Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 28: The Ultimate Geometric Unifying Cognitive-Theoretic Iceberg

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

We exercise our ethnographic muscles as we revel in the esoteric dynamics of Australian Pool Culture, the mysteries of Eric Weinstein's theories as revealed by Curt Jaimungal, and the contradictions of MAGA cultists.Supplementary Material 2800:00 Matt's Ethnography of Australian Swimming Culture06:19 Pool Etiquette and Social Dynamics08:46 Mutual Humiliation and Blackmail08:51 Reciprocal Humiliation12:01 Patreon Question of the Week13:37 Curt Jaimungal explores Geometric Unity19:12 The Weinsteinian Iceberg26:38 Eric's Response to Curt28:40 A potential doomsday device?29:55 The wisdom of genuine seekers35:00 The Pseudo Profundity Mask38:19 Pandering to anti-'mainstream' science audiences40:37 Earnest Fans43:54 Passive consumption at YouTube University46:21 Independent Learning and  the Pitfalls of Self-Taught Knowledge49:53 The Illusion of Easy Learning56:00 Credentials vs. Actual Knowledge59:46 Media Criticism & the Fifth Column01:02:47 Priorities in the Media Business01:04:29 Why is strong criticism so taboo?01:08:25 Brand Building in the Alternative Media01:12:02 Batya joins the Fifth Column01:16:37 Debating Tariffs01:22:46 A rare instance of REAL disagreement in alternative media!01:25:58 Sensitive MAGA Cultist Sycophancy01:32:10 The Working Class don't want iPhones01:41:06 OutroThe full episode is available for Patreon subscribers (1hr 43 mins).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurusSources- The Fifth Column #502 - The Second Battle of Batya (w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon)- The Fifth Column #503 - Mea Minima Culpa- The Fifth Column Members Only #258 - We Don't Talk About Fight Club (Mostly)- Curt Jaimungal - Eric Weinstein's Theory of Everything "Geometric Unity" Explained- Curt Jaimungal - Chris Langan: The Most In-Depth Interview with the World's Smartest Man- Eric's Twitter response to Curt- Josh Rogin's (mild) criticism of Bill Maher

Hello and welcome to Decoding the Guru's supplementary material. The sister podcast to the award-winning Mian podcast of Decoding the Guru is hosted by two academics, Matthew Bryan, the Australian, Chris Kavanagh, the Northern Irish dude, me. He's in Australia. I'm in Japan. We've done some stuff in academia. You know the drill. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Is that okay? Was that laid back enough? I didn't even mention our academic disciplines. That was very good. That's very good. That's very good. Now, I know, I know. You failed. You failed. You failed. You. I got away with it.

I would have gotten away with it. Where was it? For those. I'm going to leave this noise in so everyone here might lean back there and me this old squeaky and nice as presents. So my second favorite chair. Don't that one can still squeak. See, does it test it out? Yes, it does.

It's more of a creak. I think it's good as well as creaky. I think you've got hypersensitive ears. That's your issue. I'm happy to be here. This is my rest period. It's like when you're in the future in some sort of dystopia. It's kind of working period.

Entering your new rest pod. Yeah. Welling your new rest pod. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of old, tricky things, Matt, how's the swimming going? Well, there's been no swimming because it's winter and the normal pool, down heated pools closed and there's building. The good news is that building an Olympic quality all the year round, undercover heated pool in my little town, it's not ready yet. It was meant to be finished like six months ago, it's not ready yet, any day now, then I'll

start swimming again. But yeah, I'm keen to get back to the routine, the routine, the 1500 meter routine. See, Matt was telling me off for having goals and things to try and progress when doing sports. He likes to just be... Yeah. When you're in your recreational period, you should just be recreating, not setting goals and things. That's for work period. That's for optimizers and gym bros. But you know, Matt, you said that, but then I was like, well, what do you do when you're swimming?

