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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices