The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

1. 1
   Number 1: Adrian Owen: Awake. Aware. Unable to Move.

   SPONSORS: - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE. - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE There are three questions people ask about consciousness: what it is, how to explain it, and how to measure it. This episode is entirely the third one. Adrian Owen, professor of cognitive neuroscience at Western University, joins to explain how he detects consciousness in patients thought to be completely unaware — and why he believes thousands have been "hiding in plain sight" for decades. Owen walks through the landmark case that started it all: asking a non-responsive patient to imagine playing tennis, and watching her brain light up like a healthy person's. We discuss the differences between coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and locked-in syndrome, and what recovered patients have reported about their experience — including one man whose memories were sharper than his doctor's. The conversation covers how movies like Taken are used to detect awareness through brain synchronization, why negative results can never prove someone is unconscious, and the ethics of asking a locked-in patient if they want to keep living. This is an in-depth conversation with Adrian Owen. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Trapped Consciousness Detection - 00:05:15 - Total Locked-in Syndrome - 00:10:40 - Wakefulness Without Awareness - 00:15:45 - The fMRI Tennis Test - 00:21:00 - Decoding Neural Intent - 00:26:30 - Mapping the Grey Zone - 00:32:00 - Non-Responsive Patient Lucidity - 00:37:30 - Life-Support Ethical Dilemmas - 00:43:00 - Brain-Computer Interface Futures - 00:48:30 - Hijacking Consciousness via Narrative - 00:54:00 - The Liam Neeson Test - 00:59:30 - Thalamocortical Pathway Disruption - 01:05:00 - Deep Brain Stimulation Potential - 01:10:30 - Anesthetic Awareness Dangers - 01:16:00 - AI and Language Lures - 01:21:30 - IIT Pseudoscience Controversy LINKS MENTIONED: - The Owen Lab: https://owenlab.org/ - Think Before You Think [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1324075163?tag=toe08-20 - Into The Gray Zone [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1501135201?tag=toe08-20 - Into The Gray Zone [Lecture]: https://youtu.be/01_ECXZK9dA - Detecting Awareness In The Vegetative State [Paper]: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1130197 - Cortical Processing In Persistent Vegetative State [Paper]: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)77805-3/abstract - Response To 'Minimally Conscious State Or Cortically Mediated State?' [Paper]: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/141/4/e26/4838964 - Risk, Diagnostic Error, And The Clinical Science Of Consciousness [Paper]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25844313/ - A Common Neural Code For Similar Conscious Experiences In Different Individuals [Paper]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1407007111 - Locked-In Syndrome: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/locked-syndrome - CIFAR: https://cifar.ca/research-programs/brain-mind-consciousness/ - Tests For Consciousness In Humans And Beyond [Paper]: https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(24)00010-X - Early Identification Of Recovery Potential After Acute Brain Injury Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy [Paper]: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12028-026-02605-0 - Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk - Michael Levin & Anil Seth [TOE]: https://youtu.be/_kuwwmFnxGY - Iain McGilchrist [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0 - Roman Yampolskiy [TOE]: https://youtu.be/TgFmA-Qwsek - Elan Barenholtz [TOE]: https://youtu.be/A36OumnSrWY - Simon Saunders [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Ihv542rCUns Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   August 24, 2026·1h 34min
   Play
2. 2
   Number 2: Tim Maudlin: Quantum Nonlocality Explained FROM SCRATCH

   SPONSORS: - Go to https://www.plaud.ai/curt and use the promo code "CURT" to get a Plaud device today - Visit https://mod.com for a free consultation and get 10% off your first order PLUS free shipping with promo code TOE. - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE This is Part Two of the previous lecture with Tim Maudlin (which went obscenely viral). It is the one with Bell's theorem in it. Maudlin traces how David Bohm's reframing of EPR using particle spin opened the door for Bell's 1964 proof, walked through step by step with a simple chart of coin flips: any theory ruling out "spooky action at a distance" must be deterministic, and no such local theory can match quantum mechanics's actual statistics. We cover common misreadings of Bell — that he assumed determinism (he didn't) and that his "free variables" require free will (they don't) — and close with the 1989 GHZ experiment, a cleaner, fully deterministic version of the same proof. Along the way: why Einstein's real objection was locality, not indeterminism, and why Maudlin calls the death of locality the most astonishing proof in the history of physics. Part Three is still to come. Stay tuned. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00 - EPR Completeness Criterion - 05:25 - Einstein’s Reality Criterion - 10:40 - Locality Implies Determinism - 16:20 - Bohm’s Spin Reformulation - 22:40 - Entangled Spin States - 27:40 - Stern-Gerlach and Quantization - 34:40 - Infinite Experimental Orientations - 41:00 - Heisenberg Uncertainty in Spin - 47:15 - The Singlet State Symmetry - 57:40 - Einstein vs. Copenhagen - 01:02:40 - Pilot Wave Theory Ontology - 01:11:30 - Configuration Space vs. Reality - 01:23:40 - Von Neumann’s "Foolish" Proof - 01:31:45 - Eliminating the Observer - 01:41:15 - Kochen-Specker and Contextuality - 01:51:15 - Contrapositive Logic of EPR - 02:03:10 - Offset Angles and Statistics - 02:14:00 - Bell’s Mathematical Impossibility - 02:20:00 - The 75% Disagreement Proof - 02:31:00 - Many Worlds Non-Locality - 02:37:15 - Statistical Independence Assumption - 02:42:50 - Free Will Red Herring - 02:54:40 - GHZ Three-Particle Entanglement - 03:03:30 - Mermin’s Cocktail Napkin Proof - 03:11:30 - Superdeterminism and Matrix Loopholes LINKS MENTIONED: - Tim Maudlin [Part 1]: https://youtu.be/9R0wrBpafYI - Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete? [Paper]: https://www.drchinese.com/David/EPR.pdf - A Suggested Interpretation of the Quantum Theory in Terms of "Hidden" Variables [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.85.166 - On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox [Paper]: https://journals.aps.org/ppf/pdf/10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195 - On the Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics [Paper]: https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/bell/Bell_1966.pdf - Free Variables and Local Causality [Paper]: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/speakable-and-unspeakable-in-quantum-mechanics/free-variables-and-local-causality/EDDC5F294953B3AD140753BE20B67ADE - Bertlmann's Socks [Paper]: https://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~pbarfuss/Bertlmann'sSocks.pdf - Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691028931?tag=toe08-20 - Bohmian Mechanics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-bohm/ - Quantum Reality [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0385235690?tag=toe08-20 - The Free Will Theorem [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0604079v1 - Bell's Inequality: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bell-theorem/ - Quantum Theory [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0486659690?tag=toe08-20 - Stern-Gerlach Experiment: https://www.britannica.com/science/Stern-Gerlach-experiment - Entanglement: https://etneil.github.io/grad_qm_lec_notes/entanglement.html - A Simple Proof of the Kochen-Specker Theorem [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.4931 - David Mermin's Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BqqUJzIAAAAJ - Relativity [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1520639996?tag=toe08-20 More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   August 31, 2026·3h 19min
   Play
3. 3
   Number 3: Jacob Tsimerman: He Won Math's Highest Prize. Then Announced the End