And like, you just swim. You just like in the kids. All right. You said, no, you swim 1500 meters, which is impressive. Right. But I asked how you know it's 1500 meters. And how do you know? I just love that concept of, you know, me telling you I'm going to the pool and what I'm actually doing is just like splashing around in the shallow And wallowing around like a walrus

Squirting water people and then go ah, okay Yeah, I I think that would be fine if someone was doing that. That's all right. It will be fine. Yeah, look, well, look, you have to count. You have to count how far you've swum because if you don't do that, then what will happen is the period. Just keep going forever? No, what you're doing, what you do, it's mind games, right?

You'll spend the entire time swimming thinking, can I stop now? I feel tired. Like this is enough, games, right? You'll spend the entire time swimming and thinking, can I stop now? I feel tired. Like this is, this is enough surely. Right. And you start having those thoughts after about the seventh lap. Right. And it's very distracting. Right.

And so what you need to do is you count your laps and you go, I'm doing this, these laps and then, and I have a system, right. A system. It's not all 1500 meters freestyle. First 600 meters of freestyle and don't have any little rest. So just keep going the whole time. But I very quickly, after 600 meters, I put on a pair of flippers, grab the kickboard, and then I kick for 300 meters.

Yeah, I'm not sure that's allowed. I don't think you're allowed to wear flippers. You're like you're half man half fish. Then I stick on my tail. Is this something the Australians do? The Australians do this? I think like a lot of people do this. So flippers and then sometimes you put a little floaty thing between your legs and then you have a pair of paddles. I'll do that next. And then what do I do after that? Then I come up in your submarine. You've distracted me. I know this. I do it every time. Anyway, then there's a 300 meters swimming with flippers. And I

use your arms and your legs. But look, it's you don't understand. It's not cheating. No motion warning. your arms and your legs. But look, it's, you don't understand. It's not cheating. Slow motion warning. I guess that comment. It's not cheating. It's like what gym people do. We know how they isolate muscle groups and things. Yeah, it's like when people do pushups and they use their

knees. Right? See, look, no, it's not like that. It's like there's a limiting factor. And when you are using just flippers, normally when swimming for me, normally with me, the limiting factor is actually to tell the truth, it's usually my muscles. Right. It used to be I'd run out of breath. That was more when I was smoking cigarettes and stuff.

That would be my limiting factor, right? Now it's generally my muscles, but when you just use flippers, then your limiting factor is your thighs, they burn. You can feel the burn, Chris. And so that's good, right? I get it. Yeah, I'm kind of a man, Janine. I think you should leave sketch work.

Kai shows up to this room in Berlin, has like a whole box of equipment with like snorkels and screw. Yeah, just go for it, swim. Yeah, but I probably, I might just not know swim culture. Well, that's the thing. I'd be just out of swim culture. I could tell you all about swim culture.

First of all, you gotta handle social interactions in the pool. Like you can't completely ignore people. You can't know other people, right? Yeah. But you can't get too friendly either. Otherwise they'll think you're a freak. People don't want to be bothered in the pool.

No touching. Yeah. No touching. I thought that would be a rule. And there's a whole case structure as well. So I'd kind of, I like to think of myself as like a middle case, right? But below me, well, above me, I was like swim squad, right? So these are generally young people with bodies like bronzed adonises.

They are half human, half seal, and they just slip through the water. They skip along. Do they use flippers well no actually okay okay I haven't used as much to be honest that's okay I was just I'm just you know I'm doing the don't you judge me positive maybe it's been a long time since I was swimming. Things could have changed. Look, anyway, they're alphas, right? They're clearly alphas.

They're the alphas. And then there's people like me. And then there's people that are usually a bit older than me, usually more of the female persuasion. I don't want to make stereotypes. Maybe someone overweight. Some generally. It's good exercise. That's all right.

Yeah. And they do, um, aqua aerobics. Now what you were that, that image you had in your mind of me wallowing around sort of treading water and splashing a little bit with floaties. That's the aqua aerobics ladies. And I'm sure they're lovely people, but they're, they're the bottom case in the pool. Oh wow. And the swimming,

maybe they're an amateur synchronized swimming spot and you don't realize that that's just practicing. Very amateur. Well, you know, so that's interesting. This is like an ethnography of Australian pool etiquette. So when I go there, I'll know what to do. You know, I'll, they'll be like, wow, he's been here for years. Hi, he knows who to look down upon, who to look up to and how to attach his flippers.

