In this episode Curt Jaimungal talks with loop quantum gravity pioneer Abhay Ashtekar about Gödel universes, time travel, the Buddha’s poison‑arrow parable, and the latest ideas in loop quantum cosmology. They explore how consciousness, philosophy and physics intersect and debate the prospects of a quantum bounce replacing the Big Bang.

- 00:00:00 - Introduction
- 00:00:00 - Inner World vs Outer World
- 00:05:35 - Buddha's Poison Arrow
- 00:11:05 - Merging philosophy and physics
- 00:13:33 - Buddha not wrong
- 00:19:30 - Studying enlightenment scientifically
- 00:23:29 - Psychedelics caution
- 00:25:17 - Loop Quantum Gravity overview
- 00:36:39 - Wheeler‑DeWitt equation
- 00:44:48 - Self‑dual and anti‑self‑dual
- 00:48:16 - Hodge dual and metric
- 00:52:06 - Linearized gravity
- 00:55:32 - Quantum gravity
- 01:03:22 - Einstein vs Schrödinger
- 01:09:24 - Quantizing geometry details
- 01:13:41 - Yang‑Mills theory intro
- 01:20:52 - Tetrads and vierbeins
- 01:24:26 - Penrose’s twistor theory
- 01:26:44 - Einstein’s hole argument
- 01:40:48 - Mach’s principle
- 01:49:04 - Singularities and black holes
- 02:12:18 - Quantum bounce (Ashtekar bounce)
- 02:23:07 - Pure and mixed quantum states
- 02:26:38 - Black holes and horizons
- 02:42:09 - ADM decomposition
- 02:43:55 - Gödel universe, time travel, CTCs
- 02:52:38 - Superforce question
- 02:56:13 - Universe before the Big Bang
- 03:01:44 - String theory vs LQG
- 03:17:31 - Ed Witten critiques LQG
- 03:21:14 - Duality between string theory and LQG
- 03:25:20 - Philosopher and monk discussion

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- Physics and Consciousness Contest: https://youtu.be/V93GQaDtv8w
- Dialect's video on Newton's Bucket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3mOlUOGoY
- Brian Roberts (physicist and philosopher): https://personal.lse.ac.uk/robert49/
- The Monk and the Philosopher: https://amzn.to/3Bva2mf
- More on the Gödel Universe: https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/15/1/013063
- Better Left Unsaid documentary: http://betterleftunsaidfilm.com

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