Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Curt Jaimungal AMA #1 (Consciousness, education, IQ, which Theory of Everything is correct?)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Alright, hello to all listeners, Kurt here. That silence is missed sales. Now, why? It's because you haven't met Shopify, at least until now. Now that's success. As sweet as a solved equation. Join me in trading that silence for success with Shopify. It's like some unified field theory of business.

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Starting point is 00:00:57 All lowercase. That's shopify.com slash theories. I should have you know that I don't like to say I plenty, because I is narcissistic. The more I say it, the more I become self-involved, and I do have a predilection to self-involvement, the more I become self-involved, and I do have a predilection to self-involvement, which I am actively fighting against at almost every moment. But it's difficult to avoid this because many of these questions, or almost all of them, are directed toward me, so how can I answer them without speaking my personal experience? And at the same time, I am guided by a screenwriting adage which says that the more personal the pain, the more general it is. Which means that the more specific you can get with being wholeheartedly open, the more people resonate with it rather than staying at a superficial high level. That's actually one of the guiding principles of the podcast itself. That's one of the reasons why I try to get into as much

Starting point is 00:02:05 meticulous technicalities as I possibly can, because that's what I would like to know. And I imagine that the audience is more engaged, the more I'm engaged, even if sometimes some of the terminology goes over some of the people's heads. Not all the people. This podcast tends to have a huge, huge following of extremely bright people brighter than myself, and that's extremely flattering. If I seem nervous, it is because I am. I am nervous. I'm not comfortable speaking about myself. If I'm darting my eyes around, it's because I'm thinking. I can give you some background as to how the podcast is run. I get notes about my furrowed brows, and I'm constantly looking as if I'm angry, and I'm not angry. My wife even comes to me at times and I have to bark at her. I feel bad

Starting point is 00:02:58 because she thinks I'm angry, but I'm thinking, and I'm in such, such deep thought stacked upon one another. As soon as she comes to me and said, babe, are you okay? I'm thinking, if I'm mad, I'll let you know if I'm mad. Don't bother me. I'm speaking somewhat quietly because she's sleeping in the next room. Okay. Akash1996 asks, tell us something about yourself. Who are you? What is your science background? When and why did you start your YouTube channel? What are your aims? What are your dreams in general? Okay, so that's quite a few questions, man. Akash, it's a great thing that your name starts with an A because I sorted this by alphabetical... I sorted this alphabetically by username,

Starting point is 00:03:40 and this will serve as an introduction to myself and to the channel. So who am I? Well, I'm Kurt Jaimungal. As to who am I? You know, there's a Greek phrase called know thyself. Its origins are Greek. John Vervaeke said, to know thyself isn't what most people in the Western world thinks it means to know thyself, which we think it means, let's have a scrapbook and post our memories. That's not what it means. It means to understand the operating system

Starting point is 00:04:25 by which you run. And I don't know mine. I'm tempted to give an itemized biography. I'm tempted to state my ethnicity and my job and so on, but I don't think that is what I should identify with. And I'm wary of saying, I am so-and-so because unconsciously I'll identify with it. And that's part of my issue with the whole political discourse right now is that people tend to be identifying with aspects of themselves that they shouldn't see as a paramount part of their personality. So as for who am I, man, I don't know. And I'm figuring that out.

Starting point is 00:05:00 Sorry, Akash. What is your science background? It's math and physics, particularly something called high energy physics, which is more in the theoretical end. I'm not concerned. I'm wholly unconcerned with the practical end of physics. I even told Nathan Myhrvold I'm more comfortable with fiber bundles than I am with Bernoulli's equation, and that's absolutely true. I'm concerned with something called general relativity and quantum field theory and merging them now some people think you'll hear this spouted off plenty that quantum field theory people will say quantum mechanics but it's technically quantum field theory and general

Starting point is 00:05:34 relativity can't be merged they can easily fairly easily in low energy limits it's just in high energies that you have problems so I'm interested in the high energy or in other words, low distance, because high energy means low distance. The high energy and low distance merging of general relativity and quantum mechanics. When and why did I start my YouTube channel? Well, when and why? When depends on what constitutes this YouTube channel. So in many ways, it could be with the Gnome interview, so that's about a year and a half ago. In many ways, my channel started with Brian Keating, which is about 10 months ago. Brian Keating was the first interview that I did that was non-political, that was just about math and physics, because at the time, I was, I started

Starting point is 00:06:20 this channel called Better Left Unsaid for a film, which is releasing tomorrow, by the way, this is promotion for it. I have a film that I directed called Better Left Unsaid for a film, which is releasing tomorrow, by the way. This is promotion for it. I have a film that I directed called Better Left Unsaid, a documentary about when does the political left go too far. And it has nothing to do with me accepting the right, even though people see the absence of the right, the quote-unquote political right, in the tagline as me admitting that they're correct in some manner. That's not the case. In fact, if you watch the film, you'll see that I talk about the extreme right as well as the extreme left.

Starting point is 00:06:50 This channel was interviews for that, and then I pivoted because I thought, well, now that the film is done, which the film has been done for almost a year, why not go back to my original interest of math and physics? So I did with Brian Keating, and Brian Keating has a great channel. Our channel is extremely similar to mine, so I curse him for that, but it's great because we have a revolving door of guests. If you like his guests, you'll like mine and vice versa. I'll leave his channel in the description.

Starting point is 00:07:18 You should subscribe to it if you like this. You'll most likely like Brian Keating's perhaps even more. So in some ways, the channel started one and a half years ago with Noam, or ten months ago with Brian Keating, but in another way, the channel truly started eight months ago or nine months ago with Donald Hoffman. Once I interviewed Donald Hoffman, it was almost as if Toe or Theories of Everything became its own genre.

Starting point is 00:07:41 Some people in the audience say that there's no channel like it. And while that's flattering, I don't know how much of that is true. I hope it's true. That's pretty cool. If it's true, I don't see myself as having a particularly different interview style other than going into some of the abstruse mechanics. But other than that, I don't see it as particularly inventive or particular. What are my aims and my dreams? Okay, aims and dreams. Well, by the way, if you see me speak with haste or rapidity, it's because I am trying to get through this fairly quickly. My dreams, my aims, at least with this channel,

Starting point is 00:08:24 and at least with the next few years of my life, is to clarify my thinking and develop what's called a Weltanschauung. It's a German word which means an all-encompassing worldview or a framework through which to interpret the world. To call it a worldview is to minimize it. By the way, you can think of a Weltanschauung as a theory of everything in the psychological sense. Not in the physics sense. Though it does include the physics sense for me. Weltanschauung is the word. Welt, if you ever hear the word V or the letter V in a German word, it's W. The other aim for this channel to answer Akash's question, I'm only on question number one,

Starting point is 00:09:04 channel to answer Akash's question. I'm only on question number one. To answer Akash's question is that there is a part of me that thinks coming up with a theory of everything the way it's traditionally done is with private practice of erudite individuals in academia. And I'm unsure if innovation is to be found there anymore. That's false. There's plenty of innovation coming from the universities, especially in the STEM field. What I mean is, I think that there's vast swaths missing from our current theories of everything. And I think that it's a, I'm hoping that what I can do is make this a community effort that people from the outside can watch and contribute who are who didn't necessarily have the chance to go to university or aren't trained mathematically and collectively sometimes though I despise the word collectively because of how it's been co-opted

Starting point is 00:09:56 but collectively we can come up with or at least advance a theory of everything so that's a goal of this channel that's a dream a dream of mine all right let's a goal of this channel. That's a dream, a dream of mine. All right, let's get to the next one. Account number one says, what are your thoughts on Rupert Spira Advaita Vedanta? And thanks for making such an awesome podcast. Now, account number one, you can see by the fact that I'm struggling to pronounce Vedanta, that I'm unfamiliar with it. I know a tiny amount, like a modicum about it. And I know a modicum about Rupert Spira, though I do have an interview with him booked June 15th or so, which means it'll go online June, at the end of June. They also say thank you for making such an awesome podcast. I don't like to read the plaudits, but I'll do so because it's part of the question and it also it's endearing thank you account number

Starting point is 00:10:47 one account number one has another question what or how do you think about abstract mathematical structures philosophically okay I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean when you say how do I think of them philosophically I imagine what you mean is am I a Platonist or non-Platonist? That's all I could think of, unless what you mean is, am I algebraic or am I analytical or geometrical or visual? I'd say I'm minorly visual and I'm majorly algebraic and majorly conceptual. So that means that, I don't know how to describe the conceptual one because I haven't heard many people talk about it it's more like I think in terms of concepts that are nebulous or nubilous and then they relate as for Platonism

Starting point is 00:11:33 I don't see how mathematical truths can be invented I don't see it as being dependent on us though Lee Smolin makes a case that they're time dependent This means that I'm I'm not. This means that I'm not sure. The answer is I'm not sure and I'm tilted toward Platonism. You can think of it as I'm platonically dating Platonism. This comes from account number two. Kurt, have you considered getting Douglas Hofstadter on the show? The answer is every day.

Starting point is 00:12:03 Alex Broman says, what's the role that i see psychedelics having in our society for the next 20 years and then he says good job with a peace sign medically it seems to be efficacious it seems to be more so than traditional medications and treatments as for individuals, I hope it's a force for good. It's... It's... Well... They can be world-shattering, let's say, and that can be for good or for ill. Alexander96 says, you seem to be a gamer. At least you've mentioned excitedly games when talking to other people. So what games do you like? What games have you played in the past and any thoughts on the value of video games? Personally, I'm certain that Dark

Starting point is 00:12:59 Souls, a pretty challenging game if you don't know it, has strongly conditioned me to enjoy more difficult challenges. Okay, so this person is extremely perceptive alexander i love dark souls i love demon souls i love from software games in general i love fallout i love single player wide open sprawling vistas and missions and rpgs i love those i love those to bits. I'm extremely looking forward to playing this game called Disco Elysium or Elysium, Elysium, I believe. Disco Elysium. Though I played it for about an hour. I don't get time to play video games, man. I'm just studying for this podcast almost all the time. I wish I had more time to play because I love playing video games. I dislike shooters.

Starting point is 00:13:50 Although I do like some mindless games. Games that I could listen to a podcast or do some research that just require auditory input while I play. But I don't like them in the sense that I enjoy playing those games. It's more like okay, now I get to listen to this book that I have to read,

Starting point is 00:14:06 or research this person, and at least I can play a video game, maybe get a trophy or two at the same time. Disco Elysium, there seems to be elements of one psychological state speaking to oneself, and that's alarming to me. I won't rehash why. You can watch the Ian McGilchrist video to find out why. I just hope it doesn't induce something like psychosis. I don't know if I can handle that game.

Starting point is 00:14:32 Metal Gear Solid, I love the series Metal Gear Solid. Metal Gear Solid 5, though, I was extremely disappointed. I think everyone was. The gameplay in it is great, but it's not what I was looking for in a Hideo Kojima game.

Starting point is 00:14:44 I love indie games. Indie games that play with mechanisms, sorry, mechanics, gameplay mechanics, inventively. I'm one of those rare people that find Metal Gear Solid 4 to be peerless. I actually think it's the best of all the Metal Gear Solids, even though it's lacking in terms of the intricacies of Metal Gear Solid 3. In terms of fan service, it was wonderful. If you're a fan of Metal Gear Solid from 1, 2, 3, I don't know how you can't love Metal Gear Solid 4. Someone said, Rebecca says, why am I wasting my life with video games instead of experiencing the Earth? Well, that one can say, why are you telling games instead of experiencing the earth? Well, that...

Starting point is 00:15:32 One can say, why are you telling stories instead of experiencing the earth? In some way the stories inform how you experience the earth, and in some ways a video game is a more interactive story. It depends on if you're using it to escape the earth. And also video games are part of the earth. Where am I from? Daniela. Daniela wants to know I'm from Trinidad. I believe someone asks that later. I also have an idea for a video game which at some point I- because I don't like these games that have speech checks and then

Starting point is 00:15:59 sneaking options or kill options. Those are just three and then they think well look I've spanned the gamut of all you can do with a video game look how wonderful in options my RPG is. I don't think that's all there is. I like more than that, I have an idea, but I may have to lay it to the side, along with the multiplicity of other forlorn ideas of mine. Amidu Kamara says, what ism of consciousness do I lean most toward? And what are my thoughts on the bizarre phenomenon of alien abductions? Well, okay, as for the ism that I lean toward, I would say none yet. As for alien abductions, I don't know what to make of it. I don't think that everyone who claims that they've been abducted are asinine or lying. I also don't think the same about Bigfoot,

Starting point is 00:16:48 and I would love to get Les Stroud on the podcast. I keep reaching out to his people, and they keep putting me off. They keep saying six months from now or five months from now. Hopefully at some point Les Stroud will come on the podcast. I would love to talk to him. That's Survivorman for those of you who are unacquainted. I do have an intimation as to why UFOs and Bigfoot and other phenomenon might exist, as well as an explanation for why they're mysterious. But it may be imbecilic, so I don't... I won't state it because it's not well-formed. It's just that I don't know. I find it odd that Bigfoot hasn't been captured by any camera.