Who to touch, who not to touch. No one, no one. Sorry, no one. That's right. No one. No, I think it'd be good. You come to the pool with me. What we'll do is, because this could be a special episode, we'll do like reciprocal humiliation. Because I think if you took me bouldering and you said, hey, Matt, try to go up that wall and I'll film you. I've released it on the internet. yeah that would be embarrassing and then you just scramble up at like a

shit spider-man I see where this is going but I'll do that if if if I could you swim, I don't know, a few hundred meters. And I'll just cruise along next to you, just watching you. You can use flippers. I'd float it. You can use anything you want. I'd like to see you swim. I don't know.

How far do you think you could swim, Chris? Depends if there's a shark, she's a bit better. I think pretty, pretty far. But the thing with swimming is that I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. Maybe only second to running amongst the like physical activities I hear because the yeah, just the whole time I'm like, I don't want to be doing this. This is unpleasant.

And with like, at least when you're running, you know, when you stop, you're kind of like, it's not like you come and die, but in the water, humans are not meant to breathe on the water. So if you're, you know, swimming and you're not able to step, then just go onto the water and that's not good for anyone. So yeah, that would be bonding through humiliation. Yeah. Well, we could take those videos and not release it, but we exchange the videos and that way we've got a hold on each other. We've got blackmail material. Starting to become like

Destiny in here. Yeah. I've heard about these other podcasts. They have some sort of drama. Somebody announces someone else. It's just insurance policy, Chris. Just insurance. That's right. Like Nixxiom, they did the same thing. Or Scientology. You got to tell your secrets and then if you ever dare cross them, they'll burn you. They'll burn you to the ground. So yeah, I like that,

but I feel like you already have enough secrets for this podcast that you could just burn me to the ground if you want this anyway. So don't do that, Matt. Don't even think about it. Just, you know. Don't put the idea in my mind. No, the gurus are gonna try to burn us anyway.

So like, don't help them along. You wanna help them? Is that what you mind. No, the gurus are going to try to burn us anyway. So don't help them along. You want to help them? Is that what you want? No, no, I don't. No, no. Well, no, on the subject of gurus, I know it's supplementary material. I know we can do whatever we want here.

That's the rules. That's right. We can swear. We can say whatever the hell we want. Wow. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. We can we can do extended banter sessions. It's all all fair play here because it's explicitly labeled

as supplementary material. Nonetheless, I did prepare clips because it's the kind of person that I am. And oh, yes, I did also just before that, my last bit, the last little piece of banter that slipped in the crack at the final moment, somebody did ask what's your recommended best restaurant in Bundaberg? That would be Hungry Jax. Hungry Jax, I hungry. Jacks.

So it's fantastic. That's people wanted to get to know you more. And they were like, Matt's always talking about, you know, bad food. What's a good foot in Bunderburg. And the answer is hungry Jacks. Nothing. If you're ever passing through. No, look, there is, there is one decent restaurant that is called the Water Street Kitchen, which is actually slightly fancy.

You know, you can have a glass of good white wine and you can have a croissant. Probably they have very fancy cocktails and they have, I don't know, you know, seared crackle pork belly, something with little anyway, it's a fancy pants little restaurant. There you go. And it's okay. It's all right I don't think it could hold a candle to what you can find in Melbourne or Sydney, but it's pretty good by local standards I think it there go see nine all you bring the burq heads my ass. Oh, yeah, somebody told me it's bonda burq bonda burq That's right. They wrote it out phonetically for me. So me it's Bundaberg. Bundaberg. That's right. They wrote it out phonetically for me. So there we go. I like the sound of Bundesburg though. It sounds like somewhere where the Nazi party would have a rally. Yeah. Well, as we discovered that was the original, I'm just using the original

pronunciation with Josh Schaeps. But Matt, no, the clips that I've galled,, this was at your request. I'm just like your little retriever. Go for it. You said, yeah, Chris, go fetch. And I did. I didn't listen to all of this because it was like three or four hours. But Eric Weinstein. Now I know what you're thinking, Matt. We've done Eric. We've decoded and we know all about Eric. Is there anything more to say about Eric? I wonder. Yeah. Well, it's not actually Eric himself. This is Kurt Jemungo, who has a YouTube channel, theories of everything. And he just put out a long extended episode which was called Eric Weinstein's theory of everything geometric unity explained. Okay.

