UFO topic."
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"text": " The link to Norman's YouTube channel is in the description and I recommend you visit and subscribe. He makes learning advanced mathematics like algebraic topology so simple that it spoils the experience of almost every other lecturer online."
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"text": " If you'd like to hear more from the Toll Podcast, then do consider going to patreon.com slash KurtGymUncle and supporting with the contribution of whatever you can, as long as it's reasonable to do so, as I'm able to do this only because of the patrons and the sponsors' support. Also, it would be great if you could review this podcast on whichever platform you're listening to it from, as this greatly aids distribution. Thank you and enjoy this supplementary episode taken from Professor Norman Wildberger's channel, Insight Into Mathematics."
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"text": " Well, hello, everyone. I'm Norman Wahlberger, and it's a pleasure for me to be interviewing Kurt Jaimongel, who is a Toronto based film director, producer, and also is engaged in a very interesting online YouTube direction with his theories of everything YouTube channel. So welcome, Kurt, and thanks very much for joining me on this little conversation. Pleasure is all mine. Thank you."
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"text": " So I'm hoping that we can explore a number of the directions that you're interested in in your channel. And, you know, and maybe at the end, I'll be able to connect it a little bit with my interest in sociology of mathematics and maybe how that contrasts with sociology of physics."
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"text": " But maybe a good place to start with is just with, you know, maybe tell us a little bit about yourself. Obviously, it's a big story. But, you know, in terms of your film career and the background in maths and physics, how do those things fit together?"
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"text": " I've always been interested in math and physics since I was a kid particularly these fundamental questions like what is the origin of the universe and especially the origin of the fundamental laws because even if you can come up with them why these laws and not some other law how is it that an electron follows the law which is a metaphysical question and questions about the origins of life I guess you can think of it as large mysteries of the universe consciousness as well though the question as to what consciousness is and how it arises came about much later in my life"
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"text": " Then I lucky enough that I happen to be great at or good at least good at what I like, which is math and physics. So I went into school for that. That's always a great combination when you like what you do and you're not bad at it. Absolutely. And I left it to go into filmmaking because I used to do standup when I was in university. And when I was doing standup, I thought I'll write a script. And when I couldn't get that script produced, I thought I may as well produce it. So I learned directing and producing. Then I went into that after I graduated."
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"text": " for various reasons but my nature is math and physics and these large questions so they've always been there at the background and I thought since the pandemic started and I couldn't do much filmmaking and I frankly was somewhat tired of it I thought I may as well elucidate or edify myself and edify the audience simultaneously by interviewing people and making it public and then somehow that took off and it was in exactly what I like to do which is theories of everything."
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"text": " So somehow all of these pieces of the puzzle of my life managed to come together with this channel. Very interesting. Now, I think it's quite an unusual combination that you have. Your film Better Left Unsaid, which I watched and I really enjoyed, it's a kind of a"
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"text": " overview of the role of the, maybe we could say the extreme left in modern political landscape. And you're somehow engaging in a thoughtful way with sort of a high level intellectual content, which is sort of unusual for sort of a film kind of scenario, I think."
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"text": " Can you tell us a little bit about that film and maybe its reception and how it's going and what was involved in making it? Sure. I didn't know that you watched that. I'm extremely flattered. Do you mind telling me when did you watch it? Was it recently? It was recently. It was recently. That's extremely flattering. Okay, as a background for people who are unfamiliar, there's this film called Better Left Unsaid which tackles the problem, perhaps problem because maybe it's not a problem, of the extreme left. What is the extreme left?"
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"text": " one first has to define what the left is and one has to define what makes particular political position extreme and those aren't easy questions at all there's many disagreements anytime i put my foot down at one position i can find two or three counters almost immediately so it's a meandering film where i'm exploring that topic and it's not because i dislike the left or"
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"text": " Yes, it's not because I dislike the left. At the time of making the film, I would have considered myself to be left. I also excoriate the extreme right in the film as well, so it's not just against the left. Now I consider myself apolitical, partly because if you're following Professor Weilberger's channel, then you're interested in math. And perhaps one of the reasons you're interested in math, much like myself, is that it's extremely simple. Relatively speaking, sociology for me is far more complicated."
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"text": " I find chemistry complicated also, actually."
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"text": " Better Left Unsaid was my attempt to understand what the heck is going on with the extreme left. The reason why was"
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"text": " Much like yourself, Norman, you probably see that in the universities, at least politically and especially with the administration, perhaps not so much with the faculty, but with the administration, there's a push in a certain direction. And then the question is, well, what is that direction? Where is it coming from? Is it good? Does it have any connection to what people say, which is communism is, and even if it does, is communism bad?"
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"text": " It's a meandering film where I take you through my thought process which is extremely baroque"
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"text": " and academic and I couldn't think of another way of presenting the film other than that in order to do the subject justice. And also frankly, because my mind is somewhat convoluted, it's difficult for me to, that was as simple as I could possibly make the film in other words. It's interesting because it seems to me as if you're engaged in a project to use film in quite a somewhat different way than usual. I mean,"
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"text": " Usually film is there to entertain, I suppose that would be the primary kind of thing, or maybe secondary to inform. But I sort of felt that you're trying to move into a space where you're also trying to engage in some kind of discourse, you know, and have the level of discourse be somewhat deeper and wider and more concentrated than even in a documentary. Much like you have probably found, Professor, there's so many people"
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"text": " Your lectures are so popular. And then you wonder when you teach in school, maybe you teach to 20 students, 100 students, if it's a first year class or 200 max. And you're wondering, wow, the reception for this. These are people who are high school educated. Perhaps some of these people didn't even graduate high school, yet they understand some of the second, third year level courses, sometimes even graduate level courses. I think that the intelligence of the general population has been greatly underestimated. And we're seeing that with"
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"text": " The rise of these intellectual podcasts like Sean Carroll and Lex and Brian Keatings and so on. And Euro? At its best. Yep, thank you. I think there's two factors. There's the interest in it and then there's the intelligence. Rather than those two have to be there."
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"text": " And perhaps intelligence is not the right word because people get hung up on that. People don't like the concept of IQ, so perhaps I shouldn't say the word intelligence. Either way, interest, let's just say that interest is there. And there are historical reasons why perhaps it's been underestimated. One is because on cable news, that's what it used to be. And then the early internet was modeled after cable news. Cable news has to appeal to an extremely wide variety and people can't choose per se what's going on the channel."
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"text": " whereas on YouTube and the internet you can choose and you can have algorithms that then send you more of what you like that wasn't precisely there on, well, cable news. Yeah, and I guess the opportunity to delve deeper into non-trivial and interesting kind of topics I think appeals to people with curiosity and, you know, and as you say, some kind of intellectual leaning. They don't have to be, you know, intellectual or academic. They can just be ordinary people, you know,"
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"text": " But I think there's a wide range of people who are just looking for deeper, more meatier kinds of kinds of things. So which brings us to your channel, your theories of everything channel, which, you know, I think by any measure is doing really, really super well. I mean, you've only been doing this for what, a year and a half or two years? Technically, the channel has been around for three years. And then"
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"text": " When I renamed it as theories of everything that was a year and a half ago, that's when I actually started to"
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"text": " Talk about theories of everything. Whereas before that, it was somewhat political. And like I mentioned, I don't particularly like the political. I consider myself apolitical. I consider itself to be a distraction in many ways. I don't like to think about being anti-woke, which is now a trend. I feel like that's disparaging. So I'm not a fan of interviewing people about politics at all. One, if you think consciousness is ill-defined, talk about certain political positions. Those are much more difficult to prove to be correct or incorrect."
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"text": " I mean, that's somewhat false. Now, I guess maybe your initial, I mean, usually when one thinks of theories of everything, one thinks of physics and fundamental physics and particles and trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and quantum field theory and general relativity and things like this. But maybe that umbrella is potentially a bigger one. So what do you think, what is a theory of everything?"
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"text": " My training is in physics, particularly in mathematical physics, and then that's always a strange word because what kind of physics is not mathematical? Well, mathematical physics, just for people who are unfamiliar, means you focus a bit more on the rigor. For example, in physics, you're constantly told just tailor expand this, but not every function can be tailor expanded. That's just one. And then you wonder, well, why? Well, maybe you'd prove some theorems around that in a"
},
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"text": " or here's another one bra-ket notation you just use and perhaps even abuse in physics but the fact that you can have a bra so the left side it depends on something called Reese's Lemma or Rice's Lemma in functional analysis that says that there's a one-to-one correspondence between the dual space and then the actual space itself yeah the point of that is to say that i went into this project thinking that theories of everything was just about unifying general relativity in the standard model"
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"text": " But then there are some larger, perhaps larger, looming questions such as what is consciousness? Well, if you're a physicalist or materialist, then you would think it just emerges and that's a problem for perhaps the chemists or perhaps the neurobiologists. But it's not so simple. It's not that simple at all. And then it's also not simple as to what the heck is physics? What is it? Is it just a model that describes, well, is it material at its bottom? See, even talking about this is"
},
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"text": " Much of my thoughts are at the pre-verbal level, if it even could be verbalized potentially, so perhaps it's just non-verbal. So, I have a difficult time with this. The point is, you ask, what is the theory of everything? I went in thinking that it's the standard physics terminology in your unifying GR with SM, and then I was looking into other people who claim to have tolls, TOEs, so theories of everything. And some of them are more cognitive tolls, such as Ian McGilchrist or John Vervecky."