Starting point is 00:17:32 Some people will claim it has been. Okay, Anna Lukomsky says, By the way, if I'm appearing tired, I am. For the past couple nights, I haven't gotten much sleep. I'm groggy, so I'm in the midst of that. Okay, let's see. Anna Lukomsky says, I would love to hear the story behind your podcast and how you became inspired to do a podcast on toes on theories of everything. The practicalities of how you actually managed to get it going, especially the story behind how you got your first guest. I wonder if you knew how much that moment would change your world.

Starting point is 00:18:08 Theories of everything. Theories of everything. That is, this channel was an evolution. It started as Blue. That is Better Left Unsaid. I call it Blue. So if you ever hear me use the word Blue, I'm referring to Better Left Unsaid, which is a documentary I directed, which is releasing tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:18:23 And again, quick promotion if you want to buy it please get it from better left unsaid film.com don't buy it from itunes and so on because better left unsaid film.com will have the director's version which is the much longer ponderous philosophical psychological version that contains elements the public won't necessarily like but if you're a fan of this channel, you'll probably like. And that one, you get it for free on the betterleftunsaidfilm.com when you buy the regular version. It just, you get a choice.

Starting point is 00:18:53 Do you want to watch the regular or the director's cut, which is two hours long? So a half hour of extra material. As for the first guest, it depends on what qualifies this channel. The first guest in many ways was Noam, or in many ways it was Brian Keating, or in many ways it was Donald Hoffman. Now, the Hoffman interview was one that I had no idea would change me as much as it did. Not because of his theories per se, but because

Starting point is 00:19:18 it seems like as soon as I released that podcast, it was as if Toe, Theories of Everything, became its own genre. And that was exciting because it was me talking to someone the way that I would like to talk to them instead of somewhat of a facade of an interviewer, journalist-type person, which characterized the previous interviews, which I've now unlisted because I am embarrassed about them and they don't fit the theme of this channel. So Donald Hoffman and the reception to it indicated to me that I was on an interesting path and it spurred me on. Apostolos Prell says,

Starting point is 00:20:01 do you have a Facebook page for your YouTube audience? Sorry, do you have a Facebook page for your YouTube channel? And I want to support you, Kurt. So I don't have a Facebook page, not for this channel, at least. And if you want to support, then please support on Patreon. Patreon genuinely helps. Each dollar helps, and you may not think so, but it helps because it's completely voluntary. It's someone voluntarily is giving me a dollar or 10 or whatever it may be per month continually. Financially, it's a boon. I tell my wife each time I get an email from a patron, and I also personally email each patron, they think that it's a form letter because they're usually surprised that they get a personal

Starting point is 00:20:51 communication, but I'm genuinely happy. My wife and I were delighted each time. It also serves, the amount of patrons I have also serves as a metric of the positive response to this channel beyond the adulatory comments. Because some of these comments, they're extremely flattering. But at the same time, I look at other channels. I'm sure if anyone here is a content creator, you've experienced this where someone says, I love this. This was the best podcast or this was the best video. And then you watch some other video of a cat hitting a dog, and then the dog being happy about it. And then someone says, this is the best video I've ever seen online. And then you wonder, okay, I was happy about my

Starting point is 00:21:36 comments at first, but then that also gets the same attribution. So there's a temporary ego boost I get, but then a subsequent deflation of it. However, the Patreon subscribers definitely indicate to me that someone's willing to say that this is something they see worth supporting, a mission that they can believe in, and they do with their dollar. So I'm delighted and I find it truly touching. Thank you. So I'm delighted and I find it truly touching. Thank you. Aspen French says, I'm a fan of your content, Kurt, but I'm also a feminist and I try to listen to the opposition and so on. But this was on the Janice Fiamengo interview.

Starting point is 00:22:16 But I was extremely frustrated by this discussion. There's not... Well, what I want to ask is, would you consider a voice from the other side? And the answer is, absolutely. I am actively looking for people who are on the more radical left end, who espouse critical race theory, and are Black Lives Matter supporters, and so on. Whatever you think of as the typical left, extreme left-leaning,

Starting point is 00:22:41 whatever you want to call it, I'm not disparaging it. But those types of people I'm definitely looking for. In fact, for the documentary Better Left Unsaid, I reached out, at least initially, to way more people, professors on the left than I did on the right, and I got no after no after no after no after no. It was only people who were on the center, center left, center right, who actually said yes to me. But I'm looking for

Starting point is 00:23:05 people. I have a whole document of questions for hoping that someone eventually will come online and speak with me. Hopefully a professor. I don't want just some postdoc, or it could be a postdoc. I don't want some undergrad or recent graduate to talk to me or just someone who says that I'm a trans person and you should talk to me. Well, I would prefer a professor for various reasons. Austin Harper says, Do you believe in free will? Are aliens here God? Is ego death real death?

Starting point is 00:23:36 What is the perfect form of government, assuming there is one? Why does life have symmetry, but physics is having issues with it? Do you think black holes have singularities? What about panpsychism? I've subbed since your Sabine interviews. That is the Sabine Hossenfelder interview. So basically, you're required to answer at least one of these questions. Okay, do you believe in free will? I'm not sure. There are arguments for it, and there are arguments against it. And I don't know, there's definitely the feeling that free will exists. And there's definitely the feeling that free will exists and there's

Starting point is 00:24:05 definitely the feeling that your feeling of free will is illusory. That is during meditation or a psychedelic experience, let's say, or even a hypnagogic near dream state. As for are aliens here, I'm not sure. As for God, I'm not sure. As for is ego death real death? That's a terrifying question. That's a terrifying question. Well, that's an extremely, extremely, extremely terrifying question, man. It's such a terrible question, I have to move on from that question. What is the perfect form of government, assuming there is one? So, it might be that there's none. It might be God there is one so it might be that there's

Starting point is 00:24:45 not it might be god's government or might be one that's dependent on on time or it might be one where you maximize voluntary choice but then you get into the issue of what constitutes voluntary choice is it positive freedom or is it negative freedom which means you get into the base of philosophy and i see that many of the arguments about capitalism versus socialism, or communism in fact, are arguments not about which political system is correct, but which philosophical strain do we use to interpret freedom. I see it as a debate between freedoms rather than political, which means it's a philosophical debate. than political, which means it's a philosophical debate. As for why does life have symmetries but physics doesn't, I don't think physics has an issue with symmetries. In fact, I would say life

Starting point is 00:25:31 has an issue with it. So I disregard the question, do I think black holes have singularities? I don't know. They may, they may not. Panpsychism. Hmm. Panpsychism may be true. May be true in some strange way that we don't conceptualize currently. Now, hopefully, Austin Harper, hopefully I've answered your question somewhat. Although I assume not copacetically. Babic Rasal, Babic Rasal, Babic, I can't pronounce your last name your last name says what have you learned from the many brilliant people you have interviewed that has affected your day-to-day life and what are the practical changes that i see day-to-day

Starting point is 00:26:14 each one each interview has influenced me. Though, to say specifically how would require me to dredge the influence from the depths, and often that requires sufficient reflection, which I haven't been able to do, at least not for this AMA. What's influenced me most? Okay, well, that one, at least recently, is Ian McGilchrist. Let's say... Well, it's worldview shattering, that's for sure. It has me second-guessing

Starting point is 00:27:02 almost all my thoughts and actions more so than usual, which were already at Brobdingnagian proportions, to use a word that I like. Beers Adiju says, after interviewing all these brilliant people and educating yourself on so many topics do you see the world clearly more clearly or are you lost now i'd say beers that i'm much more lost although simultaneously i do see the world more clearly now the way that i i've been thinking about this for a while, and the best I could do is come up with an analogy. Okay, so the analogy looks like this. Imagine that you're a

Starting point is 00:27:53 swimmer, and you're, you're, you can't see the top. You don't know where the surface is. And you're aiming for the surface. You want to get out. You don't know how far below you are. So you estimate, you have some gut, you have some intuition, you have a hunch, and you say, I think I'm 200 meters below the surface, I think the surface is 200 meters up, let's say. And you have a flashlight at the same time, which can see 50 meters ahead. So that's like your clarity, you can see a certain amount ahead. but then you also have an estimation as to how much farther along are you. Well, I would say that what's happened with each interview, I'm swimming upward. So I'm making progress. That is, well, I'm making progress,

Starting point is 00:28:38 but my estimation as to how far the surface is keeps increasing. So whereas last year or two years ago, it would have been 200 meters up, now it's a kilometer up, so a thousand meters up. But my flashlight has also gotten more powerful. So my flashlight can now see 100 meters up. So that's like my clarity has increased. And I've seen that I've made some progress. But at the same time, I'm much farther along.

Starting point is 00:29:03 I mean, sorry, I have much farther to go than I thought. So it's a strange mix of both clarity and, I wouldn't say confusion, but being lost. Boris Martinez says, I see you're a man with a talent for figures, and I wonder what is your IQ, what is your age, and net worth. Three simple yet meaningful numbers. Of course, feel free to send me to hell with my impertinent questions. Okay, for IQ, I... when I was a teenager I did a few tests. I got obsessed with them for a couple weeks, and I did a gamut of tests. The score that I had most frequently was around the high 150s. And the lowest score that I achieved was in the high 120s. And the highest

Starting point is 00:29:58 score that I achieved was in the low 200s. So take that for what it's worth. It could be anywhere from 120, high 120s to low 200. Likely it's around, or likely it was around the high 150s, though it has drastically decreased because, well, turning to the next question, my age is 32 turning 33 and your IQ steadily decreases from 18 to 24 onward and some of these IQ tests were the Raven's progressive matrices test so I do have some faith in them but at the same time they weren't official though I was officially tested by an ADHD clinic because I was tested for ADHD and I apparently do have it. But first, the way that this clinic works is they have to make sure that they separate people from those who can't stay focused because they're simply slow-minded, let's say. In other words, having a low IQ. Or those who

Starting point is 00:30:58 have a functioning IQ and can't focus. And they need to make sure you're in that group before they diagnose you with ADHD. So they did a battery of cognitive tests for me. And I remember that I either scored perfect or scored one away from perfect. There were some verbal tests, that is, what is the definition of so-and-so word? There were some mathematical tests. Now that should be a breeze for me because hopefully I'm trained mathematically. I mean, I should be if I got a degree in it. And there was some physical manipulation puzzles. I remember. And I think that one I didn't, I either scored correctly at the last second, like there was a timer, or I just missed it by one second. I don't recall which one, but either way. As for my net worth, my net worth is disappointing.

Starting point is 00:31:47 This guy said that, I asked him, I believe his name is Boris. Boris Martinez. Boris, what do you think my net worth is before I answer this question on an AMA? He said he thinks it's a half a million USD to 1.5 million USD. And like, that would be, well, it's much much much less in many ways what I'm doing is extremely irresponsible by putting YouTube videos out because I should be working toward building my net worth especially considering I'm thinking of having a kid at some point but my net net worth is

Starting point is 00:32:17 less than a tenth of what he thinks it is so there as for the earnings of this podcast per month it's something like $1,000 and that seems like plenty to some people and nothing to others it depends on where you live where I live it's almost nothing because the rent is already $2,000

Starting point is 00:32:39 per month and the $1,000 doesn't even go directly toward me it It goes toward IndieFilmTO, which is a company that I have as a non-profit because technically we're incubating this Theories of Everything channel as well as my documentary and so on. So what I'm doing is extremely irresponsible, but I see the growth, monetary growth, and I also believe wholeheartedly in what I'm doing and I'm much more fulfilled and excited almost each day to wake up and get started on studying for new guests and to talk to some of the community as well. So I'm at least temporarily being foolish and

Starting point is 00:33:23 pursuing this rather than an accumulation of wealth. 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. Now they're bringing that precision engineering

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Starting point is 00:34:31 If you use that code, you'll get two years worth of blades for free. Just make sure to add them to the cart. Plus 100 free blades when you head to h-e-n-s-o-n-s-h-a-v-i-n-g.com slash everything and use the code everything. Brent, okay, I'll take some questions from the audience right now. If I'm ignoring your question, it's because I'm reading the questions that have been given to me from a few weeks ago. There are quite a few comments. Please.

Starting point is 00:35:03 Oh, Rune Thorson, thank you so much for donating. Have you considered space being a literal movie stage? I don't know what it... I'm sorry, Rune. I don't know what you mean by literal movie stage. I'm a filmmaker, and I would say we use our movie stage in space. So it'd be strange if space was a movie stage. I don't know how to understand that question. Boxers or briefs? Boxers. Stefan, the current status of Better Left Unsaid is that it's complete.