And he, he talks about this being a kind of iceberg style video where there's, you know, there's multiple layers. There's the tip of the iceberg there, but then you dig deeper and you go down and there's more and more you uncovered. And it is three hours and seven minutes, I see, long. So it's a deep dive, the deepest of dives into Eric Weinstein's theory of everything. Yeah. Now this is Kurt Jemungle's Theory of Everything podcast where he's had on previous gurus to talk. Yes. What's his name?

Physics gurus mostly. Chris Langan, Terence Howard. He didn't have Terence Howard on, but he did talk about Terence Howard's theory and he's had a variety of high profile, mostly physics pranks, I think. But I do think he's had on, you know, Sean Carroll and mainstream physicists, too. Roger Penrose, though, Roger Penrose has a habit of indulging people. So, you know, just to say, people. So, you know, just to say, it's not just Eric, he has a, you know, a wide selection of people with theories of everything on as his channel name suggests. Okay. Yes, I could. Jim Uncle saw a lot of value in Chris Langan's theories, but it was very interesting. And he thought there was more to Terrence Howard's ideas than people were giving him credit. He says it's not true that if you have $1 times $1 you get $1. And he's correct. $1 times $1 doesn't equal $1.

However, okay, let me say it like this. $5 times $1 does not equal $5. But $5 times $1 equals $5. If you have two apples and someone multiplies your apples by three, then you have six apples. But if you have two apples and someone multiplies your apples by three apples, you're just, you have WTF amount of apples. I assume he had a very positive view of Erich's theory. Yeah, there is a bit of a theme emerging. I'm not sure there's a theory of everything that Kurt Jemungal has come across that he

hasn't regarded as deeply interesting and promising. When you find Chris Langan's theory to be astonishingly deep, it does somewhat diminish the pretas that you offer for other people's theories, right? Because having listened to Chris Langan discuss his models and generally his views, I think it's fair to say that we were not equally as impressed as Kurt was. But in the way Kurt reams things, he usually presents it like other people haven't looked at this in the way that he has. And he has a background in, you know, maths and physics so he can understand the complexities, which the ordinary people overlook.

Most interviews with Chris are somewhat superficial and talk about his days as a bouncer, his experiences, what it's like to have a high IQ. But we're interested in the topic of theories of everything and you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. I don't often like to give my opinion on the variegated theories that exist, but in Chris's case I have to say that if I was to say that I'm impressed that would be an extreme understatement. His theory is unfairly criticized by critics who have read his theory for approximately a day at most and who point to its supposed

incoherence, but I found that critics tend to do this with virtually every theory that's self-proposed like Eric Weinstein's or Steven Wolfram's though from my investigation of these these theories are far from erroneous casualistry. It just takes plenty of difficult work to understand it's far from nonsense and the easiest way to tell is to ask the critic, can you explain their theory back to them in a manner that they would agree? Another way to think of this is that one field's technical achievement is word salad to someone who's outside that field. What we have in the case of Weinstein, Wolfram, and Chris Langan is that in their own way, they're inventing their own field. Thus, it's understandable that it's difficult to penetrate because it doesn't have a team

of people over the course of years decocting the essence, but difficult to penetrate is not a synonym for this work is gibberish. Hmm. All right, fair enough. I don't think there was much maths in Chris Langan's theory, but nonetheless. According to Kurt, you might have missed some of the important maps but yes, so in any case, here is Kurt talking about this important new video. My name is Kurt J. Mungle and on Theories of Everything, I use my background in mathematical physics from the University of Toronto to explore the unification of gravity with the Standard Model and have also become

interested in fundamental laws in general as they relate to explanations of some with the Standard Model and have also become interested in fundamental laws in general as they relate to explanations of some of the largest philosophical questions we have, such as what is consciousness and how does it arise? In other words, it's a paragrination into the all-encompassing nature of the universe. Today we'll cover the abstruse math of bundle theory, of index theory, of course the Standard model with general relativity. Just so you know, this episode took a combined 250 hours across three different editors and several rewrites on my part. It's on par with the most labor that's gone into any single theories of everything video, comparable