},
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"text": " What would be an example of a cognitive TOE? What would be an example of something that was more in the cognitive side of a TOE? Someone like John Vervecky, a cognitive TOE would be one that's based in cognitive science, and it's an explanation for all phenomena, usually what we experience, and then how we model what we experience. And then you think, well, that's not exactly"
},
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"text": " A theory of everything that's not exactly reality that's just starting from cognition yes well embedded within that is the reductionist idea that your cognition is then based in your neuro biology which is based in the chemistry based in the physics and so ultimately you should have a physics toe which gives rise to that but that's not exactly clear like i mentioned before it's unclear if consciousness has a"
},
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"end_time": 974.838,
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"text": " constitutive role to play in reality which sounds like such a woo idea an ill-defined obtuse superstition of people from hundreds of years ago and why are we even entertaining that idea now yes sure some physicists a minority of physicists in the past have thought maybe there's some connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics but that's been dispelled and decoherence explains that and many worlds explains that"
},
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"end_time": 985.367,
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"text": " collapse the wave function. But not all of that's entirely clear, at least not to me. And I don't have the certainty that other materialists have, nor do I have the certainty that"
},
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"text": " I'm wondering if maybe a philosopher might say, oh, you need to, if you want a theory of everything, you should start with philosophy, which is sort of some blanket approach, which investigates already the very origins of how you're going to look at things and what you're"
},
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"end_time": 1037.824,
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"start_time": 1011.049,
"text": " your fundamental bases are, whether you're going to be sort of materialist and think everything's kind of reductionist, or whether you're going to embed your understanding in sort of a human oriented point of view, and it has to be sort of subjected to our, you know, to our consciousness and such things. So, yeah, I can imagine that this is quite a potentially all embracing or multi-faceted kind of investigation."
},
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"text": " which maybe sort of explains why you are interested in not just consciousness, but also free will. And I guess one of the things that your channel has become quite known for is rather intense discussion of the UFO phenomena and how that fits in. How do we understand that? I'd also like to apologize for stumbling so much over my answers."
},
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"text": " Langlands Program"
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"index": 46,
"start_time": 1088.131,
"text": " connections can be made in different fields of mathematics. This umbral moonshine, I haven't looked into that, but that's similar in that there are disparate fields of mathematics and there may be connections. And then I have written down here, Norman Wildberger, because that would be a very modest and initial kind of foray. And then there's also Wolfram's physics project. Indeed, yes. Which also is a mathematical toe because Wolfram believes that at its core,"
},
{
"end_time": 1143.968,
"index": 47,
"start_time": 1115.93,
"text": " Reality is computational, everything is computational, even mathematics itself, and we can use the physics project to provide a mathematical toe as well as a physical toe. Yeah, so that's pretty interesting. So there's also sort of the computer science side of all of these things, you know, as represented, at least partially by Stephen Wolfram, the algorithmic approach to reality, which I think is very enticing kind of possibility."
},
{
"end_time": 1166.271,
"index": 48,
"start_time": 1145.06,
"text": " Even though it's maybe it's preliminary, we don't have maybe enough really to be able to decide at this stage, but it's certainly an intriguing possibility. Right. If it's true, it would give an explanation for or would give a justification for your idea that we should base it all in base mathematics and what is computable. I know that's not exactly your view, but I'm straw manning your view."
},
{
"end_time": 1192.961,
"index": 49,
"start_time": 1166.954,
"text": " When you ask for cognitive toes, I have them listed down here. I haven't explored them. I'm going to be exploring them much later this year. So some examples for people who are wondering what the heck is a cognitive toe. The Unified Theory of Knowledge by Greg Henriques would be an example. Object Oriented Ontology by Graham Harman. Daniel Schmottenberger apparently has a cognitive toe, quote unquote, but I'm attaching that label to his and I also don't know if it has a title. It's just his worldview."
},
{
"end_time": 1211.459,
"index": 50,
"start_time": 1193.609,
"text": " And I also put the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, but I think that goes under what you referenced before, which is the philosophical toes, that there are certain ideas about what exists and what could possibly exist and what we could know possibly exists, that's epistemology, and that is where I should have put Immanuel Kant."
},
{
"end_time": 1241.237,
"index": 51,
"start_time": 1211.971,
"text": " And then there's Wittgenstein who also has, who's also similar to Kent. So those are ones that I'm extremely interested in exploring at some point. And I don't think I answered your question. I'm sorry. No, that's a good, that's a good answer. So that's, that's covering a huge amount of territory. So if we go back to the physics, which is maybe, you know, at the heart of your initial interest, how would you, how would you describe the, the landscape, let's just say, or the, the, the, the main contenders for physical toes at this stage?"
},
{
"end_time": 1263.319,
"index": 52,
"start_time": 1241.596,
"text": " Yep. I should also mention that one of the great underpinnings, so there are frameworks of a toe, it's almost like a meta toe. And one of the great ones is Carl, sorry, Chris Lang is CTMU. And you can, people who are watching this can obviously search Chris Lang and see my interview with him or just look up Chris Lang directly. Okay, as for"
},
{
"end_time": 1291.391,
"index": 53,
"start_time": 1263.78,
"text": " the physics-based Toes. There are GUTs, so those are Grand Unified Theories, and that's what, sometimes you hear the word GUT and Toe used synonymously. They're not, GUTs are a way of, if you look at the Standard Model, to me the way that I think of the Standard Model is much like, it's much like the way my dad makes products, so he's a great builder, he makes houses, or he used to make houses. Sometimes though, when you look at what he builds,"
},
{
"end_time": 1317.807,
"index": 54,
"start_time": 1292.09,
"text": " there's a shelf and then there's and then he realizes he needs a router so then he'll cut a hole in that and then he realizes he needs someone and then there's duct tape behind that it works it all works but it's so inelegant it's a kludge it's a poorly hastily assembled collection and that's what the standard model looks like it looks like there's duct tape here and then there's a there's a piece sticking out here and so on and but it works so remarkably well and you look at it and the human sense is that it's"
},
{
"end_time": 1339.343,
"index": 55,
"start_time": 1318.404,
"text": " It's not beautiful. And physicists generally like to think, and I'm not a physicist, but I'm saying physicists generally like beauty. And when you look at that, it just seems like there's got to be some underlying principle that explains this. And then there's obviously the beautiful GR, which is on its own beautiful, perhaps we can unify them. There's no theory that explains them both."
},
{
"end_time": 1366.425,
"index": 56,
"start_time": 1339.838,
"text": " So a GUT would be to find a beautiful standard model. You can think of it like that. Technically, what a GUT is, what a grand unified theory is, is there's electricity, electromagnetism, there's strong and weak. And the weak and electromagnetism have been unified, but the strong hasn't been unified. So there's electroweak. That's the terminology for this. And the strong hasn't been unified. Now you can unify these and that's called a GUT. Getting back to your question."
},
{
"end_time": 1382.415,
"index": 57,
"start_time": 1367.79,
"text": " What is the state of toes, physical toes?"
},
{
"end_time": 1412.261,
"index": 58,
"start_time": 1382.654,
"text": " I remember when I was speaking to Eric Weinstein, I said, I have a list of 15 toes here. And I was listing them each to him. And he's saying, that's not a toe. That's not a toe. Only mind is a actual toe and string doesn't even count because it hasn't produced any so and so. So depending on who you ask, there are anywhere from one to 15 toes that are candidates. Can I interject with a question here? So what actually do do physicists think about this terminology? Do they use TOEs? You know, do they talk in these terms or they try to distance themselves from"
},
{
"end_time": 1442.671,
"index": 59,
"start_time": 1412.722,
"text": " These are, does it depend on which field we're talking about? They do use this term, but it's a tongue-in-cheek term because it doesn't explain everything, nor in principle can it explain everything. So for example, if you've watched, or if anyone's watched the conversation with Nicholas Justin or David Walpart, there are limits to knowledge, even if we knew the fundamental laws. Stephen Wolfram says computational irreducibility. So that would be an example of even if we knew a principle, it's not as if you can predict what that principle would entail."
},
{
"end_time": 1472.073,
"index": 60,
"start_time": 1443.285,
"text": " short of running the principle itself. So Stephen Wolfram has, I think rule 130 is his famous example of his cellular automata. It's a system that's so complicated that if you want to figure out what is it doing, the only way to figure out precisely what is it going to do, let's say 100 time steps in the future is to run it. You still run it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. As for you wondered what the heck do physicists use this term TOE? They do, but they do rarely."