Starting point is 00:35:36 It's releasing tomorrow. Please visit betterleftunsaidfilm.com if you want to buy Better Left Unsaid, because then you will get the director's version. Anna Lukomsky says, is my quest for Toe spiritual or scientific? I'd say it's both, and I don't see why they need to be different, and perhaps they're both the same in their extreme. Perhaps something I'm thinking about is, what is science 2.0? This is something you may hear me talk about quite frequently, at least starting soon. It's a project of mine. Think about this. Science started from pre-science. That is from

Starting point is 00:36:15 alchemy and observation rather than experimentation. That was Aristotle. And then it became science. So then that means there's a trajectory. So then I'm wondering, well, what the heck does that mean for where it can go? What does science 2.0 look like? Does it mean it just explains more phenomenon? What does it mean to explain? Rebecca says that she loved the Tammy Peterson interview. Thank you, Rebecca. I appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:36:43 Making Sense says, we're investing in your growth. Man, thank you so much. You definitely are investing in my growth.. I appreciate it. Making Sense says, we're investing in your growth. Man, thank you so much. You definitely are investing in my growth. And I appreciate it. And hopefully, in some small way, I'm investing in yours. Would I like God to be a reality? Hmm, hmm, hmm. That's a tough question, Rebecca. I can't answer that. Brandon SP says, do you think philosophy should be more crucially in STEM? That's interesting.

Starting point is 00:37:11 See, the people of this channel, sorry, that is you who are watching, you're likely extremely high in openness, extremely high. Otherwise, you wouldn't be on this channel. And people who are high in openness and high in intellect tend to think that everyone else should operate in the same way that they do. And I don't think so. I don't think that everyone should be guided by philosophy. I don't think it interests them. I don't think that it's useful for them at all. And I despise when you'll hear me never, or seldom, I don't like to use the word never, you'll hear me almost never say the word

Starting point is 00:37:42 Or seldom, I don't like to use the word never. You'll hear me almost never say the word stupid to describe people of low IQ. And that's because I don't think there's anything wrong with people with low IQ. I see it as an arrogance of people who are intellectual to look down at people who are less intellectual than them. At the same time, they need them to run their company, so they despise them, yet they need them, which means you don't like the people that you cooperate with, which means you don't like humanity in some respect.

Starting point is 00:38:16 Also, IQ is heavily hereditary. That means that calling someone stupid, which to me is an ethically thick word, which means that it comes with a descriptive, a description and a connotation. So the description is you have a low IQ, but the connotation is that you're inferior because of it. It's almost like the N word. There's the description. You're a black person, but then there's the connotation that you're inferior and I'm insulting you the word stupid is like that And I don't like the word stupid. I don't I I wish that

Starting point is 00:38:49 Intellectuals wouldn't use that word Because it firstly makes people with low IQ feel horrible about themselves, and they can't necessarily help it because like I mentioned The research indicates that IQ is is extremely inveterate. It's like your ethnicity. It's something you can't change, though. You can harm it. You can reduce it. And so it's like being racist to me. If someone says you're stupid, that's like it's the same.

Starting point is 00:39:16 It should be considered to be the same as being racist. Anyway, Brandon, to answer your question about do i think philosophy should feature more crucially in stem education i don't think so necessarily because i don't think it's for everyone though i need to think more about that question brandon sp you also have another question what is your intuition as to the weirdness of a theory of everything that would have to be there for it to be the real deal any ideas as to its form compared to current conceptions of physics. I think at a minimum it should unify general relativity and quantum field theory. I think at a minimum it should do that. I think that there may be more forces than just the four that we know. I think

Starting point is 00:39:56 space-time isn't as simple as, or may not be as simple as, a pseudo-Riemannian four-manifold. I think it may be more strange than just that. I think consciousness may have some integral part to play. And I'm not saying this in any hokey or quote-unquote woo-woo manner, because Nima, Arkani, Hamed, and even Ed Witten have espoused similar sentiments, though I can't find the exact quotation. I've looked for the Ed Witten one. Nima, though, Nima did say that he thinks consciousness may have something to do with the collapse of the wave function, and the reason he gives is, it's a great one. He says Penrose thinks so, and Penrose isn't an idiot, and I don't, and, well, that's basically the argument. Nima's one of the brightest physicists in the world, by the way. I also think that an understanding as to the origins of the universe is necessary for a

Starting point is 00:40:47 tau, for a theory of everything. So those are five elements. That is unifying quantum field theory with general relativity. I think that there may be more forces. This is not necessary. I'm surmising. And then space-time is more intricate than a simple pseudo-Riemannian four-manifold. That consciousness may have a paramount role.

Starting point is 00:41:13 And that I believe it has to do with the origins of the universe. Bubble Puppy says, have you tried to get Bob Lazar on? So yes, I've tried to get Bob Lazar on. I don't want to use Jeremy Corbell as a contact because it's off-putting to use some of your interviewees to get other interviewees, but I have no idea of how to contact Bob, and I think that Bob Lazar is uninterested in speaking, which is why I would love to just talk to him about physics. Philip, Philip, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Philip Strenstrom asked a question, and I believe it'll come up. Yeah, okay, so Graham Josh says, or Joss, please, excuse me if I'm mispronouncing your name.

Starting point is 00:41:58 Graham Joss says, Kurt, what do you plan on doing with the knowledge you're collecting? Is there a synthesis coming? Well, see, there are different kinds of mathematicians. There are the kinds of mathematicians, and I'm not a mathematician, but let me go down this route. There are some mathematicians who are great at the details, and there are some mathematicians who are great at overviews. Now, I would say I'm more SMPlastic in the sense that I'm much more interested in unifying disparate fields and principles. And I seem to have a knack for that.

Starting point is 00:42:30 This is one of the reasons why I'm interviewing as many variegated intellectuals as I possibly can, then I'll assemble. So yes, there is a synthesis coming. It's not coming only from me, but hopefully from you all as well. We have a Discord and people talk there. And I do read it. I don't get the chance to read them all all the time. But, oh yes, at some point, here's what I would like to do.

Starting point is 00:42:54 This is an announcement. I would like to get some people who are audience members that have their own toe, their own theory of everything, to come on the Toe Clippings channel, which will have a link in the description. I think it already does. If not, you can find it search toe clippings and YouTube. It's a channel of the clips from this channel. And I want them to live stream because I don't have the time always to go through. It takes me quite some time to go through someone's corpus of work. It would be great if what would happen is I get two people who two audience members who have toes and I say,

Starting point is 00:43:24 hey, you want to be talked about on this channel. and I would like you to be talked about as well, but I don't have the time to go through your entire theory. So why don't you learn this person's theory, and this person learn this person's theory, and battle it out on a live stream with me moderating. This way, there's something called Theomachy, which is battle of the gods, and I tend to like that. That's one of the reasons why I think people find debates to be nourishing and prepossessing. It's because you're seeing people who are giants fight to the best of their ability, and then you learn often much more than if they were to simply present their work in a lecture. Daniel says,

Starting point is 00:44:01 How have your views on Marxism evolved since starting this channel? in a lecture. Daniel says, how have your views on Marxism evolved since starting this channel? Well, again, for those who are watching, not to turn this into a complete promotion for Better Left Unsaid, but I have a documentary called Better Left Unsaid, which is about when does the left go too far, the political left. The reason is that it's extremely easy to identify when the right goes too far, because one might co-locate them with racists and bigots and so on, and they seem to overtly state that. Whereas on the left, it's more philosophical, which you can read as that being my domain. I like philosophy. Now that that's out of the way, the person wants to know, how have my views on Marxism evolved?

Starting point is 00:44:44 My views have changed to become more perplexed by anyone who is staunched in thinking that Marxism is correct, or if they think socialism is correct, or socialism is de facto wrong. It's, it's, it's just extremely difficult to, these, these concepts, these, these concepts, these... Firstly, there's no consensus as to what Marxism is. There's no consensus as to what socialism is. There's no consensus as to what capitalism is, though there seems to be a little bit more of a consensus there. And so when someone says capitalism is absolutely correct, or socialism is absolutely correct, it tells me more about their predilection to adherence of a particular handed down doctrine than it does tell me about their, than it does tell me about the doctrine itself. And so I'd say that's how my views have changed.

Starting point is 00:45:34 Drav Gupta says, he wants to know, or she wants to know, your introduction with films and your interest in watching them now. Now I used to, I watch virtually any movie now. I used to be a film snob. As for my introduction to films, I started off just like anyone else, just watching films. Never had an extreme attraction to them. Still don't. I just watch them with my wife, almost as pastime to enjoy with her. I don't crave watching films. I actually enjoy creating more than I do watching, than I always have.

Starting point is 00:46:03 Elijah says, hey Kurt, Revulet here. I'm fascinated by people's upbringing and was curious if you could give us a rundown as to what it was like growing up. What were your parents like? What were some of the most significant moments of your life? What was it like growing up? Well, I grew up in a somewhat tough neighborhood of Toronto. Keep in mind, tough neighborhood of Toronto. That's in Canada. That means a pleasant neighborhood in the States, let's say. So I grew up in a relatively tough neighborhood in Toronto called Jane and Finch. As for my parents, my parents are hardworking people. Hard, hard, hard, hard, hardworking people. They worked like mad. They came from almost nothing my dad especially my dad's and his

Starting point is 00:46:49 brothers slept on dirt in trinidad there were nights where they slept on dirt there were nights or times where they ate dirt they also ate the dirt they slept on the dirt they ate the dirt at times which i think means that they were lacking in a certain vitamin might be b12 came from that to coming to toronto bringing their family having kids and now i have this sumptuous splendor of prosperity around me where i have a condo and I can speak into a microphone and relay that to hundreds or at least almost 100 people who are watching and I have nice clothing

Starting point is 00:47:34 and I have it's just wonderful I'm not a tenth of my parents in terms of diligence. As for what were the significant moments of my life, getting married. Getting married was a huge moment for me. I love my wife.

Starting point is 00:48:02 Screening my first film was also a huge moment for me. It's screened at a place called the Toronto International Film Festival Lightbox. That's the TIFF Lightbox, or the Bell TIFF Lightbox, because it's owned by Bell Media. That was a huge moment for me because it was received well. Although I wouldn't recommend watching it now. It's anything that I've done that's more than two years old, I'm utterly embarrassed of. Utterly. In fact, anything that's more than six months old, I cringe at. So this is five years old, or six years old. I wouldn't look at it if I was you. I'll take some questions now from the chat. Did I ever take Peterson's classes at U of T? No.

Starting point is 00:48:41 Didn't know about him. Okay, So this person says, you said in the Borchardt's interview that he was the smartest, one of the smartest, if not the smartest, then who is the smartest? He is. He's the smartest person that I've interviewed, I believe. What did my mother and father do to earn this type of wealth? They just kept working. My mom worked at a factory job, like a hard labor factory job. My dad, at like 35, got an undergrad degree when he couldn't even understand the teachers because he not that trinidad is different than english but it is a different kind of english he would have to write all the words that the teacher said and he even wrote down the jokes and he didn't know

Starting point is 00:49:17 what were jokes and what weren't jokes because he couldn't comprehend it particularly well and he would reread and read. He basically memorized different textbooks because that was the only way he could learn. And they tell you don't memorize, but memorizing is actually, I think that's a, I think that's a disservice that our culture has done by saying you shouldn't memorize what you can easily look up. And in some sense, that's true, but there is a case to be made for memorization. Having it within your working memory, or at least within your, the capacity of your working memory with facility is of great use.

Starting point is 00:49:48 So my dad at 35, he said he was humiliated because people were 18 year olds in his classes. But at times he would even sleep in a car because he had to drive far and he couldn't drive back. He would sleep in his car, go to classes just to get a degree at around 35, 36 years old, just so that he can get eventually a master's so that he can become a teacher so my mom's back-breaking work almost literally back-breaking work at a factory and my dad's intense devotion to scholarly accolades so that he can be hired as a teacher is what allowed for me to be in the position that i'm in now

Starting point is 00:50:22 elay j says can you explain the most bizarre and profound experience that I've ever had, whether dreaming under the influence, psychedelics, whatever it may be? no i'm sorry elijah i cannot explain it philip o says do you think there could be another coherent answer to the question of why is there something rather than nothing i think there could be i don I don't see why there can't be. I just don't know what it would look like, and I don't have a clue as to what it is. Philip S. says, I have a question for you that's waited on me for some time. This is a problem, a feeling of inadequacy and uselessness. When I think of someone better than me, I get the feeling that I'm less than that person. There's something humiliating about the fact that there's someone who's better than me

Starting point is 00:51:25 and stands up higher in the hierarchy and as if they have power over me. Are all humans equally worth? I think you mean to say are all humans of equal worth. Isn't it obvious that humans have different degrees of power? He references Spinoza. The thought of this makes me feel inadequate and worthless, especially compared to some people like, for example, Noam Chomsky, he says. Okay. There's a quote that I reference plenty. It's by Hildegard de Bingen.