to the iceberg of string theory, and that's saying something. If you're confused at any point by the exposition, don't worry, GU may seem like a formidable subject, that's what I thought before I started reading what Eric's write-ups were. And then I realized that it only uses standard notions in differential geometry, the primary challenge of which lies in the novel constructions and the terminology introduced by Eric, yet these are accessible to those with a graduate level understanding of mathematical physics. Even if you're not at that level, don't worry because I'll explain and I'll re-explain several points.

First, I'll provide a quick overview of geometric unity, followed by an overview of modern physics, then I'll give a more detailed explanation of GU to thoroughly explain the derivations, finally, I'll relate it back to modern physics. There are timestamps in the description to help navigate around. Don't worry if you get lost, this video is meant to be watched and rewatched, where each time you'll glean something new. So let's begin with the first layer of the iceberg. Layer one. Huge in scope. On par with string theory. The video he did on String Theory should be clear, but obviously that suggests that there is enough depth here to warrant that. I do have to say

that people like Lex Reedman and Cartier and others, they seem to be putting in a lot of hours, a lot of hours for products, which at the end, like Kurt's credit, at least here, he has produced a free hour video, right, which has a lot of graphics, has a lot of things floating around, you know, he's talking about actual physics topics and that kind of thing. So it's conceivable. It took 250 hours. Maybe it did, but it's just these kinds of claims seem to be coming up a lot on YouTube and in the gurus here, like Jordan Peterson, you know, I've read 200

books on climate change, Lex and, you know, he spends eight hours a day or whatever coding and just like at the end, the outcome often is like a podcast or a YouTube episode. You know, with a bit of like philosophical speculating and things like that. And the podcasts and the YouTube channels, which you see that that obviously do take a lot of work, like it's obvious, right? They've made graphics, you know, there's animations. It's just clearly deeply. No, but just to be clear, this one has graphics and yeah, it does.

It's like the production values are relatively high. Okay. Well, in that case, maybe what he's saying is true. I was just going to say that generally in the quality content that I follow, they don't usually go on about that very much. They just present what they've got and let it speak for itself. Well, yes, that is so there is an element of tell don't show. No, sorry. It's kind of more like show don't tell. Show don't tell. Tell on show. I don't know. The other note that you got here, one, you get the impression.

Yes, Eric's theory, very deep, very important that somebody is finally looking at it. But it's also clear that actually there is a lot here that is very understandable. If you're an advanced graduate level mathematician, then you can see other people maybe won't get it, but he's going to explain that and re-explain that multiple times. And you can always come back to the video because it's designed, it's like an onion or a Fabergé. There's layers, there are hidden complexities. The more that you look at it, the more you'll glean.

So that's often the message that you hear in guruish content, right? That like, if you just ponder on it more and you think more deeply, like you'll eventually realize that it actually is profound. So notably there have been people with mathematical and physics credentials who have previously looked at Eric's theory, Tim Nguyen, most notably somebody who was versed in the specific equations that Eric was utilizing, talking about an expert in. And he was less than impressed. But I guess people can have different opinions. So it's just a very

useful framing where you're basically telling people like, if you recognize that this is really deep and profound and complex, then it means that you're like smart and you've got a good understanding of complex ideas. If you don't get it, perhaps you need to try a bit harder and like appreciate it. So like there doesn't seem to be a version of this where you're somebody qualified or or like an interested amateur and you listen to it and you think that there's nothing there because that would mean that Kurt, hundreds of hours on a crank theory with relatively little to recommend to it. Yeah, that's right. We don't want to re-litigate this. We're not brainiac super physicists

or whatever, but physicists are out there. And while Eric's theory has received basically zero attention in the academic literature and rightly so because he's published a proper paper about it and the paper that he has published is incomplete. That's what Nguyen and Polly found, that it's basically not a well-defined theory. That's what another guy from Columbia found. There's no test predictions incomplete. And even Sabine Hostenfelder and other people