},
{
"end_time": 1499.343,
"index": 61,
"start_time": 1472.688,
"text": " It's strange to me, I find it extremely strange, but sociologically perhaps there's a reason we can talk about that after, I find it extremely strange that most physicists aren't pursuing totes because to me ever since I learned about physics that's all I've been interested in and that seems to be what captures the public's imagination most is the fundamental laws. It's partly tied to maybe it's because we're trying to understand ourselves and our place in the universe and why is this here and"
},
{
"end_time": 1518.507,
"index": 62,
"start_time": 1500.009,
"text": " How could it be that there's something rather than nothing that's tied to those questions, or at least the drive to understand a toe is tied to the drive to understand those questions. I think that the reason why physicists don't pursue it more is because it's so firstly, it's so difficult and second, all the low hanging fruit have been plucked. And then"
},
{
"end_time": 1548.404,
"index": 63,
"start_time": 1518.763,
"text": " Third, because of that, if you're a grad student or PhD student and you're proposing some some line of research, if you say, I'm going to develop a theory of everything, they'll just laugh at you. And your supervisors are thinking, well, look, there's this particular problem. You pick a particular problem that you can solve. That's what you should do if you're a PhD student and there are particular problems in string theory and loop quantum gravity and so on. So solve those. And then you have the extremely, extremely, extremely talented people that are just solving particular problems. And now"
},
{
"end_time": 1566.783,
"index": 64,
"start_time": 1549.002,
"text": " They've either lost their drive or they've invested so much into that particular problem that they've convinced themselves that this is the approach that should be taken, a rationalization that comes about, a post hoc rationalization. So it could be that that's a sociological reason. Hear that sound?"
},
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"start_time": 1567.654,
"text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
},
{
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"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone"
},
{
"end_time": 1645.674,
"index": 67,
"start_time": 1619.923,
"text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklynin. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase."
},
{
"end_time": 1674.531,
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"text": " Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash theories. Razor blades are like diving boards. The longer the board, the more the wobble, the more the wobble, the more nicks, cuts, scrapes. A bad shave isn't a blade problem. It's an extension problem. Henson is a family owned aerospace parts manufacturer that's made parts for the International Space Station and the Mars Rover."
},
{
"end_time": 1703.012,
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"start_time": 1674.531,
"text": " Now they're bringing that precision engineering to your shaving experience. By using aerospace-grade CNC machines, Henson makes razors that extend less than the thickness of a human hair. The razor also has built-in channels that evacuates hair and cream, which make clogging virtually impossible. Henson Shaving wants to produce the best razors, not the best razor business, so that means no plastics, no subscriptions, no proprietary blades, and no planned obsolescence."
},
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"text": " It's also extremely affordable. The Henson razor works with the standard dual edge blades that give you that old school shave with the benefits of this new school tech. It's time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that'll last you a lifetime. Visit hensonshaving.com slash everything."
},
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"text": " Think Verizon, the best 5G network is expensive? Think again. Bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal."
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"end_time": 1775.828,
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"text": " I guess a standard question that outsiders have, there's quite a lot of debate in physics about"
},
{
"end_time": 1802.142,
"index": 73,
"start_time": 1776.203,
"text": " string theory, which was for a long time sort of championed as the primary candidate for theory of everything. But that's seen heated debate, you know, as to as to the merits, pros and cons. And I think the physics community is somewhat divided. Even though mathematically, a string theory has had all kinds of beneficial, you know, influences in mathematics. So mathematicians are quite, you know,"
},
{
"end_time": 1815.316,
"index": 74,
"start_time": 1802.568,
"text": " Are you on one side of this fence or the other on that or not?"
},
{
"end_time": 1839.753,
"index": 75,
"start_time": 1816.732,
"text": " See, Professor, when you ask me some questions, the reason why I pause so often is because firstly, I'm trying to make sure that what I'm saying is actually how I feel rather than something that I've packaged beforehand and then I'm presenting it to you glibly. And that's not easy to do. At least not for me. It's decidedly not easy. I found that many of my opinions are ones that I've adopted unconsciously and I think they're mine."
},
{
"end_time": 1862.961,
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"start_time": 1840.213,
"text": " I think that they're mine. So when you asked me that question about two or three months, no, perhaps about six months ago, I would have said, yeah, string theory, it's just, it's unfalsifiable. And it's been going on for, for decades now, and we should spend money elsewhere. And it has no merit. But that was me. And I didn't know any string theory. But I would just say that. And I would feel like that's absolute. That's the correct view."
},
{
"end_time": 1891.971,
"index": 77,
"start_time": 1863.148,
"text": " But it's only because I've heard people say that, but I've heard them say it so much, I've adopted it and not even realized that I've adopted it. It wasn't until I thought, you know, let me, I would like to learn string theory. So let me interview. That's partly also how I choose some of the guests is I have certain topics I'd like to learn. I may as well book someone. So I have to learn it now. So I forced myself to learn it. I was interviewing someone named Stefan Alexander, who's a string theorist. And I thought, okay, this is great. Let me learn at least the rudiments of string theory. And then as I was learning it,"
},
{
"end_time": 1921.135,
"index": 78,
"start_time": 1892.312,
"text": " It is an extremely beautiful theory. It is extremely natural. And I'm still I'm looking at it. And I think, wow, it would be so strange if the universe didn't work like this. Because it's and I even saying this right now, I don't have enough of an understanding to say this with absolute confidence. It's a natural looking theory. And so my criticism of it is much more tempered than it would have been six months ago, because I've actually studied some of it. But as for whether or not it reflects reality,"
},
{
"end_time": 1947.244,
"index": 79,
"start_time": 1921.408,
"text": " I don't know, but it is extremely interesting and there are plenty of dualities in string theory. So Lee Smolin mentioned this in one of his books, but I wasn't able to find any other source. But apparently there's a duality between string theory and loop quantum gravity. And I emailed Lee about this and he didn't respond to me. So Lee thinks that string theory could be correct in that it's a dual to his theory, which he thinks is correct. And there's obviously some adious"
},
{
"end_time": 1976.135,
"index": 80,
"start_time": 1947.602,
"text": " cft correspondence which is a duality for something called holography i mean some sorry it's a duality and when people speak about holography that's what they're referring to so there are plenty of dualities strange dualities that pop up over all over the place it may be the case that that if string theory is wrong perhaps there's some duality and what is dual to is correct but then mathematically if it's a dual then they're equivalent so how do you know which one is the true which one is actually primary well i don't know i think it's extremely interesting and i'm"
},
{
"end_time": 2006.8,
"index": 81,
"start_time": 1976.903,
"text": " Very much looking forward to learning more. Yeah, I think it's good to have a sort of agnostic point of view on these things and to be, you know, acknowledging as you are that, you know, there's clever people on both sides or on many different directions on these things and they all have different insights and coming from different understandings. So as an outsider, one should be hesitant about judging too quickly as to, you know, what exactly is correct and how correct various things are."
},
{
"end_time": 2035.316,
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"start_time": 2007.654,
"text": " But this brings us to, you know, I think another really interesting aspect of your thing is that all these remarkable guests that you have on your on your channel, you know, and you've got this wide range of luminaries. So how do you go about this guy named Norman Wildberg? I couldn't believe I got a present company excluded, of course. But how do you go about how do you go about, you know, getting such really interesting people and and then deciding on the direction of your conversations with them?"
},
{
"end_time": 2061.169,
"index": 83,
"start_time": 2036.681,
"text": " As for how I go about getting them, I just email them. Most of the time, about 70% of the time, they'll say yes. And what I do is I'll send an email saying that I'm interested in speaking with you as for exactly what I'm going to speak with you about. I have no clue, but here's what the channel's themes are. And here's some of the other types of interviews I've had. Are you interested? I just gauging your interest right now. I'm not going to send you a full question list because why would I spend my time? That's also"
},
{
"end_time": 2086.049,
"index": 84,
"start_time": 2061.476,
"text": " That takes hours and sometimes days, sometimes weeks to come up with the questions. So why would I spend my time doing that? I just want to find out. Are you potentially interested? And so I have plenty of potential yeses. I have perhaps right now I have 50 people who have said, yes, I want to come on. I think it's better if I give specific examples. So one was string theory. I want to learn comes from a personal quest. I want to learn some more about string theory so that I'm not parroting what other people say."
},
{
"end_time": 2104.138,
"index": 85,
"start_time": 2086.834,
"text": " Okay, who can I speak to about that so that I pretty much force myself to learn it? Okay, what about, hmm, sometimes they line up like cards, almost like prerequisites in a course. So there's someone named Garrett Lisey who has E8. And that's, if I want to learn E8, it would be great if I learned"
},
{
"end_time": 2134.155,
"index": 86,
"start_time": 2104.548,
"text": " Something called SO10, which unifies potentially unifies Pati Salam and then Georgie Glashow. And so then if I want to learn them, it will be great to speak to someone who's an expert on them first. And then almost like dominoes, almost like if I want to take a graduate course, well, the graduate course has prerequisites at the undergraduate level, which has some more prerequisites. So then if that's my goal, then I work backward. So sometimes it's like that. Most of the time it's like that. It's funny that you mentioned the E8 and SO10."
