Max Tegmark: Physics Absorbed Artificial Intelligence & (Maybe) Consciousness

Sep 9, 2025

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Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal ✓ Claim

Key Takeaways

Conditions like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia may be driven in part by metabolic dysfunction in the brain
- Neuroinflammation is real, but fasting and a ketogenic diet can help
The benefits of supplementing exogenous ketones:
- (1) Quick energy – they give your body a fast fuel source, especially for the brain and muscles
- (2) Support ketosis – they can help raise blood ketone levels even if you’re not fully on a strict keto diet
Benefits of fasting: helps to augment the control of the immune system, relaxes the gut and enables the body’s repair processes to occur, reduces the body’s general state of inflammation
There is a ketone-synergistic effect when delivering caffeine with MCT; it stimulates lipolysis and also fat oxidation in the liver
The short-list of essential supplements:CoQ10, creatine, ketones, vitamin D, and melatonin
The benefits of metformin and GLP-1 drugs may arise from their influence on metabolic function
A low-carb Mediterranean-style diet is conducive to upgrading your metabolic machinery while keeping biomarkers in check
- Diet: No sugar, no starch, fibrous vegetables, aim for 25% of carbohydrates consumed should be from fiber, high-protein + low glycemic breakfast and lunch, then a pound of protein for dinner with some fibrous vegetables
The protocol and surprising benefits of ‘Sardine Fasting’:
- Eat 1-2 cans of sardines per day for one week; can be repeated monthly or as needed. May need to supplement with vitamin C and magnesium
- Why it helps: Provides essential nutrients and omega-3s while keeping calories/protein low enough to activate autophagy, support immunity, fight brain fog, and promote overall metabolic health
Movement is critical for optimal metabolic health; get outside and walk first thing in the morning, and try to move after dinner for the sake of glucose metabolism

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org

MIT physicist Max Tegmark argues that artificial intelligence belongs inside physics and that consciousness will be the next frontier. He distinguishes intelligence from subjective experience, outlines falsifiable experiments with brain‑reading technology, and shows how concepts like Hopfield energy landscapes and mechanistic interpretability connect mind, math, and machines.- 00:00 - Why AI is the New Frontier of Physics- 09:38 - Is Consciousness Just a Byproduct of Intelligence?- 16:43 - A Falsifiable Theory of Consciousness? (The MEG Helmet Experiment)- 27:34 - Beyond Neural Correlates: A New Paradigm for Scientific Inquiry- 38:40 - Humanity: The Masters of Underestimation (Fermi's AI Analogy)- 51:27 - What Are an AI's True Goals? (The Serial Killer Problem)- 1:03:42 - Fermat's Principle, Entropy, and the Physics of Goals- 1:15:52 - Eureka Moment: When an AI Discovered Geometry on Its Own- 1:30:01 - Refuting the "AI Doomers": We Have More Agency Than We ThinkSPONSORS:- The Economist: https://www.economist.com/toeRESOURCES:- Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e- Max's Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=eBXEZxgAAAAJ&hl=en- Language Models Use Trigonometry to Do Addition [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.00873- Generalization from Starvation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.08255- Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE- Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s- Iceberg of Consciousness [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk- Improved Measures of Integrated Information [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.02626- David Kaiser [TOE]: https://youtu.be/_yebLXsIdwo- Iain McGilchrist [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0- Elan Barenholtz & William Hahn [TOE]: https://youtu.be/A36OumnSrWY- Daniel Schmachtenberger [TOE]: https://youtu.be/g7WtcTATa2U- Ted Jacobson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3mhctWlXyV8- The "All Possible Paths" Myth [TOE]: https://youtu.be/XcY3ZtgYis0
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