have mentioned that it's lacking a bunch of mathematical ingredients that are needed for it even to be like a well-defined theory that could even be the beginning of something that you could even go ahead and test. So basically an undercooked physics idea, the kind of physics idea that like I'm sure there are like literally thousands of these, many of them being had by genuine working physicists, right? They have ideas, they sketch out some things, it doesn't work out,

they stop and they get back to the drawing board. I'm sure it happens every day. But the difference is with Eric, of course, is that he loves his his theory and he's written it up and he's gone on podcasts. And yeah, it's something fun for these guys to talk about, I guess. Yeah. And Eric did respond to the release said, OK, this is my life's work as seen by Kurt Jymungle. Done in near isolation from community for reasons I do not grasp. Geometric Unity has never received this kind of treatment in 40 years. I'm sort of speechless. I don't know what to say except thank you before I watch it. Hands clasped. While Kurt consulted me off and on, he didn't tell me he was making this until most

of his narrative and investigation was in place. I have not seen this release yet, nor did I know when it was going to go live. This is very much Kurt, Kurt's voice and 100% Kurt's initiative. Now, notably Kurt has had Eric on this channel before. He is very positively disposed to Eric. If you'd asked me to bet my life savings on Weller Kurtt would release a video that was critical of Eric's geometric unity, I would have happily bet my life savings that that was not going to happen given that he'd released a very positive evaluation of Chris Langan's theory. So Eric, though, kind of blindsided a little bit. He doesn't know he is endorsing that sight unseen. And as per usual with Eric, he doesn't know,

he can't understand why this has been overlooked in the physics community, why he produced it in isolation. He is the person who did it in isolation. But he cannot understand why that has occurred. So yeah, I mean, I think this is for Eric actually, probably the desired end of the road. I mean, obviously he'd want us to build transdimensional faster and like cars and whatnot business principles. But aside from that, a YouTube video that basically says his theory is incredibly complex, incredibly important and extremely deep. Yeah. Is that'll do? Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's where he's at. That's, that's, that's the kind of thing that he can count as a win because, uh, yeah, he's not going to get the, um, anything more. Gee, you know, just as you were talking, I was just pulling up the Vice article that came out and it just reminded me of stuff that we covered but I'd forgotten. Back in 2020, Weinstein said that his theory is an attempt to go beyond Einstein and push theoretical physics forward that could unlock amazing possibilities of terrible power. I was somewhat holding this back because I'm afraid of what it unlocks. And the last, because the last time, again, I'm just quoting him, the last time we gained some serious insight into how nuclear I worked, nuclear weapons

were invented. But if the theory is correct, it might also give us the needed insight to make humanity into a multi-planet species. Oh my god, what are the dangers is great power. I can't tell what the power would be if the theory is correct. It might give us the ability to escape. I mean, big if true, you know, that's the thing if if I think if there is the is the really doing a lot of heavy lifting, if the theory is correct. Yeah, so he takes it very seriously. So does Kurt.

So does Kurt. So does Kurt. So one more clip from this map just to give the tenor of the video. Welcome to the iceberg of geometric unity, a comprehensive and technical edition. This iceberg format is one that will guide you through the intricacies of this theory of everything, beginning with foundational concepts and then advancing into the more sophisticated hinterlands. In this special episode, we rigorously explore Eric Weinstein's geometric unity,

moving beyond metaphorical explanations to engage directly with the mathematical underpinnings of the theory. If you skip the rigor and opt for explanations aimed at a five year old, well, I'm not sure how many five year olds you've spoken to, but sure, it's cute. You can't explain what a Dirac operator is to them outside of making a TikTok video that gives the impression of knowing without actually understanding. Do you want to be like a five year old TikToker, Matt? Do you want to be like a five-year-old TikToker, Matt? No, you want to be more like Kurt Jemungo. He wouldn't just be giving people the impression of getting profound insights into things without it really happening. No. No.