Starting point is 00:52:03 She was a medieval monk, I believe. She said in one of her writings, and pride germinated in the first angel as he could no longer comprehend the source of his own light and through his own radiance, he said, he spoke to himself and said, I want to be master and want none above me now that one strikes me

Starting point is 00:52:28 that one I think about weekly maybe there's such power there so I want none above me is interesting it equates wanting no master with Lucifer so that is it's satanic thinking to think that

Starting point is 00:52:46 I want none above me. I understand that this can be taken to mean, okay, well, let's justify slavery then, but that's not what it's saying. I mean, you can interpret it like that, but I think that's as foolish as interpreting the early comics of Wonder Woman to be about sex when that's not all they were about. I saw that in a movie once and that reminded me of Matt Dillahunty talking

Starting point is 00:53:14 about that God likes human barbecue. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to say that. It's such a simple-minded reading of it. And what's false about false about is that it's true actually sorry what's tricky about it is that it's true but it's not all that's true in the same way that the early wonder woman comics weren't just about sex they also liberated many women or were about female empowerment and so on and to say it was just just about someone in scantily clad clothing performing BDSM. It's such a devaluing of what it is. It's such a purposeful devaluing of what it is. And I see that in Matt Delahunty's interpretation of the Bible. Anyway, to get back to this question.

Starting point is 00:54:17 I think that to believe that any human is above you, or even below you, is a sin. I think that to compare yourself to anyone in terms of worth is a sin. I think that for you to think of yourself as more moral than someone else is a sin. Or even conversely, then the converse has to be the case, that for you to think of yourself as less moral is a sin, though that one might be a lesser sin. In the Christian doctrine, there's a huge emphasis, I'm sorry, in the Judeo-Christian doctrine,

Starting point is 00:54:41 there's a huge emphasis that there's a nugget of divinity at the core of each person, and that they're all equally inviolable, which means that you are of no less worth than Jeff Bezos. Now, see, this is what materialism does. Materialism is the philosophy as well as being materialistic, but let's talk about the philosophy. If you just look at the world through a material lens, then Jeff Bezos is better than you in some way because, yes, he has more power and more money. But then that, to me, demonstrates the lack, that demonstrates to me that there's something lacking in pure materialism.

Starting point is 00:55:32 in pure materialism. See, in Christianity, there's the cross. And I always wonder if one, it symbolizes quite a few, symbols are interesting because symbols take into account maybe a hundred phenomenon and put it into one. So this is just one interpretation. But I've always wondered if this level, the horizontal, sorry, if I keep biting my mouth, it's interpretation, but I've always wondered if this level, the horizontal, sorry, if I keep biting my mouth, it's because, like I said, I didn't sleep much, and I didn't drink enough water, and so my lips are dry. The horizontal may be the material level, and the vertical may be the spiritual. What it's saying is the spiritual, the material matters, but also the spiritual.

Starting point is 00:56:09 And it's where they intersect that matters most. And what's interesting is in the cross, not in the olden days they were even, but now you see the material level as being slightly higher. What that means is that the spiritual matters more because it's higher on the spiritual axis. I think it's a sin to think of the world only through a materialistic lens. But this is a tough question.

Starting point is 00:56:38 In some sense, all that matters is that you're swimming, you're swimming upward, to go back to my analogy of the diver, I think all that matters is that you're swimming upward, and you're trying to try to swim upwards, and make sure that each day you can see yourself as farther along than you were before, and that's easy, absolutely easy for anyone, for me to say, especially because, like I mentioned, I have have such i'm so lucky with what i have and i'm in a fantastic place in my life and i know that if when i was depressed which i can get to a little bit about here if you like philip this may interest you when i was 18 until maybe 26 or so, I was extremely, extremely depressed, even suicidal.

Starting point is 00:57:26 I was so depressed. Depressed from indolence, from my own indolence, and from my own self-loathing. But I was so depressed that I even enumerated the different ways that I could commit suicide and the pros and cons of each. enumerated the different ways that I could commit suicide and the pros and cons of each. I lost many years of university to it. I got literal zeros in my classes because I just didn't show up. Literal zeros.

Starting point is 00:57:59 My undergrad, which should have taken me three to four years to complete, ended up taking me seven years. it wasn't until i mean there are many factors that got me out of it but one of them was to one of them was akin to self-development and not thinking of i want to say not thinking of people as better than myself, but that's a human quality. I don't know of anyone who... Some people will say, yeah, hey, like, I don't think of this person as above me or this person as below me, but I'm pretty sure that they are just unaware of their own unconscious attitudes. But you can mitigate it. I think our society has done a huge disservice with its emphasis on dating, dating people over and over,

Starting point is 00:58:44 has done a huge disservice with its emphasis on dating, dating people over and over. And I think that there's a profound, a profoundness to finding one person, one person and devoting yourself to that person loyalty, and, and love and saying, I'm never leaving you never, never, never, never leaving you no matter what I'm choosing you, no matter what, no matter, no matter what other temptations there are, I matter what, no matter, no matter what other temptations there are, I choose you, I choose you, and then that, and then that person has to do the same to you, and that's, in our culture, that's called marriage, and there's something to that, because life is such a harsh, harsh, harsh game. It's such a harsh game. And if you can say, man, it doesn't matter. The world can be against me. The whole world can be

Starting point is 00:59:33 against me. But if you're with me, then it's okay. As long as you're with me and I'm with you, it's okay. You also have to be close to God. Now, God can be whatever you conceptualize it to be, the universe or so on. I mean, it then becomes so diluted that it becomes meaningless. But what happens if you lose your partner, right? Then you've lost your only hope. So that means you have to have something outside your partner. And that's why it's important that in a marriage, the marriage ceremony is sanctified by God, because God is always going to be there. At

Starting point is 01:00:12 least that's what it says in the Judeo-Christian texts. You have to have something that will always be there. So at least you can always have God. You have to always have something, always have your family, let's say, so that the world can be against you, but you have them, and that's all that matters. And I think that our society has done such a disservice by telling people that what matters is for you to date and see people and treat them indispensably, as if they're pieces of clothing that you try on and return until you find the right fit. I think that's a horrible... I think that's a... And I'm saying this because there were years where I philandered and was a Lothario, let's say, indiscriminately seducing women. And I regret that. And it's not fun for you to look at your...

Starting point is 01:01:13 And I know this from talking to people. No matter what, whenever you're in a committed relationship with whatever, whoever it is, you're hurt as much as you don't want to say it. You're hurt by their past. And they're hurt by yours. It's not good. It's not fun.

Starting point is 01:01:30 So I'd say stick to your... That's a tough question, Philip. Stick to your conscience. Don't violate your conscience. Never violate your conscience. Stick by someone. Never violate them. Never violate them.

Starting point is 01:01:43 And that's all that matters. And swim up. Always swim up always swim up no matter what jim carrey said that he wishes everyone had 15 minutes of fame because they would see how futile it is now that may be easy for him to say because he already has it but wouldn't it be a shame wouldn't it be a shame if you were led by something false simply because you told yourself it was true? So have a goal. Keep moving up. The world can be against you as long as you have your loved ones. And conversely, look, you can have the world,

Starting point is 01:02:19 but not have your loved ones, and it's a horrible life. It's a meaningless one, so that's not where the meaning is. So move toward where the meaning is. Move toward where the meaning is. Finn says, appreciate your videos. What is, in your opinion, the most suited sentence to describe consciousness? I don't know how to describe consciousness without automatically assuming it. So there's one, which is consciousness is awareness. Consciousness is what it's like to be. But then what is to be? Well, who knows? Dastel Main wants to know, do you think string theory is wrong?

Starting point is 01:02:59 I think string theory may actually be correct in a strange manner. For example, I was talking with a professor or a former professor of mathematics about Eric Weinstein's geometric unity, as well as the monster group, which seems like it has nothing to do with geometric unity. But there is a way to unify geometric unity, string theory, as well as Lisi's E8 via the monster group and strings, more technically brains. E8 via the monster group and strings more technically brains. So, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not one of those people like Sabine Hossenfelder who make their abhorrence of string theory known and develop a following because of it. I don't know if string theory is correct. I used to be somewhat of an arrogant little teenager who barely understood string theory at the time and would say, yeah, string theory is foolish, but I'm not like that anymore. Okay, Frederick Guigui wants to know, he just says AMA with Robert Sapolsky, so I'm working on it, Frederick. Game Changer says, should one go against his belief in order to not risk his own

Starting point is 01:04:00 financial security, well-being, and when does persuasion become manipulation if the intent is never selfish or bad? Please watch your health and make sure you get enough sleep and do not stress even if the quality suffers. The fastest tortoise wins, sending you lots of love. And then there's a couple emoticons. Okay, so the question is, should you risk financial insecurity in order to retain your beliefs? Well, I would say never violate your conscience. Never, never, never. Always do what you believe is right. Never lie. Never, never, never lie. Especially in the small cases, especially in the small cases, because they're the easiest to lie about. There's a time that I was, when I was doing videography, there was a client who said, and I'm making up some

Starting point is 01:04:41 numbers, but let's say he said, we agreed upon $5,200 for a video. So he said, and this was over the phone and he's like, or video call, whatever, 5,200. I said, okay. A day later he said, Hey Kurt, what was that number that I, that you quoted me again, or that we agreed upon? Now there's one option that he was lying and testing me. But I didn't get that feeling. And let's assume it's not. I remember debating for almost an entire day. Should I tell him $5,400? Because he doesn't remember it.

Starting point is 01:05:14 He has, he's a millionaire, a multi-millionaire. Then I thought about it, I thought about it, I thought about it. And I thought, don't violate your conscience for $200, Kurt. Don't corrupt your soul for $200. If the money is large, it's easier to not corrupt yourself because you can always say to yourself, well, I can't ask for $10,000 extra because one, they'll find out. But two, maybe someone else needs it and so on. So it's the small cases that matter because they're harder.

Starting point is 01:05:49 The small cases are so minor as to merit disregard. But you can't disregard the blemishes on your soul. And they often take, they often require wiping clean with interest. Keep in mind, Jesus didn't have financial security, by the way. Jesus didn't have F.U. money and he still lived right. Same with Moses. In fact, Moses, I believe, gave up F.U. money. It's a bit ridiculous when I hear people say that what you need is f you money.

Starting point is 01:06:25 No, what you need is principles. You need to stick by them. So it's easy to be courageous when you have tenure. In fact, that's not courage. It's courageous to have to stand up for what you believe in despite not having the security behind you. In fact, just so you know, I left the field of marketing. I used to be a marketer. I left the field of marketing specifically because of this. I don't think it's ethical. I think most of marketing is unethical. And I think the people who are marketers know this.

Starting point is 01:06:59 And they have to couch what they do in language that is so self-deluded like value. I'm adding value. Adding. You'll hear this over and over. This Tony Robbins-esque rhetoric that I was wholly supporting and a part of and indoctrinated in. Although I wouldn't say indoctrinated because I allowed it to take place. As for the persuasion and manipulation question, I would say, lay the truth out as best you can and allow whatever occurs to occur. Don't try to persuade anyone of anything. See, this is extremely difficult because there are some people who come to me for advice.

Starting point is 01:07:31 Personal people. And they're so personal that I actually have a stake in which way it goes. And I want to... I used to do so much influencing that I feel like I know the set of words that I could say such that they would then choose one outcome over the other. But then I have to tell myself that I don't know what's best. And they have I have to just say what I think is true, and listen to them and let them come to their own conclusions. So that's another reason why when I'm being interviewed for the documentary, people ask, What am I advocating for? I'm not advocating for

Starting point is 01:08:01 anything, because I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I don't think that's a great way to operate. I think you should just say what you think and then let people incorporate that and then they contribute some and then you take some of that. I think that this whole to advocate implies that you already know the answer. And that you know what's better for the other person as well. That's why I would say that there's a fine line between persuasion and manipulation and I would advise against it. Don't breach a contract with yourself or with God or with the universe. Don't violate yourself. Okay, and as for my health and my sleep, well, that's tricky, because some of this takes quite a bit of work, and I often have to

Starting point is 01:08:52 sacrifice if I want to release with quality frequently and grow this channel. It requires some amount of longanimity, which saps me of my... Well, which saps me slowly. But at some point soon, I would like to go on a one-week, full-week vacation. I would love that. That would be great. My wife would also love that. Would I consider doing an interview with Stephen Wolfe from Frederick? Yes, I'm working on it. Stephen's entire theory may take two months of work. Jim Carrey is crazy. Look, I don't think you should, I know you're saying that somewhat

Starting point is 01:09:25 flippantly and frivolously, but this is something else that I feel adamantly about. I don't like, I don't like to dismiss anyone as stupid. I don't like to dismiss anyone as crazy. I actually have an adverse reaction to that. One, because to be crazy is actually, it's not pleasant. And I also have an intimation that some of what we think of as crazy people may be on to something that's so that's truthful that's so outside our worldview that we consider them to be crazy i know so i i don't like this dismissal of people by labeling them as crazy this could be interesting you said paul vanderclay talked about fu money and jesus yeah well i did talk to paul vanderclay it's on this channel okay getting back game changer says what drives you to find a toe and how much do you entertain

Starting point is 01:10:16 that a toe can be found in this universe because if this universe came from another one where there was a singularity then how can we find a toe well okay the what drives me to find a toe is the same reason that drives people to understand god or to understand their place in the universe, or their purpose, or where they're going, or their origins. And I also happen to like puzzles, and I can't conceive of a greater puzzle than this. I mean, the Riemann hypothesis is interesting. When I was 16, I thought that that's what I would go into university solving. Geoffrey Ghaffari says, If I were to suggest, maybe make the transition between

Starting point is 01:10:45 each question a bit smoother so that the guest can connect one answer from another. This is not a question. It's almost a critique. But it's one that I hear brought up quite frequently. So I thought I'd address it. See, this is almost a question about my interview style to the degree that I have one. I always am surprised when people say that they like my interview style or that they... No one is at least that abrupt to say, I hate your interview style. So I mainly get compliments, but I'm sure they do. And they just don't leave comments because they're actually nice people and don't want to be rude. But either way, I'm always surprised.