},
{
"end_time": 2162.585,
"index": 87,
"start_time": 2134.582,
"text": " Those are things, those are sort of mathematical objects. They're groups of symmetry, sort of classical Lie groups. And that's actually, it's something that sort of interests me because I have a background in Lie theory and representation theory. And one of my little projects is to talk about what I call diffusion symmetry. And my aim is to explore some of these concepts. But, you know, it's,"
},
{
"end_time": 2182.244,
"index": 88,
"start_time": 2163.285,
"text": " It's so interesting, I think, how really complicated mathematics like not the EEH is the largest sort of exceptional simple Lie group. And then there's an associated, maybe not associated, but there's also the monster group, which is the largest simple finite group."
},
{
"end_time": 2211.596,
"index": 89,
"start_time": 2182.483,
"text": " And, you know, these are sort of at the apex, let's say, of their respective ecosystems within mathematics. And it's curious how modern physics, or at least part of it, seems to be moving towards these. And, you know, like Lisey's theory of E8 is quite enticing. I'm not sure if it's correct or not, but it's certainly, you know, quite a remarkable possibility that this remarkable mathematical object could be playing the central role in physics."
},
{
"end_time": 2236.681,
"index": 90,
"start_time": 2212.415,
"text": " and even more so with the monster group, which is even more intractable, but remarkable in mathematics. So I think that there's really incredible interaction between these fields, but it's hard to access. The mathematicians don't know enough physics, and well, the physicists are actually these days quite knowledgeable about mathematics, so we can't say it the other way around."
},
{
"end_time": 2260.469,
"index": 91,
"start_time": 2237.381,
"text": " It's challenging for people who are trying to understand these things to get more than just a generalist kind of understanding of things. Like the popular literature is often at not a mathematical enough level to really engage with the meat of what's really going on with these things. So I think there's a lot of room for"
},
{
"end_time": 2278.422,
"index": 92,
"start_time": 2260.845,
"text": " for the people in both areas to explicate in more depth and more explicitly so that aspiring learners can sort of engage with these really interesting concepts."
},
{
"end_time": 2307.841,
"index": 93,
"start_time": 2279.36,
"text": " Yeah, in some ways, that's what the theories of everything podcast is trying to do. It's that there is a distinct lack of rigor in podcasts. Now, obviously, the rigor, when I say rigor, it's a relative term. There's nothing in any of the theories of everything podcasts that approaches anywhere near even the simplest of papers that would have to get peer reviewed. When I say rigor, I mean rigor, it's rigorous relative to for podcast standards, not rigorous relative to a mathematician's rigor or even a physicist's rigor."
},
{
"end_time": 2332.568,
"index": 94,
"start_time": 2307.841,
"text": " I'm trying to address... That's false. That's false. See, these are post hoc rationalizations. This is why I'm being extremely careful with what I'm saying. I'll tell you what I was about to say. I was going to say I'm trying to address that lacuna, but that's false. What I'm trying to do is just trying to edify myself selfishly. Like when I was speaking with you, I treat each guest, so for example yourself, as if it's a professor, which you are, that I have in"
},
{
"end_time": 2361.937,
"index": 95,
"start_time": 2333.08,
"text": " office hours and I'm a confused student and I'm like so wait what about this oh what about that oh okay interesting but I don't understand that can you explain that to me and the audience is just there for the journey there are some times where I will I wouldn't say play dumb it's not an affectation per se but I would say oh some simple concept and I'll say oh can you explain that in this way because I know that there's an audience watching but those are rare instances yeah I think that's part of the the key to the success of your channel is that you"
},
{
"end_time": 2390.913,
"index": 96,
"start_time": 2362.637,
"text": " you're thinking about your audience, you know, and try to explain it, try to bring things out for them so that they can understand. And, you know, it's sort of a concern for their understanding that I think is really apparent. I was thinking about what is it that makes a great teacher? And obviously many people have their own opinions on that. And I think for one, perhaps is sufficient, but not necessary."
},
{
"end_time": 2420.469,
"index": 97,
"start_time": 2391.34,
"text": " criteria would be a deeply confused person someone who's had so many confusions that you understand what it's like to not know this and you know what the common traps are and that's one of the reasons why if you've been distanced from the subject for so long it's teaching it is the students have a difficult time understanding because one isn't meeting the students at their level one is teaching it as if it's obvious when it's not always entirely obvious most of the time it's not obvious what's being taught"
},
{
"end_time": 2451.015,
"index": 98,
"start_time": 2421.084,
"text": " So I'm a completely hear that sound. That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the Internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
},
{
"end_time": 2469.94,
"index": 99,
"start_time": 2451.015,
"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business"
},
{
"end_time": 2495.759,
"index": 100,
"start_time": 2469.94,
"text": " Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklynin. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now are you ready to start your own success story?"
},
{
"end_time": 2524.275,
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"start_time": 2495.759,
"text": " The deeply confused person. So I can think of what the typical audience member may not understand or where they're coming from. And it's just because I'm so I know so little"
},
{
"end_time": 2550.862,
"index": 102,
"start_time": 2524.599,
"text": " or know what it's like to know so little, and then to just... Man, you have a... I'm gonna steal something that you said, which is that understanding isn't like a light switch. It's more like a volume knob. You understand a bit more, and then a bit more, and it's almost never at 100%. And the reason I say it's... I don't know if you said that, but I'm gonna say that. The reason why I say it's not at 100% is because if you question someone about why is this the case, why is this the case, this the case, eventually you get down to philosophical questions which no one has the answer to."
},
{
"end_time": 2572.619,
"index": 103,
"start_time": 2551.22,
"text": " So it cannot be 100%. Otherwise, you'd have a toe. If you 100% understood any one phenomenon, I would say that you have a toe, because it would have to use that to ground the rest of your knowledge. If you believe this and you understand it with 100% certainty. Yeah. Okay, but I'm and I would modify what you said about the volume knob. I would say that it's more like a stove. And the reason why is that"
},
{
"end_time": 2593.865,
"index": 104,
"start_time": 2573.183,
"text": " When you're learning, you're adding some heat to the stove. And then as you stop learning, it's like you're turning off the stove and the heat transfers to the rest of the room. So the filaments or the coils get less hot and your understanding decreases with time. Whereas with the volume knob, there's no notion of decay. I'm amending yours and I'm going to say it's a stove. That's that's that's reasonable. Yep."
},
{
"end_time": 2625.947,
"index": 105,
"start_time": 2597.09,
"text": " Kurt, another interesting aspect of your channel is discussion of free will. I think that's a topic that interests you quite a lot. Now, you know, do humans have free will or not? I mean, I think that this is somehow intimately tied in some ways with modern physics, because in quantum mechanics, there's this notion of observer and you know, what exactly is an observer is something that the physicists have debated for a long time. And"
},
{
"end_time": 2652.654,
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"start_time": 2626.22,
"text": " I guess the standard story is that it's someone who's making decisions and turning this detector on or off or whatever, so there's sort of an implication of free will somehow at the bottom of quantum mechanics. But perhaps with general relativity there's a four-dimensional space-time and when we have our trajectories on it and there's"
},
{
"end_time": 2680.981,
"index": 107,
"start_time": 2653.046,
"text": " something more of a deterministic aspect of the flow of that. So it's not so clear how free will plays a role in GR. And I think it's probably the case that maybe because of advances in neurobiology that in the last few decades, more and more people are coming out saying that maybe we don't have free will, maybe this is an illusion."
},
{
"end_time": 2697.278,
"index": 108,
"start_time": 2681.408,
"text": " So can you tell us about, you know, what have various people who have come on to your show, you know, how have they explored this topic with you? And what are your conclusions, if any, on this interesting question?"