No, I will say, Matt, that I know some people with relevant credentials who look through at least some of the video, and they mentioned that by and large, Kurt is summarizing things well, or like well might not be the way to put it. Like he, you know, he is speaking in dense mathematical and physics terms, but he's not misrepresenting the kind of accepted theories. And that's what a lot of the video is, kind of talking through things which Eric is referencing, which are part of existing models. So that part is mostly accurate, according to people who saw it. Now, the parts with the specific geometric unity, that's really the bit that would

be made. And there you would need a Tim Nguyen or somebody to discuss in depth. But the point is you could make a video which is a four hour dissection of Jordan Peterson's theories on the representation of DNA in art across history. And if you spent 40 minutes detailing the ancient Incan artistic techniques and whatnot, I feel like you could pad out a lot of the free hour running time. But maybe I'm just being skeptical. Maybe I'm a five-year-old who is not going to watch and re-watch this video. But again, this does feel a bit like

profundity porn for people. You know, they look down at you, but nobody has given this theory the right treatment. And now I'm going to do it over three technical hours. And this will be dense. If you stick with it, you're going to understand this better than anybody else previously had. But it's complex maps. But don't worry, anything you don't understand, you can rewatch. And yeah, it's just, you know, and the same framing actually exists for the Chris Langan video, by the way, exact same framing.

Another word on style. I may ask the same question to Chris in different ways multiple times because, like I said, his theory isn't exactly trivial and so hearing the same phenomenon from different orientations often illuminate what was previously obscured. Now a word on myself. Preparing for this particular podcast took weeks and weeks. Usually I'm able to prep for multiple guests simultaneously, but this one was so involved that it consumed me and took a physical toll. I went through virtually each one of Chris's papers and even spoke to someone who is conversant in the CTMU, just so that

I can make sure I'm understanding these concepts correctly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know what you mean. Like, Eric Weinstein's theory is not like Chris Langan's theory. Chris Langan's theory literally has no math and just has a whole bunch of words he's made up. Eric Weinstein's theory is like the ingredients, there's a lot of ingredients in there which are real math, like the Dirac operator, for instance. That's a real thing and you could spend like 40 minutes explaining that and it would be quite difficult for people. And so explaining a lot of the building blocks could easily chew up four hours. I know my limits here, by the way, Chris, because I have an amateur, very amateur interest

in this kind of fancy physics. I know my way around the maths I need for doing statistics. There's a lot of maths I don't know. I've tried to learn the ingredients. I've learned a few of the basic building blocks and then I've hit my hit my level. And I still tune into PBS Space Time, by the way, which is, I think, a pretty good physics podcast. And I've had to give up because it's frankly too difficult for me. Now, it could well be that Kurt Jemungel's thing is at least partly like that.

Like it may sound like gobbledygook at large periods of time, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is. Like PBS Space Time, when it goes beyond what my brain can encompass, it sounds like gobbledygook to me. Oh, yeah, yeah. I don't doubt it. I mean, he has genuine expertise and at least graduate level understanding of fairly complex maths and physics. So I don't think he's just speaking in gobbledygook like science babble the way like Jordan Peterson could, for example, when

he's talking about science topics. But I do think having that background, it doesn't prevent you from then using that ability to mask pseudo-profundities. In actual fact, it actually probably makes you better than it. And there is the case where there have been various Nobel Prize winners who have went on to endorse quantum homeopathy and whatnot as well. And those people, I'm sure, when they wanted to talk about their scientific findings, you know, perfectly able to use scientific language accurately and with high complexity. So yeah, the two things should not be taken as like that you cannot have genuine expertise

and engage in kind of hand-waving stuff. And the issue with Kurt, if he was somebody that was like, you know, critically evaluating these theories and delving into them, you might expect that there will be some where he has very strong criticisms and some where he thinks they're, you know, robustly worked out. I've never seen a video where he's saying, there's nothing to this. Like it's, it's not a well, you know, I am actually with Chris Langan. He made the case that it was a lot deeper, more mathematically rich than

anybody understood. And he only got to that after weeks and weeks and months of corresponding Chris Langen. Like to me that is absolutely disqualified. If you'd like to continue listening to this conversation, you'll need to subscribe at patreon.com slash Decoding the Gurus. Once you do, you'll get access to full length episodes of the Decoding the Gurus podcast, including bonus shows, gurometer episodes, and Decoding Academia.

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