The Theory That Shatters Language Itself
Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
Intro
This chapter explores a revolutionary theory by a professor that questions the conventional understanding of language and meaning. It posits that language is fluid and self-deconstructing, which impacts our connection to a cohesive cosmic experience that may still be grasped by animals.
As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe Professor Elan Barenholtz, cognitive scientist at Florida Atlantic University, joins TOE to discuss one of the most unsettling ideas in cognitive science: that language is a self-contained, autoregressive system with no inherent connection to the external world. In this mind-altering episode, he explains why AI’s mastery of language without meaning forces us to rethink the nature of mind, perception, and reality itself... Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e Timestamps: 00:00 The Mind and Language Connection 02:09 The Grounded Thesis of Language 09:29 The Epiphany of Language 13:06 The Dichotomy of Language and Perception 16:24 Language as an Autonomous System 19:48 The Problem of Qualia and Language 23:35 Bridging Language and Action 31:32 Exploring Embeddings in Language 38:21 The Platonic Space of Language 44:17 The Challenges of Meaning and Action 51:05 Understanding the Complexity of Color 52:53 The Paradox of Language Describing Itself 58:19 The Map of Language and Action 1:07:48 Continuous Learning in Language Models 1:11:46 The Nature of Memory 1:22:46 The Role of Context 1:32:18 Exploring Language Dynamics 1:39:44 The Shift from Oral to Written Language 2:11:34 Language and the Cosmic Whole 2:21:35 Reflections on Existence Links Mentioned: • Elan’s Substack: https://elanbarenholtz.substack.com • Elan's X / Twitter: https://x.com/ebarenholtz • Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE • Joscha Bach and Ben Goertzel on TOE: https://youtu.be/xw7omaQ8SgA • Elan’s published papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2grAjZsAAAAJ • Ai medical panel on TOE: https://youtu.be/abzXzPBW4_s • Jacob Barandes and Manolis Kellis on TOE: https://youtu.be/MTD8xkbiGis • Will Hahn on TOE: https://youtu.be/3fkg0uTA3qU • Noam Chomsky on TOE: https://youtu.be/DQuiso493ro • Greg Kondrak on TOE: https://youtu.be/FFW14zSYiFY • Andres Emilsson on TOE: https://youtu.be/BBP8WZpYp0Y • Harnessing the Universal Geometry of Embeddings (paper): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.12540 • Yang-Hui He on TOE: https://youtu.be/spIquD_mBFk • Iain McGilchrist on TOE: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0 • Curt interviews ChatGPT: https://youtu.be/mSfChbMRJwY • Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674251555 • Karl Friston on TOE: https://youtu.be/uk4NZorRjCo • Michael Levin and Anna Ciaunica on TOE: https://youtu.be/2aLhkm6QUgA • The Biology of LLMs (paper): https://transformer-circuits.pub/2025/attribution-graphs/biology.html • Jacob Barandes on TOE: https://youtu.be/YaS1usLeXQM • Emily Adlam on TOE: https://youtu.be/6I2OhmVWLMs • Julian Barbour on TOE: https://youtu.be/bprxrGaf0Os • Tim Palmer on TOE: https://youtu.be/vlklA6jsS8A • Neil Turok on TOE: https://youtu.be/ZUp9x44N3uE • Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/jayaraasi/ • On the Origin of Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593128443 SUPPORT: - Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join - Support me on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal - Support me on Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - Support me on PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 SOCIALS: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs #science
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