},
{
"end_time": 2727.108,
"index": 109,
"start_time": 2698.2,
"text": " This is the question of what are my conclusions. That's another reason why I take a while to speak. It's because I'm not terribly comfortable with being interviewed. Obviously I'm super flattered to be here, but it's that my answers change with the seasons or with every three months or four months or so that go by and perhaps sometimes even weeks. Partly the reason why is because I know what it's like to tell myself that I know and then be unceremoniously shown to be false and it's not a pleasant feeling. So I'm extremely careful about"
},
{
"end_time": 2742.602,
"index": 110,
"start_time": 2727.346,
"text": " What I say I know"
},
{
"end_time": 2764.292,
"index": 111,
"start_time": 2743.37,
"text": " Just a fact, and it doesn't mean that it's false. It doesn't mean that just because it's easy to say that there exists no free will, that there does exist free will. That's not what I mean. I just mean that it's simple to show, and the reason you can show that it's simple to show is that any teenager has the argument that, well, look, your neurology is based on your chemistry, which is based on your physics and so on, and unless you have some role to play with the physics, then"
},
{
"end_time": 2792.892,
"index": 112,
"start_time": 2764.718,
"text": " It's not as if you have free will. And when you were referencing the role that we have interacting with the physics, that's more consciousness than it is free will. At least that's what people would... Yeah, I haven't heard much said about the quote-unquote collapse of the wave function and free will. I've heard about that and consciousness. One of the reasons why I like interviewing people who say there is free will is just because it's so difficult to defend. At least I think it is. I can't defend free will. I find it much more easy to attack free will. And I like having people on who have opinions"
},
{
"end_time": 2821.408,
"index": 113,
"start_time": 2793.575,
"text": " where 90% of their colleagues disagree vehemently with them. In that regard, do you have a feeling as to how the physics community feels sort of en masse on this question? Yeah, I would say that I think there's been some polls, and the conclusion is that most physicists don't believe in free will, or if they believe in free will, it's compatibilism, which means that it's not free will. It just means they're redefining free will, to mean actually will."
},
{
"end_time": 2851.067,
"index": 114,
"start_time": 2822.432,
"text": " Most academics don't believe in free will. That's my experience and I haven't seen any studies on that. That's usually at odds with the general population, right? The working assumption in ordinary life is that we're free will free agents and responsible for our choices, etc. In some sense, it's the basis of our legal systems and societal setup."
},
{
"end_time": 2868.575,
"index": 115,
"start_time": 2851.459,
"text": " So if a majority of physicists feel in this quite different way, that could have repercussions, societally, if people started to appreciate that more. I don't know if physicists or people in general who make these claims like physicists,"
},
{
"end_time": 2898.609,
"index": 116,
"start_time": 2869.326,
"text": " Even, sorry, even the people who say free will exists and the people who don't, I don't know how much they've thought of, they've thought their positions through. Because once you ask them two or three or four questions, you find that it doesn't take much prying before you get to an I don't know answer. And so then why are you saying that free will exists or doesn't exist when just two or three digs of the shovel, you land upon something you don't know. You're basing it on such shallow ground, but you say it so adamantly."
},
{
"end_time": 2919.155,
"index": 117,
"start_time": 2899.548,
"text": " So I don't know. And yes, you're absolutely correct about our society being contingent on free will, at least with respect to the fact that we put people in prisons and our legal system and so on. Though there are ways around that I haven't explored much, like Sam Harris says, yes, you can still have that. And Daniel Dennett, I believe, though Daniel Dennett is a compatibilist, but"
},
{
"end_time": 2944.667,
"index": 118,
"start_time": 2919.821,
"text": " There are certain philosophers who would say yes free will doesn't exist but we should still act as if free will exists and it doesn't matter as an observer anyway because it's like you're an agent and sure maybe you don't have this metaphysicist the way that I think of free will and the only definition that I think makes sense is a somehow metaphysical role that somehow we influence physics has to be that otherwise it doesn't have to be that that's false but"
},
{
"end_time": 2974.531,
"index": 119,
"start_time": 2945.742,
"text": " that's the way that I think libertarian free will because otherwise then you're just determined by what's not even if it's indeterminate beside the point you're determined quote-unquote determined by something that isn't you so then how can you say that you made that decision that you engendered this I don't see how that could be the case but regardless you can say that the calculation happened somewhere inside this autonomous body and as long as that is what occurred then you have free will then you can treat that agent as having free will"
},
{
"end_time": 2983.592,
"index": 120,
"start_time": 2974.804,
"text": " But that's not exactly what I think you and I or the legal system means when we say free will. Yeah. I mean, I think there's all kinds of potential. Hear that sound."
},
{
"end_time": 3010.657,
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"start_time": 2984.599,
"text": " That's the sweet sound of success with Shopify. Shopify is the all-encompassing commerce platform that's with you from the first flicker of an idea to the moment you realize you're running a global enterprise. Whether it's handcrafted jewelry or high-tech gadgets, Shopify supports you at every point of sale, both online and in person. They streamline the process with the internet's best converting checkout, making it 36% more effective than other leading platforms."
},
{
"end_time": 3036.817,
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"start_time": 3010.657,
"text": " There's also something called Shopify Magic, your AI-powered assistant that's like an all-star team member working tirelessly behind the scenes. What I find fascinating about Shopify is how it scales with your ambition. No matter how big you want to grow, Shopify gives you everything you need to take control and take your business to the next level. Join the ranks of businesses in 175 countries that have made Shopify the backbone."
},
{
"end_time": 3062.551,
"index": 123,
"start_time": 3036.817,
"text": " of their commerce. Shopify, by the way, powers 10% of all e-commerce in the United States, including huge names like Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn. If you ever need help, their award-winning support is like having a mentor that's just a click away. Now, are you ready to start your own success story? Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash theories, all lowercase."
},
{
"end_time": 3080.469,
"index": 124,
"start_time": 3062.551,
"text": " Go to Shopify.com slash theories now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in Shopify.com slash theories. So these circular conundrums that appear once we start to engage with the possibility that we don't have free will."
},
{
"end_time": 3102.841,
"index": 125,
"start_time": 3081.084,
"text": " Because we're still talking about it and we're making supposed decisions on the basis of this knowledge. But on the other hand, we're supposing that it's all predetermined and that our conversation has been somehow hardwired into the initial software of the universe or some such thing. So it's easy to get lost in circles in your mind on this topic."
},
{
"end_time": 3129.787,
"index": 126,
"start_time": 3103.131,
"text": " You have to think of free will as first in the quote-unquote logical order because if not then if you make a decision if you say yes I believe this scientific theory or this line of argumentation whatever it may be then what basis do you have to believe that if you're just why do you think that's correct all you can say is that just happened because this plinko ball to make a"
},
{
"end_time": 3158.746,
"index": 127,
"start_time": 3130.077,
"text": " Wheel of Fortune, I believe, analogy. This plinko ball happened to land here. There's nothing that says that this is true. All that you can say is that your brain was set up in such a way that this input produced this output. At the same time, I don't find Nicholas Jisson's point of view particularly convincing. It's just interesting. And judging from the comments, many other people feel the same. But it also doesn't mean it's false. Yeah. Yeah, it's not an easy thing to settle."
},
{
"end_time": 3183.899,
"index": 128,
"start_time": 3159.906,
"text": " And speaking of topics which are not easy to settle, what about the UFO aspect of your channel, which I think is super interesting. And I think especially these days, really important, it's great that we are able to hear the views of guys like Lou Alessandro and others."
},
{
"end_time": 3213.626,
"index": 129,
"start_time": 3184.633,
"text": " I was someone who was thinking that there can't be any way that UFOs are real. When I say real, I mean that they're anything more than some atmospheric effect or some reflection of some distant object, some pedestrian terrestrial explanation. And one of my reasons was that imagine they're coming from far away. Well, if they're from sufficiently far away, if you look at the, this is not a great argument, but I thought it was a great argument."
},
{
"end_time": 3241.63,
"index": 130,
"start_time": 3213.985,
"text": " If you look at our technological speed it's like an exponential curve. Obviously exponential curves have to be S-curves because otherwise there would be some... I think everything around us would be much different if that wasn't the case. It doesn't look to me as if these objects are at the peak of their technological capability. I can imagine just with my childlike fanciful and naive surmising I can imagine that there's... I can imagine much more efficient objects or much more differently shaped objects. I can imagine grey goo that they would just be"
},
{
"end_time": 3271.203,
"index": 131,
"start_time": 3242.295,
"text": " dust. I don't understand why they are even physical objects like that. Why do they look so similar to craft though? Why is it that we can even identify them as craft? It should be so far removed from anything that we could think of or even perceive, perhaps. And perhaps that is the case. Perhaps we just don't see what are the true UFOs. Yeah, maybe they're nano devices flittering around inside our brains or something. Yeah, and that's extremely terrifying. So one of the speculations I've heard is that there are orbs that are associated with UFOs and"
},
{
"end_time": 3296.459,
"index": 132,
"start_time": 3271.442,
"text": " The orbs are about the size of a fist or they could be about the size of a soccer ball, but they're the size of a fist and they're often associated. They're also associated with strange phenomena like Bigfoot. So then that automatically makes at least two years ago, Kurt just shut off and say, come on, this has got to be BS. If you're bringing up Bigfoot and then UFOs and orbs. Well, anyway, one of the ideas is that these orbs are much like, like the NSA, they're monitoring us."
},
{
"end_time": 3311.135,
"index": 133,
"start_time": 3296.766,
"text": " As for UFOs,"
},
{
"end_time": 3330.418,
"index": 134,
"start_time": 3311.442,
"text": " I was saying that, look, there's certain arguments for why I don't think they exist. Also, why do they look so much like us, at least in the depictions that we've heard? Well, then someone said, one of my friends or colleague actually said, check out a couple of videos. I forget what they were. I think one was Bob Lazar and Joe Rogan, and then some other documentary and perhaps some PDF. I don't recall."