Starting point is 01:11:23 I'm like, I don't have a style. I don't see myself as having a particular style. Once I talking to desh who's the producer of better left unsaid one last promo for better left unsaid it's a film that's releasing tomorrow i directed it wrote it star in it it's about when does the extreme left go what constitutes the extreme left politically speaking and you can see it at better left unsaid film.com please buy it from there number one the money goes more toward the filmmakers then If you were to get it from iTunes because they take a cut and number two You get the directors version if you're a fan of this channel. You'll probably like the directors version much more

Starting point is 01:11:57 Okay, so I was talking to Desh about one of my older videos. It wasn't doing too well I mean they have like a 90% like ratio, but that's actually low. It should be around 98% if you have a decent following and so on. And I asked him, I was saying, like, yeah, I'm getting criticized. And he said, Kurt, it's because you're mixing up different interview styles. The audience doesn't know which frame to interpret. It's not the content itself. It's just that they don't know how to interpret what you're doing. So there's three styles. This is what Desh was telling me. He said, there's the Joe Rogan conversational style of interview. There's the documentary style. And that documentary style is

Starting point is 01:12:32 probably the one that I had going into that interview because it was for the documentary. And that one is where you actually know the format of your documentary and you're not trying to get them to say a particular phrase, but you're trying to get them to say phrases in a particular manner so that they're easily editable and easily placeable in the lacuna inside the editing. And then, so there's the Joe Rogan interview, the documentary interview, and then there's the journalist type interview. And he said, Kurt, you're mixing up all three and people are getting confused. And then I said to him, there's a fourth that you're not considering,

Starting point is 01:13:03 and that is office hours. In fact, I wanted to rename this there's a fourth that you're not considering. And that is office hours. In fact, I wanted to rename this channel Office Hours at one point. Because in university, there's something called office hours where a professor just says, come in and ask me whatever you like. You have questions, you have misunderstandings and misapprehensions. Come, let's hammer them out. That's what Theories of Everything is. It's office hours.

Starting point is 01:13:23 I get this professor or this luminary in for an hour to three hours often. I have questions. I don't understand particular aspects of their theories. So what I'm doing is I'm asking them almost selfishly what I don't understand. And then the audience is there. I'm almost indifferent to the audience. I know that sounds horrible, but in a way it's not because the audience tends to be more engaged the more I'm engaged and there's a facade of some people who ask questions that they don't care about so I'm asking questions that I care about and when

Starting point is 01:13:54 One gap has been filled then I just move on to the next there's no need for me to make a smooth transition because I Don't care about a smooth transition. I understand that the audience can often feel disoriented, but I'm also aware that I have a fixed amount of time with the person, and this is primarily to explicate toes. This is about explicating toes, theories of everything. I want to make sure that this channel gives some time to each potential theory of everything. When you talk to people who say that they study theories of everything, they actually don't. And the reason why I say that is that there are maybe 30 to 50

Starting point is 01:14:31 academic toes, and then 100, there are about 100 to 200 non-academic toes. And when I interview virtually every single person, and I ask them, so what do you think about this theory of everything, or this one, or this one? Some of them they'll know about and some of them they won't have an opinion about because they've never investigated it, which to me, how can you claim that you have the correct theory of everything if you haven't conversed with the community and understood what the options are, the alternatives? It's not simple. It's absolutely not simple. That's another reason why my interview style, if there's a style, is that I get into some of the academic chaparral or the intricacies, because I need to mention what is SO10, or what is X-bar structure in microtubules or sporadic groups and so on, if this podcast is geared towards solving a problem,

Starting point is 01:15:25 which it is. So if you are part of this community, one of the ways that you can think about this community to the degree there's a community is that what separates this podcast from others is that other podcasts are mainly conversational and they're just about, well, I want to talk inspirational often,

Starting point is 01:15:39 like Tim Ferriss and Lex Friedman. There's nothing wrong with them. They're brilliant, brilliant at what they do. I'm not adept at what they do. But this is geared toward actually solving a specific problem and the problem of theories of everything. So that means there may be a final date to it. It may end in three years.

Starting point is 01:15:55 It may end in two years. It may end in ten years. There's a series, my favorite series, that's a drama called Breaking Bad. One of the reasons it was so great, absolutely great, was that they didn't have it run past its prime. They had an end in mind from day one. It was, how do I get from here? That is, I forget what Vince Gilligan called Walter White, whatever, some nerdy teacher calling Mr. Magoo to Scarface. That was the journey. So ours is unknown to knowing or advancing a theory of everything. That's the goal. Let's

Starting point is 01:16:33 read some of the comments now. Are you planning on getting your PhD in physics? No, no, no, no, no, no. What I'm, no, there's no, no, no, many reasons for no, sorry. Okay, here's one reason. If you could get a PhD in physics, you have to solve a particular problem and it has to be a solvable problem. This seems like an intractable one. You would not get approved to be, you would not get approved if you said,

Starting point is 01:16:54 what I want to do is survey the theories of everything and make an advanced, a potential new theory of everything. That would not get any funding and that's the way it works, as well as you have other departmental meetings. When I talked to, I was talking to Jonathan Gerard of Stephen Wolfram. Jonathan Gerard is a bright, bright, bright fellow, bright fellow. And he was saying, I was telling him, we're just talking about what we do for our days. He was saying, well, I had to

Starting point is 01:17:20 do so and so work. And then I got to do some research, and he asked me what I do, and I said, pretty much I research all day, and he said that that's the dream life for an academic. Research all day, whatever you want. So luckily, luckily, I'm so lucky that I get to do that. Do I plan to study physics in the future? I am studying physics. Okay, thank you for calling me a hot man and a Okay, thank you for calling me a hot man and a handsome man. That's flattering. I appreciate that. Have I grown more sympathetic to the left after interviewing Chomsky many times? I've grown more sympathetic to virtually every side after interviewing virtually every person.

Starting point is 01:17:58 I don't think that one side... See, there's this phrase that says, only the shallowest of mind can believe that in great controversy one side is mere folly and i tend to believe that i don't think that the radical left quote-unquote is mere folly i don't think that the alt-right is mere folly as well although that might get you banned for saying i don't think that the pro-socialists or the pro-capitalists are mere folly i think that many of them are misguided i think that many of them are deluded i think that many of them are deluded. I think that many of them are selfish. I think that many of them are lazy thinkers, let's say. But who among us are not? Scythe B, I'm trying to decipher your question.

Starting point is 01:18:33 I always have a difficult time. So please rewrite that if you don't mind, because I have to read quickly, as I want to get through this fairly fast. I'm only halfway done, and it's been an hour and a half. And I imagine that I'm going to lose some subscribers for this But hopefully the ones that I retain are the ones that are more interested in theories of everything. Okay, GL XL says why haven't you interviewed? Jason Reza George on II yet do it then he put some emoticons. I

Starting point is 01:18:57 Don't know this person Grizz Graham says I'm a random troll on the internet with a theory of everything. Do you? Plan on branching out past the respectable demographic on your show? What he's referring to is right now I'm interviewing primarily academics, though Thomas Campbell isn't one and Bernardo Castro isn't one. The answer to this is yes. I actually encourage people to send me PDFs. And if you don't know where to send me email, you can send me at a toe. That is T O E at indie film, to.com. That email address is also in the about page of this channel. I believe send me it there.

Starting point is 01:19:32 What I would like to do is get two people because I takes me quite some time to go through an entire toe. I want to get two people, non-academic toes, let's say, and get them to agree that I'm going to critique this person, and this person is going to critique me, and Kurt, you can moderate it, and we're going to live stream that on the Toll Clippings channel. The reason is that I don't want to dilute the density of material on this channel, and at the same time, I do want to give an audience to the people who are more on the less rigorous side. Griswold Grimm also says, if your data department

Starting point is 01:20:09 reported all your interviews and all the backups were lost, which one would you hope wasn't lost? Well, I don't know why if they reported it, it was lost, but let's just say it was lost in a fire. The one that I would choose to be kept would be Bernardo Kastrup's. Any thoughts on Chris Langan's toe? I'm interviewing, I mean, yes, I'm interviewing him in late spring, I believe, or mid spring. So watch out for that. What are your thoughts on Wittgenstein's ladder?

Starting point is 01:20:35 The idea of propositions that refute themselves. Yeah, yeah, that was an interesting one. He said that all of this was pretty much for you to get up the ladder and then kick it away. When I believe it was in his tractatus. See, Wittgenstein's a super interesting individual because he's heralded by the new atheist rationalists as being on their side, but he adamantly was not. He actually, I think Norman Malcolm said, the religiosity that characterized Wittgenstein's later life surpassed even those who consider themselves to be religious. And Wittgenstein said that he only, he believes that his work is only

Starting point is 01:21:19 worth it if the light shines from on high, as well as he said about Bach's phrase, he said, Bach said, to the glory of the most high, and let my neighbors be benefited thereby. The most high God, that is. And Wittgenstein said, I wish that that could be said about my work. So Wittgenstein was deeply religious. In fact, he said, part of his work, well, he didn't say this in these words, but he said that part of his work was that religious experience and consciousness and qualia and so on are so outside linguistic expression that it's better to be silent about them because you reduce them and you cause a curtailment of them by speaking about them. Hans Frankfurter says, I'm 36 and can I still learn

Starting point is 01:22:01 mathematics that's advanced and contribute something meaningful? So I would say, Hans, that it depends on your assiduity and your IQ. So that is your diligence and your intellect. And that you have more of a chance of understanding the mathematics than you do have of contributing to mathematics. Unless what you, if all you're concerned about is contributing, then go into a burgeoning field. Find a new field where there are relatively few papers or it's just extremely new and research that. Though I wouldn't recommend that because

Starting point is 01:22:31 then you're chasing new for newness sake and I don't particularly understand why. Ivan Goran says, are you familiar with general semantics of Alfred Korosvitsky? No, I'm not. I'm familiar with some of Chomsky's work, and to the degree that it's a subset of Chomsky's work, or a superset, I don't know. JA524309 says, I can't believe, this is, he was referring to Richard Borchardt. He said, I can't believe you asked Richard Borchardt one of my questions from the comments in his commutative algebra videos. How did you find that, and did you just watch all his videos? Well, I'll say that I do my research before speaking to people I do my research. Second, I learn and relearn mathematics

Starting point is 01:23:13 almost on a daily basis, so I watch lectures, many lectures online. In fact, here's something you can let me know if you're interested in this. I was thinking of live streaming my own study sessions just to mitigate my own proclivities to ADHD and distractibility, as well as it's interesting to the audience to study or to watch someone study because then they study and they're more motivated to do so. I realized that the Toe Clippings channel has only 350 subscribers. It requires 1,000 subscribers in order for me to live stream there, which I just found out today because I was trying to live stream this there. So once we hit 1,000, then I'll consider doing more live streams on that channel, again, as to not dilute the quality of this one. Johan Hedeval says, which one of your interviews

Starting point is 01:23:53 made you feel more energized directly afterward and perhaps inspired you to try and apply? Well, which ones made you more energized afterward and which ones made you feel tired? Okay, virtually every single interview makes me feel wired right afterward, though I generally go into them extremely habitudinous and lacking of energy. And that's one, because of my general, let's say, dullness of mind. But two, that's because I'm often tired and fasting directly before in an effort to study for the interview. It's difficult for me to get sleep when I know a podcast is coming up the next day because I'm thinking about it, thinking about it, and I have trouble. I have extreme trouble with my own mind.

