The Theory That Shatters Language Itself
As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe
Professor Elan Barenholtz, cognitive scientist at Florida Atlantic University, joins TOE to discuss one of the most unsettling ideas in cognitive science: that language is a self-contained, autoregressive system with no inherent connection to the external world. In this mind-altering episode, he explains why AI’s mastery of language without meaning forces us to rethink the nature of mind, perception, and reality itself...
Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e
Timestamps:
00:00 The Mind and Language Connection
02:09 The Grounded Thesis of Language
09:29 The Epiphany of Language
13:06 The Dichotomy of Language and Perception
16:24 Language as an Autonomous System
19:48 The Problem of Qualia and Language
23:35 Bridging Language and Action
31:32 Exploring Embeddings in Language
38:21 The Platonic Space of Language
44:17 The Challenges of Meaning and Action
51:05 Understanding the Complexity of Color
52:53 The Paradox of Language Describing Itself
58:19 The Map of Language and Action
1:07:48 Continuous Learning in Language Models
1:11:46 The Nature of Memory
1:22:46 The Role of Context
1:32:18 Exploring Language Dynamics
1:39:44 The Shift from Oral to Written Language
2:11:34 Language and the Cosmic Whole
2:21:35 Reflections on Existence
Links Mentioned:
• Elan’s Substack: https://elanbarenholtz.substack.com
• Elan's X / Twitter: https://x.com/ebarenholtz
• Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE
• Joscha Bach and Ben Goertzel on TOE: https://youtu.be/xw7omaQ8SgA
• Elan’s published papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2grAjZsAAAAJ
• Ai medical panel on TOE: https://youtu.be/abzXzPBW4_s
• Jacob Barandes and Manolis Kellis on TOE: https://youtu.be/MTD8xkbiGis
• Will Hahn on TOE: https://youtu.be/3fkg0uTA3qU
• Noam Chomsky on TOE: https://youtu.be/DQuiso493ro
• Greg Kondrak on TOE: https://youtu.be/FFW14zSYiFY
• Andres Emilsson on TOE: https://youtu.be/BBP8WZpYp0Y
• Harnessing the Universal Geometry of Embeddings (paper): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.12540
• Yang-Hui He on TOE: https://youtu.be/spIquD_mBFk
• Iain McGilchrist on TOE: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0
• Curt interviews ChatGPT: https://youtu.be/mSfChbMRJwY
• Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674251555
• Karl Friston on TOE: https://youtu.be/uk4NZorRjCo
• Michael Levin and Anna Ciaunica on TOE: https://youtu.be/2aLhkm6QUgA
• The Biology of LLMs (paper): https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html
• Jacob Barandes on TOE: https://youtu.be/YaS1usLeXQM
• Emily Adlam on TOE: https://youtu.be/6I2OhmVWLMs
• Julian Barbour on TOE: https://youtu.be/bprxrGaf0Os
• Tim Palmer on TOE: https://youtu.be/vlklA6jsS8A
• Neil Turok on TOE: https://youtu.be/ZUp9x44N3uE
• Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/jayaraasi/
• On the Origin of Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593128443
SUPPORT:
- Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join
- Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal
- Support me on Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9
- Support me on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4
SOCIALS:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt
- Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs
#science
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
Exploring theoretical physics, consciousness, Ai, and God in a technically rigorous manner. If you'd like to support this endeavor, then please visit the Patreon ( https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal ). Thank you for your charitable and kindhearted support. My name's Curt Jaimungal, a Torontonian with a degree in mathematical physics from the University of Toronto and I analyze various Theories of Everything from this analytic perspective, though more and more opening up to alternative approaches. The separating factor of TOE from other podcasts is its focus on depth even at the risk of limiting the audience due to how much detail we delve into subjects. Paralleling the intensity found in academic discourse, we're increasingly embracing a spectrum of unconventional ideas to conduct research during this podcast, rather than merely conveying existing information. Contact toe [at] indiefilmTO [dot] com for business inquiries / sponsorship.
- No. of episodes: 310
- Latest episode: 2025-06-16
- Society & Culture Philosophy Science Physics
Where can you listen?