},
{
"end_time": 3357.022,
"index": 135,
"start_time": 3331.118,
"text": " And I remember thinking, hmm, maybe there's something to this. This is interesting, but let me just explore this. So I interviewed Jeremy Corbell, who did the Bob Lazar documentary, and I thought, I wasn't convinced. I'm just thinking, firstly, I interviewed him as a filmmaker. That's why most of the questions in part one of my conversation with him are regarding creativity and filmmaking. And then I thought, okay, let me interview Kevin Knuth, who's a physicist. I want to hear from someone who I feel like is not, because remember, I was"
},
{
"end_time": 3380.725,
"index": 136,
"start_time": 3357.21,
"text": " Extremely judgmental. I like physicists. I feel like they're the type of people that I understand the most So how about I speak to someone who speaks my language who believes in this strongly and I well, let me just hear him out so I did and and I started to realize maybe there's something more to this maybe there's something more so started to ask other people for interviews and now I'm at that point where I find it so interesting that there are people who are"
},
{
"end_time": 3403.49,
"index": 137,
"start_time": 3381.186,
"text": " If this was any other criminal case, like a rape trial, something that's extremely serious, if there was even four of these people who attested, yes, I saw that person raped that person, and all it was was witness testimony, that's it, you would say these people, one of them is credible, two of them, for sure, three of them, okay, you're going to jail, buddy, four of them. Yeah, okay, for sure. You hang this person."
},
{
"end_time": 3425.077,
"index": 138,
"start_time": 3404.036,
"text": " Yet when these are experts in their own field, so they're not even experts at criminal identification, but when there are these four individuals or more who are let's say pilots and they all agree this is what they do and they say that this defies the laws of physics and this is what I saw and it was a craft and and yes my superiors are telling me not to talk about this and yes this is known that this occurs"
},
{
"end_time": 3441.34,
"index": 139,
"start_time": 3425.077,
"text": " on the way to battlefields, for example, so it's not a US technology or it's unlikely to be because the US wouldn't want to scare its own soldiers directly before battles. Why are we not taking it more seriously? As the public, the government seems to be taking it extremely seriously, but the public isn't."
},
{
"end_time": 3471.049,
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"start_time": 3441.852,
"text": " So I find that to be interesting. I think that you mentioned to me that you have some probabilities that you associate with certain outcomes or certain viewpoints on this. And I would say my probabilities, even though this changes on a day-to-day basis, is that it's 75% likely that there's something extremely interesting, whether it's extraterrestrial or it's us from the future, whatever that means, or it's even technology that is US-based, that is highly advanced. That's extremely interesting. Or Russian technology or Chinese technology. I find that all extremely interesting. Yeah."
},
{
"end_time": 3493.626,
"index": 141,
"start_time": 3471.8,
"text": " I think this idea of assigning probabilities or levels of certainty in a sort of a quantitative sense is an interesting thing because I'm a mathematician. So, you know, I don't think we need to have a binary approach to these things in terms of yes, I believe in UFOs. No, I don't believe in UFOs that it's more nuanced and realistic to have to try to"
},
{
"end_time": 3521.391,
"index": 142,
"start_time": 3494.002,
"text": " at least roughly, you know, put the dial somewhere in between. And I like to think in terms of bookies, you know, bookies who are having to make a decision about some future event like a horse race or a presidential election based on, you know, on imperfect information and estimation. And their object is to find the line, you know, where they're willing to accept bets on either side of this position."
},
{
"end_time": 3547.176,
"index": 143,
"start_time": 3522.824,
"text": " And to me, somehow that's a kind of a litmus test of honesty. When you say, oh, I'm 75% sure. That means that I'm willing to take bets on this side at three to one or on this side. That's somehow a guarantee. Well, if somebody says, oh, I'm 100% certain, and you say, okay, well, do you want to put up a million dollars for my $1 on it? And they say, no, actually, I'm not that certain. Okay."
},
{
"end_time": 3565.657,
"index": 144,
"start_time": 3548.063,
"text": " So I think it's kind of a useful way of trying to allow a little bit of quantitative probability into these discussions so that people can maybe more clearly elucidate their level of confidence about certain statements."
},
{
"end_time": 3591.237,
"index": 145,
"start_time": 3566.186,
"text": " I think that your statement that you're 75% pretty sure that there's something interesting going on here is interesting. I would be interested in what other people's perception of that number is for them. If a lot of people have more than 50% certainty that this is interesting, then it should be a much wider"
},
{
"end_time": 3617.79,
"index": 146,
"start_time": 3592.585,
"text": " topic of public debate. In fact, even if the numbers are less than that, it should still be still be pretty interesting. And I think a large percentage of the population is going to ascribe bigger numbers than that. Like I would probably say I have a 90% chance that 90% confidence level that there's something really interesting going on in this space. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure that there is."
},
{
"end_time": 3646.357,
"index": 147,
"start_time": 3618.302,
"text": " I'm so glad you articulated it like that. I don't think I've heard anyone else say that, and that's something that I've thought. It's actually something that I've wanted to bring up to some of these people who consider themselves skeptics. I don't think they're skeptics. I think that they're just chest-beating with their rational intellectual, or appearing to be rational intellectual, because they feel like that's what their colleagues believe. I feel like they get the same satisfaction as they do from saying that UFOs don't exist, how dare you, what's the evidence, and so on. They get the same satisfaction that they do"
},
{
"end_time": 3669.582,
"index": 148,
"start_time": 3646.954,
"text": " Okay, Neil."
},
{
"end_time": 3698.524,
"index": 149,
"start_time": 3670.265,
"text": " You're 99% sure. So that means that if I put up $10,000, you're comfortable putting up $100,000 and you feel like that's a great bet. You feel like that's the odds are way in your favor. Let's do that then. Are you willing to do that? And even if you want to do it as a percentage of income, well then, hey man, like I have almost nothing, then we can change the numbers much more. And then if that's not the case, if we do this analysis and we find out that you actually believe when you put your money where your mouth is, that it's something like 70% that you believe against it at the probability of 70%,"
},
{
"end_time": 3727.398,
"index": 150,
"start_time": 3699.104,
"text": " then perhaps you shouldn't be so arrogant in your dismissal of all these people as being foolish for believing in the phenomenon. Because 70%, sorry, saying it's 30% likely to be true, that it's something extremely interesting. Well, that to me doesn't equate to the amount of derision and condescension that they output toward these people who believe in this phenomenon. They scorn and deride and have such snide remarks and they look down upon those people as just"
},
{
"end_time": 3747.995,
"index": 151,
"start_time": 3727.398,
"text": " you poor people who don't understand what evidence is this is the scientific extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and other such glib remarks by the way brian keating who's an experimentalist and almost won the noble prize said you know i never tell my graduate students okay now let's get some extraordinary evidence all evidence is evidence there's no separate bin for extraordinary evidence"
},
{
"end_time": 3762.125,
"index": 152,
"start_time": 3749.906,
"text": " Do you think the government or the academic community in Canada or Australia or the US should be doing something different about this subject?"
},
{
"end_time": 3793.387,
"index": 153,
"start_time": 3763.831,
"text": " about UFOs, UAPs, should there be a change in public policy towards either disclosure or investigation or discussion? I don't know because maybe some of the more wild theories is that, and these can keep you up at night man, some of these the more wild theories is that there is a good reason for the cover-up if this phenomenon is true. There's a good reason for it and you would be terrified to know and you would want to go back to the place where you had no clue. That it's a pleasant place to be"
},
{
"end_time": 3795.828,
"index": 154,
"start_time": 3793.387,
"text": " And that sounds like that sounds so anti scientific."
},
{
"end_time": 3825.794,
"index": 155,
"start_time": 3796.22,
"text": " And sure, many people feel like, you know what, I'm just a truth seeker, I want the truth no matter what. I used to think of myself as that. And I'm not even talking about the UFO phenomenon, just in general. It's only up until about one year or actually, well, a couple of years ago that I feel like the truth is so eviscerating. I don't know if I would accept the truth, whatever it is, no matter what. I've had some experiences recently, nothing like UFO experiences, but experiences that I can barely talk about without almost sending myself into a mental"
},
{
"end_time": 3853.746,
"index": 156,
"start_time": 3825.947,
"text": " crisis that if I was to truly think it was true, I would, I am begging, begging, begging to go back to that blissful state of ignorance. Some people say that you, yeah, you're not a truth. Okay. Well, I don't, I don't know if they truly thought about the consequences of I'm going to truth seek no matter what, no matter what, even if it meant your mom is going to die, even if it meant you're going to kill yourself or kill your, the people you love. Somehow if the truth could lead you down there and you feel like, Oh, I'm going to pursue that."