Starting point is 01:24:37 I'm uncomfortable with my own mind, and it's something I need to work on. It's something I struggle with. It's difficult to shut my mind off, and meditation does not help, has not helped. I've tried it many, many times. As for what drained me, what interview drained me, there are two interviews that actually drained me. Methuna's interview on Looking Glass Universe, I was so tired going into it. I was just falling, falling, taking everything from me to read and to pay attention to the words she's saying. A little bit of that is happening right now. That was not because she was an insipid guest at all. It was because of my own enervatedness and listlessness. As for

Starting point is 01:25:26 the other guest that drained me, Thomas Campbell. Okay, Thomas, bless his heart. He is my friend. Well, I don't know if he would consider me a friend. I consider him a friend. I hold him with high regard, but that man is incapable of giving an answer that is less than two minutes long. In fact, often his answers would go up to 30 minutes long. And I'm just thinking time is money here, Tom. I have 100 questions to get to. And I have a massage to get to and my wife is coming home and I would like to eat at some point. And you've told me this before and you're saying the same sentiment in different words 50 times. Can we please get to the point? So Thomas was extremely draining. He speaks laboriously and

Starting point is 01:26:07 it's impossible for me to get a quick answer out of him. But bless his heart. June 80 says, number one, you're a hot dude. Thank you. I appreciate that. Number two, what you do is so unique. Thanks for the pursuit. I appreciate that. Number three, what are your views on pineapple on pizza? Okay, so I assume this is a serious question. I, let me think about this. I don't dislike it. I actually like it, though I would never order it. I'm not snobbish when it comes to food. In fact, I'm indiscriminately voracious. I'm the opposite. I think I need to be a bit more snobbish because I'll eat almost... I mean, I don't eat lamb and I don't eat any...

Starting point is 01:27:01 I consider those to be advanced animals for some reason in my brain. I consider them to be a different kind, like lamb and goat and duck and deer. I don't eat those. I just, I'm a simple man. Chicken and cows and pigs. That's it. Even pigs, I don't, I only like bacon. But within that, I eat virtually anything.

Starting point is 01:27:26 Okay, then he said, or she said, what is it that you may have not done on your time on Earth that could leave you with one regret on your deathbed? I imagine it's not spending enough time with my parents. I'm selfish and I could spend much more time with them and it lifts their spirit like mad. It lifts their spirit, especially my mom,

Starting point is 01:27:55 especially during lockdown. But I don't visit as much as I could. Part of that is my own. could. And part of that is my own. I just treat them as an imposition on my work. And I know they feel that and I don't try to convey that and I try to even hide that and I even saying it right now. I don't like to say it. I don't I don't even like to admit it. I feel like I'm admitting it right now. But that's a part of me that is inside me. And I know that if they were to die, or if I was to die, that that would be a huge regret. And I, and I still don't visit them anywhere near as often as I could. And when I'm

Starting point is 01:28:38 there, I'm distracted. I'm just thinking about work mainly. I'm almost always thinking about work. And I don't... They would say I'm a wonderful son. They would say I'm a wonderful, wonderful son, but I'm a well-behaved son. That's true. And I think that's what they mean when they say I'm a wonderful son, but I think that I'm not in many other ways. That's my regret. That would be my regret,

Starting point is 01:29:15 and that is my regret. And I'm working on it. Or I hope that I'm working on it. Light Armanov asks, with regard to Ch chomsky how do i keep getting him on he likes me chomsky happens to like me for whatever reason at least he told me so and i don't think chomsky is a liar choms i don't see chomsky as someone who would be particularly polite to someone that he dislikes people despise that I like Chomsky and Peterson, because I'm apparently not allowed to be a fan of both,

Starting point is 01:29:49 and that brings me back to that quote about only the shallowest of minds can think that in great controversy, one side is mere folly. I think that's a foolish way of thinking. I don't... I think that just demonstrates to me that people have chosen their side, their side, which has to do with what they've identified with. And that's why I have a huge problem with identity and identifying with some category. Identity means sameness, just so you

Starting point is 01:30:15 know, the etymology of it. Look, I'm well trained in my left brain. That's a left brain activity to see sameness and categories. I'm so well-trained that I would say I'm overly trained as a left hemispheric person. And I need to balance that with the uniqueness of the right brain and see each as unique, which means you can't compare. You can't compare Chomsky to Peterson

Starting point is 01:30:37 in a, at least not in a simple sense. And I have less sympathy for those who are, there is something in me that has less sympathy for those who are, there is something in me that has less sympathy for those who are on the extreme left that criticize in this manner than I do for those that are on the extreme right, and the reason is that of personality. They are on the left because they have high openness. That is a big five personality trait. So I see them as, like the right I see is being closed-minded automatically, so I expect that from them. But the extreme left, the extreme left is so ardent for people who are open-minded,

Starting point is 01:31:12 which to me demonstrates that they have this preordained dogma that they're following. And they're following it despite their openness. Well, plenty of that is what they've been taught by universities, but I can't, but plenty of it is not. That's why it's important to never lie. Never, never, never, never lie. You corrupt your soul. You corrupt your conscience. You violate it. Never, never, never lie. Never lie. Never, never dishonor someone who, well, never cheat on someone. Never lie. They're horrible, horrible, horrible acts.

Starting point is 01:31:46 Horrible, horrible acts. Okay. My April says, You have an artistic side. What do you do besides filmmaking? So I sing. I sing horribly, and I play the guitar horribly.

Starting point is 01:31:57 Some more grunge-like. I love art galleries. I used to do stand-up comedy. I used to write music. I used to rap. I like writing screenplays. Mario Calabrese says, what can change the nature of man? Well, what can change the nature of man? I wouldn't say it's rational argumentation. Okay. Barfiman362 says, please talk about meaning equals intelligibility times value, as well as attention equals value, structure of beings. Also, interest is about getting more value than you put in. You and your channel are interesting. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Starting point is 01:32:38 This is my name. Sure, I can play the guitar for you, but my wife is sleeping right now. Boris, you asked if I tried L-theanine. Yes, doesn't help much. Ashwagandha, it doesn't help much. Gabba, I don't know what you mean by Gabba if you mean the, if you mean Gabba Penton. Phenobut, Phenobut helps socially. It helps you feel disinhibited or uninhibited. By the way, I have a letter wiki. There's a website called letter.wiki with a conversation between me and Desh, who is the producer of Better Left Unsaid. And the letter is all about my critique on rationality. So Mario Calabrese, what can change the nature of man? I say not the channel? So I'll give you a set. Douglas Hofstadter is number one. Daniel Dennett.

Starting point is 01:33:32 Eminem. I would love to talk to Eminem. I would love to talk to Ed Witten. I would love to talk to Terry Tao Hideo Kojima, video game developer. The developers of Rockstar. That is Dan and Sam Houser I would love to talk to Jonathan Blow he's the developer of Braid and The Witness I would love to talk to Colin Quinn

Starting point is 01:33:53 he's a comedian I consider him to be the greatest comedian living right now even of all time in my personal taste I don't find I think some of these people who say Richard Pryor was the funniest and George Carlin was the funniest I don't find, I think some of these people who say Richard Pryor was the funniest and George Carlin was the funniest.

Starting point is 01:34:07 I don't know. George Carlin never made me laugh. He makes the audience mainly clap in agreement and often he astounds the audience as to how he can memorize long phrases, but he never made me laugh. And that's mainly a function of time. It's that I grew up in a different era. So he probably was hilarious for his time. Probably Colin Quinn will be extremely lame for people 20 years from now. So it's just a function

Starting point is 01:34:31 of time. Much like people love the old rappers, I think Eminem is one of the best rappers, if not the best rapper ever. And, sorry, obviously Tupac is, I'm not a fan of Biggie. Biggie had great flow, obviously Tupac is, I'm not a fan of Biggie. Biggie had great flow, but Tupac had a great heart, had a heart like, heart like no one else. Almost each song just makes you collapse. And this guy died when he was so young. Holy moly. So it's like Tupac and Eminem, but in terms of verbal acuity and fluidity, it's Eminem by far. I don't think there's a contest. And some people who say that the rappers from the 80s and 70s are the best. Well, it's more like they grew up with those rappers and to them it was the best for their time. And it may be in the same way that George Carlin was the best for his time.

Starting point is 01:35:20 I think Colin Quinn is the best for our time. Sean Murray is someone else I'd like to interview. He's from Hello Games, a video game developer. Sam Harris I'd like to interview, and I'd also like to interview this guy named Cosmic Skeptic. I think his name is Alex. He's not a dream guest because he's within reach. He's not a dream, but Nat wants to know, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on philosophy and education,

Starting point is 01:35:40 specifically pedagogy and the curriculum pre-degree level. How and to whom, what age groups should philosophy be taught, and what broader social problems might be remedied if we had a proper philosophical education? Here's my take on education i think that what's in the stem fields as an undergraduate can be learned by any high school not any by almost by a sufficiently gifted high schooler i don't think there's anything in the university undergraduate degree in the stems that can that cannot be learned by a 17 year old personally i think that philosophy is absolutely different because it requires experience. And it's another reason why there's no such thing as a child prodigy in film,

Starting point is 01:36:30 because you had to have gone through life. You had to have gone through hopes and dreams and places and pain and particularly pain and philosophy requires that that's a requisite. As for the social problems, I wouldn't say that the social problems are a lack of philosophical understanding per se, but perhaps a lack of humility. That is, that people ardently claim that whiteness is the number one enemy or socialism is de facto incorrect, etc. It may be a lack of religious orientation or a lack of commitment to the good or a lack of being honorable in one's private life, no matter what, rather than a philosophical problem. It may be that.

Starting point is 01:37:11 And as for the last question, I need to think about that. Am I thinking of having Graham Priest on the show? This is by Noah Noah Noah. Yes, it's confirmed, but without a date. I need to work through his material. That may take a month. It takes quite some time to work through someone's material. I don't know why you would say that Jordan Peterson is delusional. What about Jordan Peterson is delusional? See, I don't like this when people dismiss people by saying,

Starting point is 01:37:37 oh, he's obvious. Someone recently said, Elon Musk is obviously low IQ. I said, low IQ, Elon Musk? Why? They said, because IQ? Elon Musk? Why? They said, because he doesn't see socialism as the solution. Are you? Well, okay. I will reserve.

Starting point is 01:37:55 It's such a simple-minded thinking that says that. It's so simple-minded. It's absolutely not easy to dismiss almost any intellectual. Almost any intellectual. At least, I don't think so. Maybe I'm stupid. Maybe I'm asinine. Freestyling. I wasn't that great at freestyling. I could, but I never developed it. I was more interested in writing the songs. I had about 50 songs in rap that I deleted in a rage because I was beat up one time during a battle with someone, a freestyle battle or a rap battle, where I insulted someone's... Like, anything is fair game when you're rapping.

Starting point is 01:38:37 So I was 14 or so. I insulted someone's dead cousin, which, thinking about it now, is somewhat foolish. I actually didn't insult them. I just said this was back when MSN Messenger was around and they had statuses. People would put extra words different than just their name. Someone said RIP, let's say her name was Sandra. So they said RIP Sandra. And he would always put that RIP Sandra. And I saw that as virtue signaling because I didn't see him as particularly caring about his cousin. So I said something along the lines of that saying, go and cry over your R.I.P.s.

Starting point is 01:39:10 And then him and a couple hoodlums came and flipped me upside down in front of the school. From that day forward, I said, I'm never rapping again. I went home and I deleted all my songs. And then I started listening to rock because I needed some new music at the time. That's why I abandoned rap. Okay, let's get to this. Pac-Man says, what do you think of the educational system? Hmm, does it help a majority of people think? Like I said, I think that much of what's taught in school is superfluous. Completely.

Starting point is 01:39:37 I think that you know this because you probably don't remember 99, 95% of what you were taught in school. And Louis C.K. once took his family, his two girls, when% of what you were taught in school. And Louis CK once took his family, his two girls, when they were supposed to be in elementary school, out from school and traveled for a half a semester or a semester or a full year or whatever it may be, and said that they got more education from that than they got from being in school. And people were snarky about that. One reason they are is because they're not able to do that for their own child. So they then tend to repudiate others. But I think it's salutary. I'm thinking if I have a kid, I'm thinking of homeschooling him or her in a process that Peter Gray calls

Starting point is 01:40:17 unschooling. Now I do have an interview with Peter Gray. For those of you who want to watch it, it's on the Drachma Institute. I'll leave a link in the description. It's not one that's on this channel. The problem then becomes how do you socialize them because they can easily become awkward if you don't expose them to the harshness of the flagitious peers. One option is to push them to their limits of social discomfort. Another is to develop or to cultivate a local group of like-minded unschoolers, parents who are similarly interested, and then have our kid hang out with them.