},
{
"end_time": 3881.63,
"index": 157,
"start_time": 3854.394,
"text": " Or what about the development of the nuclear bombs? That's a truthful endeavor in a sense that it's a scientific enterprise. There's nothing false about it. So you think that should be done? I don't know if people truly examine what it means to be a truth-seeker no matter what. Unless you already have embedded in that the assumption that the truth is good, which is a faith, an assumption on faith. That's actually a religious statement. It may be the case that the truth is good. So I hope that's the case. And I also hope that"
},
{
"end_time": 3908.114,
"index": 158,
"start_time": 3881.63,
"text": " Sometimes I use that as a barometer to test if these more speculative thoughts are truthful. Are they leading me somewhere adaptive? Are they leading me somewhere that is life-affirming? If they're not, perhaps that's a sign that what you're down is a deceptive path. Well, that was a great answer, Kurt. Lots to think about there. I think you've touched on a really important point, a delicate point."
},
{
"end_time": 3937.415,
"index": 159,
"start_time": 3908.916,
"text": " that underneath this, there's the potential for unpleasant realizations. And maybe we are being shielded from some of these things. That's a possible explanation, at least for some of the things that have gone on. And that's unsettling, I agree. And I think that question of, are we going to seek truth at all costs?"
},
{
"end_time": 3965.367,
"index": 160,
"start_time": 3937.944,
"text": " That's a very, very interesting and profound question that maybe people individually have to answer. Yeah. Well, so maybe we could sort of finish by just going back to more sort of ordinary kinds of things and sort of coming back to the sociology of maths and science. I was going to ask you about, because you are sort of operating in this area with a sociological aspect and also your math physics background,"
},
{
"end_time": 3992.824,
"index": 161,
"start_time": 3965.93,
"text": " I'm sort of interested in the sociological differences, if any, between say mathematicians and physicists or between mathematics and physics. Do you see that there's any sort of interesting differences between the way those two groups act or navigate on a sociological level? Sociologically, I don't know. I know mathematically physicists"
},
{
"end_time": 4018.439,
"index": 162,
"start_time": 3993.319,
"text": " loves hand waving because it just allows you to skip so many steps and that there's something called there is physical intuition which i don't think i have i actually think i i'm much more of a mathematician in that respect i don't have anywhere near the understanding like perhaps no one does but i have perhaps one percent of the understanding quote unquote understanding of physics that Feynman had Feynman had such an understanding an intuitive level of understanding of"
},
{
"end_time": 4048.643,
"index": 163,
"start_time": 4018.831,
"text": " a physical phenomenon such that you could bring to him a novel situation that would require pages of calculation to determine if if this would go upward or downward and he could say oh it goes upward and that's obvious and it's because of this this and this and you realize oh that's actually correct but you have to understand this so deeply in order for you to see those connections as for sociologically and by the way that's not as if that's not a knock on mathematicians and mathematicians mathematicians are rigorous to the core and"
},
{
"end_time": 4077.466,
"index": 164,
"start_time": 4049.189,
"text": " There's much that we would think physically could happen, but you examine the math and it turns out it doesn't. I'm partial to John von Neumann. Have you heard this von Neumann story about the flies in the car? Yeah, that's a famous story. That just humiliates me. It was calculated in his head. Yeah, geez. Okay, so as for sociologically, I don't know. Can you give me an example of an answer so that I can see, okay, that's what you're referring to?"
},
{
"end_time": 4103.097,
"index": 165,
"start_time": 4078.404,
"text": " Oh, you know, let's say in terms of, you know, like in physics, I think there's more of like, we were talking about these different, different approaches to theory of everything, you know, there's quantum loop gravity or whatever, there's string theory, there's competing, there's almost competing ecosystems, you know, and they're they're struggling to"
},
{
"end_time": 4131.391,
"index": 166,
"start_time": 4103.422,
"text": " to impose their point of view on others. I think in mathematics, we have a much more cooperative landscape where I have my territory and I work in my territory and you work in your territory and we're not really competing for rightness or truth in the same kind of way. So that would be one aspect where I think sociologically we're different. Another might be that mathematicians"
},
{
"end_time": 4155.043,
"index": 167,
"start_time": 4131.698,
"text": " have maybe a rather long history, see themselves as part of this very long trajectory. Well, physics is maybe a more youthful science, maybe more vigorous in terms of, you know, 20th century physics is very different from 19th century physics. And maybe 21st century physics will be very different from 20th century physics."
},
{
"end_time": 4185.367,
"index": 168,
"start_time": 4155.811,
"text": " So I was just trying to sort of muse on the differences between the two disciplines. I have heard that there used to be plenty of unsaid animosity between the loop quantum gravity people and then the string people. And then I've read in this book with Carlo Rovelli, which he still hasn't responded to me about, that recently, and recently because this book was published in 2005 or so, 2006, so 15 years ago, 20 years ago,"
},
{
"end_time": 4210.23,
"index": 169,
"start_time": 4185.674,
"text": " that recently there has been at the conferences, now there's no longer string conferences, or there are, but there are conferences just on quantum gravity that invite both speakers and they talk with one another and it's pleasant and they see connections. So it's not as adversarial as it used to be, at least with respect to loop and string. Interestingly, see there's the rise of the Eric Weinsteins and the Stephen Wolframs, and when I say"
},
{
"end_time": 4233.234,
"index": 170,
"start_time": 4210.776,
"text": " I shouldn't have put an S beside them because they're individuals, but there's the rise of people who have come out with their own theory of everything. Actually, there's only been two, Stephen Wolfram and Eric Weinstein. Peter White has also come out with a toe, but he's in academia. And it seems like they get no attention from academia. And from my examination of Wolfram's theory, it's extremely interesting. Eric's I haven't had a chance to get to."
},
{
"end_time": 4262.927,
"index": 171,
"start_time": 4234.275,
"text": " But I am looking forward to getting to it. And I don't know why. So maybe the adversarial aspect is from those that are in academia and those that aren't. I don't know enough to say that with any certainty. I don't know. What do you see? Have you heard of that? Have you heard of people like Wolfram and Eric saying, why isn't it that there aren't any articles on our theories of everything? They're rigorous. They're not just from quote unquote loons who are the academia typically deals with when people from the outside come in and propose a toe. At least that's what academia calls."
},
{
"end_time": 4290.64,
"index": 172,
"start_time": 4263.404,
"text": " Yeah, I don't know. I think Stephen Wolfram is a very special case. There might be a number of reasons for that. I mean, first of all, he's hugely successful with his, you know, Mathematica and developing Wolfram, Alpha. So you think it's jealousy? I think there probably is some of that around for sure, because he's sort of hugely successful in a commercial sense. And he's had sort of major impact in that direction."
},
{
"end_time": 4317.875,
"index": 173,
"start_time": 4291.049,
"text": " But it also may be that his approach is so different from the others. He's really positing an entirely unfamiliar framework where we have these graphs that are evolving in some automata kind of fashion. And you have to have a computer science background, perhaps, and have some experience with automata to maybe appreciate the potentialities of that."
},
{
"end_time": 4340.196,
"index": 174,
"start_time": 4318.729,
"text": " I mean, I know that even in my own discipline, so I have this theory of rational trigonometry. So it's kind of a new approach to trigonometry, right? So, but that's just trigonometry. That's like high school level stuff, you know, it's not that sophisticated. But my, my fellow mathematicians have a hard time wrapping their heads around that because it's, it's different from, from what they're, what they're used to. So there's,"
},
{
"end_time": 4369.821,
"index": 175,
"start_time": 4340.811,
"text": " You know, I can appreciate that in Stephen's case, because he's venturing further in an unfamiliar direction, that a lot of physicists are going to maybe resist or maybe just not put in the effort required to get on top of that and to be able to assess it properly. But I'm just speculating here, you know, those are just some aspects that might play a role."
},
{
"end_time": 4396.067,
"index": 176,
"start_time": 4370.725,
"text": " It makes sense. I'm wondering if one of the reasons is also, so I also agree that there's at least an element of jealousy. And I know because I'm a jealous person, and I know how often that I've said, no, no, I'm, I'm not jealous of so and so, but I am. And it took me months or even years to realize that I, that I was despite myself saying, no, there's no way I'm rationally dispassionately assessing this. And I've come to the conclusion that this is not worthwhile or that this person's"
},
{
"end_time": 4424.514,
"index": 177,
"start_time": 4396.067,
"text": " product is not as good as this person's product or whatever it may be, but it was jealousy underneath as the primary motivator. It also may be that unless what you're doing is solving a problem that they feel like needs to be solved, if you're giving a new way of looking at an old problem and it requires and it's an entirely new way, then perhaps they're thinking, well, what's okay. Great. You go and do that. You Wolfram do that. You Norman do that with your rational trigonometry. Are you, does it help Goldbach's conjecture or, or the prime did twin prime, et cetera."
},
{
"end_time": 4449.411,
"index": 178,
"start_time": 4424.991,
"text": " That's right. So maybe it's maybe there's that as well. Yeah, I mean, there's a there's inertia in learning. I mean, it's, you know, it's a challenge to learn something new. And we can't blame people for being time poor and having a lots of pressures. And you can't just go off and say, I'm going to spend the next two months learning person, Professor X's new theory, you know, unless there's some, you know, compelling reason to do that."