Starting point is 01:40:51 As for education, look in math. I was watching a recent lecture by Richard Borchardt, and he was saying, okay, we're going to talk about modular forms. Now, this is what a modular form is. He writes down the equation. Then he says, and now if someone says this is what a modular form is, it looks like if someone had a contest

Starting point is 01:41:08 for what is the strangest equation you could come up with and then chose one of them. I liked that because that's actually what you're thinking when you look at the equation for a modular form. You're thinking this is highly unmotivated. Where did this come from? Why is this useful? However, if you look at Wikipedia, it's removed from any emotion, from any commentary. It's just purely clinical. I understand that because it was modeled after the encyclopedia. It's called Wikipedia. But a project of mine that I would like to start is a way of humanizing. See, I don't see it as opinion versus editorial. And Wikipedia would consider Richard Borchardt's comments to be opinion. But I don't see it as opinion I see it as human I see it as making math

Starting point is 01:41:48 approachable and I think that plenty of people would understand math and physics far greater if there were little commentaries like that and I don't know how to facilitate that being in Wikipedia maybe it's Wikipedia is not the right format but I would like to cultivate a project in the future that helps people learn math and physics much more easily. As to what other elements or ingredients it would take other than the occasional sentences to how absurd an equation seems, or where this is potentially going, whatever it may be, I don't know, and I'm totally open to suggestions. It's a project that I have going on in the back of my mind. totally open to suggestions. It's a project that I have going on in the back of my mind.

Starting point is 01:42:30 Paul Marie says, what is your background in math and physics? My background is a specialist degree in math and physics from the University of Toronto, and you can look this up. It's the hardest degree that is math and physics. I chose it because as a high schooler, you have to choose it once you're in high school. I chose it because I always like doing what's the hardest. I remember once there was a puzzle called the hardest logic doing what's the hardest. I remember once there was a puzzle called the hardest logic puzzle in the world. And I remember thinking, okay, that one's, I'm going to solve that. And you know what? I'm going to solve that in my head without writing. So I remember it took me about a month or so. I wasn't thinking about it all the time constantly, but it took me about a month of thinking to try and solve that problem in my head.

Starting point is 01:43:05 thinking to try and solve that problem in my head. I always like challenges, intellectual challenges. So I took what is the hardest degree at U of T. It's the specialist degree of math and physics. The president of U of T actually told me that was the hardest degree. I'm not saying I did well in it. In fact, I had many zeros, many, many zeros because I had major depression, clinical depression and would just gain weight and played video games, did nothing, hated my life. Horrible student. Horrible student. Didn't go to class after first year. Not one, well, a couple classes, but I didn't like going to classes. I despised going to classes. I never took notes, even in high school. The reason why I didn't take notes was because there was this lecture I watched once where a professor was writing notes and speaking, and he was speaking.

Starting point is 01:43:54 What he was saying was extremely important. You should have been taking notes about that. But people were only taking notes about what was written on the board. And then the teacher was speaking, and then he started drawing a circle as he was thinking and speaking. And then people drew the circle in their notebook. And then I thought, okay, I'm done. I'm not taking notes. Because obviously, these people who take notes are just followers. They're not actually processing the information. So let me listen to what the professor is saying and actually understand it. And later, I can go through the textbook. So I never stopped taking notes from high school because of that. I wasn't a good student, though. By the way, okay, you may wonder, how is it that if I wasn't a great student, was I able to finally get my degree? Well, one is that I'm great at studying for tests.

Starting point is 01:44:32 I can study for a test in two days or three days just by going through the material. Obviously, I would forget it quite a few days later, but it was fairly easy for me to study for tests. It still is. Peter Nikolov says, oh man, just do it. Make more than sure your subscribers want to hear from you. Maybe not just this Q&A, maybe do an in-depth review on what you think of the toes that have been on your podcast. So again, I'm betting that the innovation is going to come from the periphery rather than the scholastic center, which is why I'm cultivating this community. It's not me. This channel is not just me even though my face is on it. Maybe I'll start to remove it more and more

Starting point is 01:45:08 but the channel is about us coming up with a theory of everything or at least understanding the different theories of everything and then contributing. And perhaps at some point I'll do that via live streams on the Toe Clippings channel. Okay, have I tried getting Roger Penrose on? Rishabh Prashad says,

Starting point is 01:45:24 yes, I've tried. I can't get him on. I don't know how. I don't want to use Brian. Brian Keating is a dear friend of mine. I don't want to use Brian Keating's connection for that. Again, it's distasteful sometimes to ask your friends for connections. And I know I ask Brian for plenty.

Starting point is 01:45:40 And he's such a good man. He's a great man. He's a jovial man. He's a great man. He's a jovial man. He's a mensch. If you understand some Yiddish, I think it's Yiddish, but I can't use him for that. I feel like that's stepping out of my bounds. Rutger Palaker says, of all you've read, what book would you recommend us to read beside Gödel Escherbach? Ah, beside Gödel Escherbach, which is right there. Master and his emissary. If you're...

Starting point is 01:46:06 It's a polarizing book. People love it, people hate it. The proportion of people that love it are much greater than those that hate it. And those that hate it tend to have already their worldview made up. And they say, that's foolish, that's asinine, that's imbecilic, that's inane, out the gate. And I just despise. I don't like that. I don't see...

Starting point is 01:46:22 I used... Part of me not liking it is me not liking myself because I used to be like that to such a large degree. And I just see the arrogance in it. And then I see the arrogance in myself and in my former self. And I cringe and I don't think it's good for the world. Either way, this will, Master and his emissary will discombobulate you in hopefully a salubrious manner. Ryan Culling says, what is love? To know love is to know God,

Starting point is 01:47:03 and I don't know God. The greatest love I felt and still feel is with my wife. It's an experience I can't articulate into words, and perhaps there's a reason for that. Perhaps it's destined to be like that. Perhaps that's the point of it. I don't know. I'm unsure. Ryan Colling says,

Starting point is 01:47:23 Ryan Collinin which is also barfie man for those of you who are listening barfie man wants to know can you speak about the idea of the attention economy is attention the fundamental value of consciousness so attention changes or alters consciousness that seems clear it obviously influences what enters your perceptive field. Your field of perception, that is. That means that in a fascinating manner, attention is prior to consciousness, which is absolutely fascinating. And I don't think that there's much attention placed on that aspect. I do think that a missing ingredient to consciousness may be an understanding of attention. You know, in the same way that some thought that space-time was fundamental,

Starting point is 01:48:15 and then some thought that causality is more fundamental than space-time, I wonder if attention is more fundamental than consciousness, which puts a huge hole in all those non-dualists who think that consciousness is the most fundamental. And perhaps that's another reason why they don't like to talk about it. Ryan Collins says, what are your thoughts on solipsism? My thoughts are that it's not easily disproved by a rationalist or empiricist account. And that to me, like I haven't heard a great critique as to why solipsism is wrong from a rationalist. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I haven't heard it. And that to me demonstrates a problem with rationality or demonstrates that solipsism is correct.

Starting point is 01:48:56 Char, okay, we're getting, we're nearing the end. Charari Ronnie says, what is your view on religion and how has it changed after Rupert Sheldrake? I'll get to the chat soon, okay? Just a second. I want to get through some of these questions that people have been asking me for quite some time. So how has my views on the supernatural changed from Rupert Sheldrake and Thomas Campbell? With Rupert Sheldrake, it showed me that there's a whole group of people who have a disdain for what's supernatural that edit on wikipedia and that what you learn from wikipedia isn't the whole truth sounds like it's obvious but it's actually not that these people who identify with being skeptics aren't skeptics they're not open-minded inquirers of what is no matter matter what is, whatever is will be. It seems like they have an

Starting point is 01:49:46 idea of what is and they're trying to disprove what isn't, and they have a conception of what isn't. And they're also not willing to update their conception of what an is is, which sounds like a Bill Clinton statement, but I'm talking more about ontology. So these people who label themselves as skeptics demonstrate to me more, they demonstrate their axiomatic postulates more than they demonstrate what's true, at least to me, because there is no supernatural. Maybe there is no supernatural. Maybe it's all natural, but then you need to update what natural is.

Starting point is 01:50:17 So maybe it is possible for people to communicate psychically. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it, at least from the evidence that I've seen but or the non-evidence that I've seen but I still have to look into it and I'm willing to look into it and so many skeptics have their mind made up as to how is this wrong how is this wrong how is this wrong and then if it's not wrong then they'll say well there is something wrong somewhere with the setup and I just don't know what it is but you clearly cheated okay someone's saying what economic system do we do you think we should have I don't't know. That's a complicated... People think physics is complicated or math is complicated,

Starting point is 01:50:50 but I think economics and political theory is far more complicated because of the amount of variables. You have what's called aggregatory feedback, or at least I call it that, which means you get a yes or no. You get a ping. Did it work or did it not work? But you have no idea which one of the factors influenced it. It's difficult to do double blind tests. Sh money. It's called sh money. Says, hi, Kurt. I was pleasantly surprised to find out you were Trinidadian in the Bernardo Castrop interview,

Starting point is 01:51:13 which was your best, I think. I think so as well. Thank you. Although the Ian McGilchrist interview to me is pushing it. I myself was born in Guyana. So it's great to see someone from the West Indie community grapple with such topics and do so thoughtfully as well. Just wanted to say you're doing a really great job. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Anyways, my questions are, what religion did you grow up with? Were you born in Trinidad?

Starting point is 01:51:37 And do you think it's important to honor both systems of the East and the West? And then he says, P.S. If you're ever in Queens, I would love to grab a drink in the West. And then he says, P.S. If you're ever in Queens, I would love to grab a chat. Grab a drink in the chat. The religion I grew up with was Christianity, non-denominational, but then when I was eight, I became an atheist for reasons that I was... Well,

Starting point is 01:52:00 I was questioning the origins of the universe, and my brother, who was studying physics at the time, told me about quantum fluctuations, and to me that solved it, and I remember not vividly, but almost vividly being at home on my bed, looking at the ceiling, thinking that, aha, then that means that there is no need for God. Then I became an arrogant atheist, let's say, which is usually the path one goes down. They don't just become a humble atheist, let's say. As for East versus West and incorporating them.

Starting point is 01:52:38 See, this is super interesting, super, super interesting, because people will say, hey, what we need is to incorporate more of the East into the West. And they tend to be these people who are high in openness, again, the personality trait, and you don't hear them advocating much for the Western approach to be in the East. So that's a huge gap that I see in their approach, which says that all religions are equally true in some manner. Well, you're not advocating for the opposite. So to me, it shows their bias all along, as well as when they say, the types that say that they like the Eastern approaches, or that the Eastern approaches need to be integrated more with the Western ones. They tend to focus almost solely on the Eastern ones and meditate for three

Starting point is 01:53:23 hours a day and say that all is illusory and there is no soul or if there is one it's infinitely being reborn and whatever it may be that are the traditional dictums of the east or sorry desiderata of the east i view it a bit differently i think that that may be an approach incorporating the East into the West for people who are high in openness. And mostly those who are watching are high in openness. You're most likely in the 95th percentile of openness, or 90th at least. But that doesn't mean that your approach works for everyone. And this is something that I find so funny, fascinating, is that people think what works for them should work for everyone. And I tend to view it as, see, the Western tradition and the Eastern tradition for the Easterners, the Western tradition for now, is in our bones. It's in the way that we walk and we

Starting point is 01:54:15 talk and we see and we think. It's definitely in the way that we see because your goals are influenced by you and your culture, as well as that's influenced by the history of your religion. So the West Judeo-Christian. So it's inside you. It's inside you to a degree that you have no clue. It's in your bones. It's in your sinew. And same with the East. And then to say that, well, what we can do is take an Eastern approach and apply it to a Westerner. Well, that to me is like saying you can take a windows program and put it on a mac or vice versa they may be the same program solving the same problem giving the same solution but you can't run them and that may be another reason why people in the west find nihilism to be so abhorrent because in the east well well, they're like, they're okay with nihilism in some regard. But in the West, that's not us. So to give a nihilistic Eastern philosophy, it's horrible for people.

Starting point is 01:55:14 Some people momentarily it's freeing because if you say there is no free will, it's illusory, then that's paradoxically freeing in some respect because you're no longer self-flagellating and self-mortifying but in the long run you then dive into an abyss and it's and i don't think people take that into account i think that people think if it's a solution it's a solution and we can run this program on any we can emulate it anywhere might not be like that. It might be, but it might not. And I just, well, as for the offer and getting a drink in Queens, thank you. I'm going back to the questions, which are almost complete now. Okay, what are your views on Islam? Does Islam promote violence? This person wants to get me demonetized. Well, I'll say this, that it seems clear to me that some sects or some subsets of sects do promote violence. It also

Starting point is 01:56:10 seems clear to me that many don't. It also seems clear to me that there are interpretations of Islam that are just as peaceful as any other interpretation of any religion. Then you get into the problem of what defines Islam. So this is tricky. So see, to me, this my view on it does Islam promote violence isn't more Sam Harris's is more observational or operation. Actually, it's more observational in the sense that, okay, let's look at the sum total of people who identify with being Muslim. And then let's see how readily are they willing to harm an infidel. And then let's judge the religion based on that. Okay, so what does the religion mean?