},
{
"end_time": 4477.295,
"index": 179,
"start_time": 4450.094,
"text": " Perhaps one of the reasons why this, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but that's one of the reasons why this theories of everything project hasn't been done, perhaps, because it requires so much energy and I'm so lucky that now this is what I can do full time. That's a unique position to just be able to, hey, you can study exactly what you like and carte blanche, you can do whatever you like. And it's also by the time someone gets that, they've usually already committed themselves to a particular line of study."
},
{
"end_time": 4504.787,
"index": 180,
"start_time": 4477.602,
"text": " Whereas right now I'm in my early thirties and I still haven't committed myself. Maybe, by the way, like talking about how I take these consciousness theories so seriously and sometimes these physics theories so seriously that it puts me into a spiral and I need to stop taking them so seriously. When I say taking seriously, I mean, I want to give them their due. And so some people say you need to meditate in this manner for two months before you could truly understand this toe. That's my big toe, for example, Thomas Campbell's."
},
{
"end_time": 4526.374,
"index": 181,
"start_time": 4505.452,
"text": " And I take other people's theories of consciousness seriously like Bernardo Castro and Yoshi Vox and so on. And I felt like I was almost about to get myself committed to the institution just thinking about them and I need to distance myself from them. But anyway, the point is that perhaps there's this childlike part of me that's wondering like, why are more people just studying theories of everything if you're a physicist?"
},
{
"end_time": 4551.015,
"index": 182,
"start_time": 4526.374,
"text": " Firstly, that's false. There's Stuart Rabi, who has a book on Grand Unified Theories. But that's GUTs, not TAUs in general. Doesn't include Wilfrums, doesn't include Eric Weinsteins. So why is that? Perhaps it's because by the time that they get sophisticated enough to understand other TAUs, that means that they're at the PhD level, they're extremely difficult to understand. Extremely, extremely difficult. And one should get paid to do that because you can't just spend your years or months and months working on this."
},
{
"end_time": 4574.753,
"index": 183,
"start_time": 4551.561,
"text": " And by the time you're at that level, you've already found that you're traveling down the path of string or traveling down the path of loop. There's that inertia to learn a new theory. So I'm lucky in that I can hop between theories. Yeah, and it's extremely arduous. And I feel like I'm so all I do is, is take a whip and constantly beat myself beat myself up like self mortification for not trying hard enough for not learning this fast enough. And I feel like"
},
{
"end_time": 4602.176,
"index": 184,
"start_time": 4575.282,
"text": " I never thought of myself as someone who's hard on myself up until a couple weeks ago. I would always say I'm not hard enough on myself. Some people say that in the comment section, you're too hard on yourself. It's only until a couple weeks ago where I had, it was like worse than burnout and it was worse than a panic attack. It was like an existential crisis from, it sounds so strange, but I can't talk about the precise experience without, without shaking. And I had this feeling that man, Kurt, what you've been doing"
},
{
"end_time": 4631.903,
"index": 185,
"start_time": 4602.756,
"text": " I was spiraling out of control, Norma. I'll just say it like that. I was spiraling out of control to the point where I wasn't sure if I was the only thing that existed. And even saying that right now sounds so strange. But by the way, it sounds strange. Okay, you proved to me, anyone who's listening to this, that that's not true. That you're the only... What if I say that you're the only one that exists? If you truly thought about that, that would drive you mad. At least it almost did for me. And there's no way for you to disprove that. There's zero way. It's a faith. It's an article of faith for you to say that there exist other minds."
},
{
"end_time": 4642.483,
"index": 186,
"start_time": 4632.841,
"text": " And then you can say, look, you can say, well, look, it's because you're similar to me. And so I'm just going to use some notion of similarity. Yeah. What the heck is this similarity that you're using?"
},
{
"end_time": 4664.804,
"index": 187,
"start_time": 4642.91,
"text": " that's such an ill-defined concept because you already have to have well we can talk about that another time anyway i was spiraling and i felt like what happened was i had this insight that kurt you have been thinking far too much you're so analytical and i wouldn't think of myself as someone who thinks or is analytical i would say i'm not analytical enough i don't think enough i need to try harder i need to study more i'm lazy i'm"
},
{
"end_time": 4691.288,
"index": 188,
"start_time": 4665.401,
"text": " I give myself too many excuses. I could do much more. I had this feeling that you've been thinking too much and you need to feel more. So, so ridiculous to someone like me and you, at least, maybe not you, maybe you understand this, but I didn't. I'd be like, no, what the heck do you mean think, feel more? Sorry, what the heck do you mean feel more? I'm like a physicist. I'm not a physicist, but akin to a physicist, akin to a mathematician. You think, you think, that's what you do. You play in abstractions. You don't feel. Feelings lead you astray."
},
{
"end_time": 4717.841,
"index": 189,
"start_time": 4692.073,
"text": " Yeah, well, that was leading me astray. That spiraling thought, those spiraling, it was so, so it was the worst experience. Well, sorry, you want to interject? Well, you know, I think I think the kinds of things that you're talking about are probably experienced by some academics, too, and maybe many academics at some points in their lives where maybe they get, you know, really focused on on some problem or agenda. And maybe it's actually"
},
{
"end_time": 4746.135,
"index": 190,
"start_time": 4718.968,
"text": " promoted by their success. You're successful and you're moving in a certain direction and suddenly maybe you're the spearhead of some new initiative. And so you end up putting a lot of pressure on yourself to push it further and to go further and to live up to other people's expectations. Maybe in some sense, the traditional academic has to balance teaching with research and"
},
{
"end_time": 4773.387,
"index": 191,
"start_time": 4746.544,
"text": " almost automatically that's kind of a break or a reprieve because okay now I have to teach for the next three months and so I don't have I have to put my my research aside for a little while and one regrets having to do that perhaps but there's maybe a therapeutic aspect of being able to take a break and to take some time off and then to come back to it and renew it with more vigor."
},
{
"end_time": 4799.343,
"index": 192,
"start_time": 4774.002,
"text": " So I think maybe probably the pandemic and our isolation and so on hasn't helped, but it probably is the case that it's important to maintain a balance and to take some time off and to say, okay, the next three weeks I'm not doing anything and to let yourself recharge and so on. So I would just think about that as an important thing to keep in mind. Yeah, I certainly"
},
{
"end_time": 4821.749,
"index": 193,
"start_time": 4800.094,
"text": " Looking forward to going on a mini vacation with my wife even today. So this is my third podcast for today. That's a bit much. It's a lot. It's a lot much. Yes. But I'm happy like you're the one that I'm excited for of all the podcasts. So I'm lucky that it's last rather than first. Well, it's been really fun talking with you. I think, you know,"
},
{
"end_time": 4847.619,
"index": 194,
"start_time": 4822.278,
"text": " You've shed a lot of insights into the way of what you're doing and some of the things you've gleaned from the many remarkable people that you have on your show. So I do hope that you continue to carry on, but that you do so in a balanced way. So don't get too caught up and take some breaks. And I hope that we can touch base again"
},
{
"end_time": 4873.951,
"index": 195,
"start_time": 4847.807,
"text": " Some time and chat further more about these these issues because I think we're you know, there's there's all kinds of really interesting things to talk about in these directions. And if you're ever in Toronto, I know that you used to go to U of T. So that's my yes, I used to be in my family and in that area. So yeah, next time I'm in Toronto, let's let's get you know. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you so much again, Kurt, for for for chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you."
},
{
"end_time": 4898.08,
"index": 196,
"start_time": 4874.821,
"text": " Oh, and for people who are interested in these subjects, there's a channel that I have called Theories of Everything, like I mentioned. Check it out. And if you want, there's an interview with Norman Weilberger, which is a great interview that touches on Norman's castigation of the concept of infinite processes. And you can see it explicated clearly. I think it's a great introduction to some of the problems inherent in"
},
{
"end_time": 4925.401,
"index": 197,
"start_time": 4898.439,
"text": " See, I wouldn't say like that. I think it's a great explication of finiteism, because whether or not there exists actual problems with infinite processes, that depends on some other predilections and philosophical assumptions. So maybe there isn't, but it seems like there is. So I'm trying to be careful with my words, but you understand what I mean. Yeah. So yeah, so there will be definitely in the description, there'll be links to Kurt's channel and also putting a link to his, his movie."
},
{
"end_time": 4955.572,
"index": 198,
"start_time": 4926.101,
"text": " Thank you for putting up with my babbling. I appreciate it. Thank you. The podcast is now finished. If you'd like to support conversations like this, then do consider going to patreon.com slash c u r t j a i m u n g a l. That is Kurt Jai Mungal. It's support from the patrons and from the sponsors that allow me to do this full time. Every dollar helps tremendously."
},
{
"end_time": 4956.305,
"index": 199,
"start_time": 4955.828,
"text": " Thank you."
}
]
}No transcript available.