Starting point is 01:56:53 Do we judge it by the followers of the Quran? What is the definition of Islam? Is it the current followers of the Quran? Is it the current Islamic leaders and what they say, much like Catholicism depends on the Pope? What does it mean to follow the Quran? That's an interesting question. Okay, so here's one perspective. Do you judge a religion by what the majority of the followers say or do? See, old Kurt, let's say, would say yes, but then Kierkegaard came about, and Kierkegaard went against the conventions of Christianity at the time, and was even critiqued for it,

Starting point is 01:57:35 but yet I would say Kierkegaard had a truer understanding of Christianity than the majority of the Christians at the time, so then that's interesting. What the heck does that mean? majority of the Christians at the time. So then that's interesting. What the heck does that mean? That someone can have access to a more true, or can espouse, or can explicate, or can cultivate, or materialize, or elaborate on a Christianity that's more true than what the Christians at the time were engaged in. That's interesting. So then, can one say the same about Islam? See, what we're getting to is a definition of what does Islam mean? What does Christianity mean? So I think these questions of does Islam promote violence are more philosophical than, or at least you can take it practically. Like, you want to know, if I have a Muslim friend,

Starting point is 01:58:23 are they more likely to harm me than a Christian friend? Or more likely to blow up so-and-so than a you can take it practically like that but I'm taking it philosophically what does it mean to be a Muslim what does it mean to be a Christian it's not easy that's what I would say I don't know Sid how many hours a day do you study do you find it difficult studying math he finds it difficult studying math for more than four hours a day and he used to be able to study for more than six hours when he was at his most productive. So for me, I study almost all the time. I wouldn't say it's math. I try to study for almost every waking hour that I can, unless I'm with my wife. All I'm doing is I'm with my wife or I'm studying, working in some way, shape or form. I can study math if I'm feeling absolutely productive. I can

Starting point is 01:59:03 study it for 10 hours straight. Most of the time it's four hours. And then there's a... I have to switch tasks. Mainly, I have to switch tasks because I have to see. Because I'm having problems with my eyes now. So I have to look at objects that are more than one meter away because I'm stuck in this condo. I gotta walk outside and see trees and so on and buildings.

Starting point is 01:59:21 Otherwise, I'm diminishing my eyesight and I feel it. Eye strain each day. Worse and worse. Especially buildings. Otherwise, I'm diminishing my eyesight and I feel it, eye strain, each day worse and worse, especially yesterday. Especially yesterday. Okay, someone says, so euphoric, 87. What do you think led to your existential curiosity and why do you think so many people don't have an interest in pondering the nature of things? Well, most people aren't high in openness, so that's why. As for my existential curiosity, i've had that since i was eight like i mentioned what happened was i asked my brother about the origins of the universe how can something come from nothing and he mentioned quantum fluctuations

Starting point is 01:59:51 it's not a complete answer but he mentioned it and i remember thinking ah that's interesting okay so well ever since then i became interested in physics and existential questions. Okay, which of your guests have you found most compelling so far? Bernardo Kastrup and Ian McGilchrist. Which interpretations of quantum mechanics do you lean toward and prefer? Have you tried any meditation? If so, how have you found it? Okay, I've tried many meditations, many different types of meditation. I'm getting loopy here, just so you know. I'm wearing thin. Okay.

Starting point is 02:00:34 I'm trying to hold on to the questions. One was the interpretation of quantum mechanics and the meditation. So interpretations, I don't lean toward any. I lean away from one, which is many worlds. I lean away from that that although I'm not convinced that it's false I tend to lean away from it mainly for a psychological reason that I think the reason for coming up with it has nothing to do with physics but more has to do with one abdicating one's personal responsibility and what I mean by that is it's the epitome of that think about I tend to think that you're special you're listening to this who's listening you listening to this is you are special you can're listening to this. Who's listening? You listening to this. You are special. You can change the world.

Starting point is 02:01:06 You can change the world for good. You can change the world for evil. And I do think the world centers around you in some strange manner. In the same way that we're the center of the universe, but we're not. Because there's many centers. So it's as if there's multiple centers. And that's a strange paradox. But I don't know how to solve that antinomy. But I think it's true if there's multiple centers. And that's a strange paradox, but I don't know how to solve

Starting point is 02:01:25 that antinomy. But I think it's true in some manner. And I see the many worlds interpretation as being the ultimate of the Copernican statement of you're not special, you're not special, you're not special, which by the way, Copernicus was wrong. You can make a frame of reference where the earth is still and the rest of the universe is rotating around it with general relativity quite easily. So just so you know, there's no preferred way of thinking about which one is spinning around which, even though he's venerated as being the exemplar of science prevailing over the church's dogma. I see the many worlds interpretation as the epitome of someone who wants to say that you're not special.

Starting point is 02:01:59 What's not special? Well, you're a dust mold amongst a cloud, amongst a whole hurricane that constitutes your galaxy, amongst many planets that constitute the universe, and so on. And then what's even less special than that? Well, there's many of them, and none are preferred. I think the world does revolve around you in some manner, though. I think that each lie that you say replicates. I think that each good act you do replicates. It replicates, it replicates, it replicates.

Starting point is 02:02:26 So do good as best you can. Do good as best you can. Admit when you're wrong as best you can. Say sorry when you're sorry as best you can. Forget your ego. Be humble. Love, love, love, love. So it sounds like what I said has nothing to do with physics.

Starting point is 02:02:46 It has to do with psychology, and that's correct. That's why I'm not saying that many worlds is incorrect. I'm saying I lean away from it, but I'm not wholly convinced that it's incorrect. I'm still open to it. Qchemist, thank you so much. I don't know if you have a question. George Scott says, congrats, Kurt. You can see that we're getting toward the end because I'm at an S and this was sorted alphabetically.

Starting point is 02:03:04 Congrats, Kurt. I have a question for you getting toward the end because I'm at an S and this was sorted alphabetically. Congrats, Kurt. I have a question for you that pertains to your thoughts in reality. Do you believe that there's only matter or only mental states or something in between? After interviewing so many intellectuals, how do you think about consciousness? Okay, so I'm unsure if there's only matter. I'm unsure if there are only mental states. I'm unsure of what mind or matter is as well. Okay, as for my take on consciousness,

Starting point is 02:03:26 my take is that people who say that they have their theory of consciousness and it's... In some ways, I like it because I want to know their theories. But in some ways, I find it extremely orgulous, let's say. Haughty, haughty, let's say.

Starting point is 02:03:40 There's maybe 20 to 50 different theories of consciousness. And when I bring it up, and I do, and I bring this up much like the theories of everything to the physicists. I bring up the theories of consciousness to the individual guests. And I say, can you comment on this? Can you comment on this? And often they say, oh, I can't comment on that one because I don't know that one. I don't know.

Starting point is 02:03:56 How can you say you have the correct one if you don't know the rest? I don't understand that. There are competing theories that seem to be self-consistent, and you should at least know all. It's not that hard. It takes maybe two years or three years. The RMM says, how do you manage to get such famous thinkers to give you the time of the day?

Starting point is 02:04:19 Well, I do so with luck and persistence, and each feeds off the last. So, for example, when I got Gnome, Pinker finally said yes because Pinker said no. Then I emailed Pinker i said hey pinker i know you said no but gnome chomsky just came on and it tended to do well i mean it did fairly well so do you mind coming on he said yes i can find some time for that okay throw away four four two one i can't answer that question it's it's beyond my ability right now because I'm losing my own trains of thought. I'm becoming wifty. I'll read the question to you and then maybe I can try and answer it. The whole punching up and punching down. I find a lot of people like

Starting point is 02:04:59 to make fun and bully white people or any majority class when the person on the receiving end is not and the person on the receiving end is not taken kindly to it. I understand some part of it, but it feels like bullying, rude, racist behavior. Except they're justifying by saying they're punching up, and that doesn't have social repercussions, or they say it doesn't. I don't understand it. Should we wait for something bad to happen? There's a quote that people will do anything no matter how absurd in order to avoid facing their own soul i'll say that and i'll let you interpret it as you will voyager says kurt can you interview commander david fravor he's the guy who chased the UFO off the coast of San Diego

Starting point is 02:05:46 in a fighter jet. He was an extremely credible witness. Yes, I would love to interview him. However, I don't have any questions that Lex didn't cover. Lex did a wonderful interview with David Fravor and if you can think of

Starting point is 02:05:56 any spots that are needing to be filled or different angles please let me know. That's the main issue when people request guests or famous guests. What do you want me to ask them?

Starting point is 02:06:07 I know sometimes people just say, well, I want you to talk to them. Yeah, that's not helpful. It's not helpful for me because I already have a list of almost maybe 200 people to talk to. So please help me out and give me an angle. Someone says, do you think you can get a conversation

Starting point is 02:06:20 with Lex Friedman? I don't have any interesting information to give Lex. I am not a great interviewer. Sorry, interviewee. Probably not interviewer either. But Lex is probably best getting someone else. If you're interested in seeing me on Lex or on any platform, it's best to then mention me on the Discord, on his or on his youtube channel or on his reddit just mention me mention or on his twitter feed because i know he reads those so if you're interested then that's the only way that i can see it being done though i'd imagine that i wouldn't have anything intelligent or coherent to say all right i'll just answer the last question now

Starting point is 02:07:02 wolf winter says what is currently stopping you from accepting idealism as the best ontology, specifically Bernardo Kastrup's form of it? Cheers. I have to understand it more. See, if someone talks to me about it, I think I can give an explanation that would be on par with, not on par, but I would give an explanation that Bernardo would approve of,

Starting point is 02:07:31 but that's not enough. I need to understand it in the sense that I have to live it to some degree and incorporate it into my own thinking and I haven't, or I only have to a minor degree, as well as I have to understand all the different strains of consciousness before I can come to a conclusion. That's what's stopping me. See, for conversations like the ones that I engage in on this channel, as well as when you watch debates or when I watch debates and so on, I don't think it's useful to think in terms of an instant transformation,

Starting point is 02:07:55 but instead to think in terms of a slow process of change, a slow process of a seed that's been planted, seminal. If this was group theory, if you can, if you're a mathematician, you understand group theory, then each conversation I have is like, I've been added a new generator, and time is the parameter. So it's almost like there's tiny chunks, tiny chinks in my armor, my armored vehicle that I use to pilot the world. And I see that this is, this needs mending, this needs abandoning, this needs adding. This isn't where I thought it was. I thought it was stronger here and so on. And I

Starting point is 02:08:37 find that my self-imposed interdictions are unnecessary and that my trumpeted freedoms are superfluous. So it's a slog. It's a slow process of doing and undoing. I rearrange myself slowly, and that's a more effective way of describing what's going on during these conversations. I think that's useful because people want to say that this changed my life. And then someone asks you, how did it change your life? And then you're at a loss for words. And then you feel like, well, maybe it didn't change my life, or maybe I'm foolish and inarticulate. Or maybe it's that it changed your life at a small level right now that'll manifest itself later. I think that's the better way to think about it. And as long as I'm oriented

Starting point is 02:09:12 by God or by truth or by love or all, I hope that I'm, I hope these conversations are changing me for the good and hopefully changing others for the good or more specifically, I hope that I hope these conversations are changing me for the good and hopefully changing others for the good. Or more specifically, I hope that I hope that... Thank you again. Thank you so much for watching this. I appreciate it. I gotta get going. As you can tell, I'm now drained. If you want to support more conversations like this then please consider going to patreon.com slash kurt jaymungle there is a custom pledge people ask

Starting point is 02:09:52 how can i donate more than or less than ten dollars you can do a custom pledge and it actually helps each dollar helps i i hope that what I've said is coherent and sapid and copacetic. And if it's not, then please, you can message again and perhaps I'll do another AMA somewhat shorter this time so that I'm not struggling at the end of it. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to watch the comment section now for just a minute or two,

Starting point is 02:10:33 and then I'm going to go. Hydration. Thank you. Making sense. Hydration is not something I have a problem with at all. Actually, I drink perhaps too much water. It's more sleep that I have a problem with at all. Actually, I drink perhaps too much water. It's more sleep that I have a difficult time with. Thank you, thank you, Miss Room, Nathan. I can't pronounce this Japanese character, kanji character name. Thank you.

Starting point is 02:10:57 Bo, Karina, thank you. Jaron, Jaron, thank you. Yvonne, thank you. Munda. Munda. Oh, Munda didn't say thank you. Yvonne, thank you. Munda. Oh, Munda didn't say thank you, but... Munda, thank you. Amin, thank you. Micromat, thank you.

Starting point is 02:11:13 Dimitri, thank you. Dina, thank you. Barfiman, thank you. Amin, thank you. I'll look into it. Try red light goggles. Yeah, I have them. it. Try red light goggles. Yeah, I have them.

Starting point is 02:11:26 I've tried them. Okay. Thank you, I gotta get going now. Thank you, bye bye. you

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal - Curt Jaimungal AMA #1 (Consciousness, education, IQ, which Theory of Everything is correct?)

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