   I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE Ten days after winning the Fields Medal — math's highest honor — Jacob Tsimerman joins to explain why he's leaving academia temporarily for OpenAI's AI safety team, and why he's grieving even as he does it. The conversation covers why math is one of the first fields being radically reshaped by AI, whether a proof still counts if no one can understand it, what mathematical "understanding" really means, the ethics of elite access to frontier models, his disagreements with the Leiden Declaration, and his advice for young people weighing a career in pure math in an age of rapidly advancing AI. This is an exclusive first podcast with Jacob Tsimerman. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Fields Medal and Grieving - 00:05:38 - Canonical Human Cognition Patterns - 00:10:40 - Prompting the Mathematical Future - 00:15:40 - Pure Math and Physics Loops - 00:21:00 - Epistemic Black Boxes - 00:26:00 - Rigor Outgrowing Intuition - 00:31:20 - Cognitive Mechanics of Understanding - 00:37:00 - Gödel and Working Memory - 00:42:10 - Mathematics as Improvised Art - 00:47:30 - AI Power and Meritocracy - 00:52:50 - Math on the Chopping Block - 00:58:20 - Unrestricted Optimization Risks - 01:03:40 - AI Safety Manhattan Project - 01:08:50 - Training for Post-AI Careers - 01:14:10 - The Managerial Shift - 01:19:40 - Cognitive Offloading and Adaptation LINKS MENTIONED: - Jacob's Website: https://www.math.utoronto.ca/~jacobt/ - Jacob's Publications: https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/Jacob-Tsimerman/3130599 - Quanta's Story On Jacob [Article]: https://www.quantamagazine.org/jacob-tsimerman-wins-2026-fields-medal-for-andre-oort-conjecture-proof-20260723/ - André-Oort Conjecture: https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/202410/rnoti-p1307.pdf - Canonical Heights On Shimura Varieties And The André-Oort Conjecture [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.08788 - O-Minimal GAGA And A Conjecture Of Griffiths [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1811.12230 - Ten Advances In Mathematics And Theoretical Computer Science: https://openai.com/index/ten-advances-in-mathematics/ - Thoughts About The Leiden Declaration: https://gowers.wordpress.com/2026/07/26/thoughts-about-the-leiden-declaration/ - Tobias Osborne LinkedIn Post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tobias-osborne-601830a5_farewell-to-the-conjecture-prover-several-share-7487777959299276800-mxsa/ - Math For AI Safety: https://mathforaisafety.org/ - Charles Fefferman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fefferman - G-Functions, Motives, And Unlikely Intersections [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.09867 - Tobias Osborne's QFT Lectures: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDfPUNusx1EpRs-wku83aqYSKfR5fFmfS - AISI Website: https://www.aisi.gov.uk/ - Sebastian Jaimungal: https://sebastian.statistics.utoronto.ca/ - Edward Frenkel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/RX1tZv_Nv4Y - Roger Penrose [TOE]: https://youtu.be/iO03t21xhdk More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   August 10, 2026·1h 31min
   Play
4. 4
   Number 4: Becca Tarnas: Did Jung and Tolkien Enter the Same World?

   SPONSORS: - Nobody likes a call center — ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs fixes that with voice AI that sounds human and works 24/7 in 30+ languages. Try it: elevenlabs.io/TOE - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE This podcast explores the uncanny link between two of the twentieth century's great visionary works. Becca Tarnas, assistant professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, joins to discuss her doctoral research into the parallels between Carl Jung's Red Book and J.R.R. Tolkien's lesser-known visionary writings. The central claim: working independently, both men produced strikingly similar imagery, timing, and figures — Jung's Philemon and Tolkien's Gandalf, the Eye of the Evil One and the Eye of Sauron — while each insisted their material felt discovered rather than invented. From there the conversation moves through active imagination, the reality of archetypes, psyche versus mind, and the line between mystical insight and psychosis — a wide-ranging look at where imagination ends and reality begins. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Jung and Tolkien's Red Books - 00:05:42 - Archetypal Rhymes and Parallels - 00:11:26 - Defining the Imaginal Realm - 00:16:38 - Active Imagination vs. Dreaming - 00:22:00 - Active Imagination Protocol - 00:27:00 - Psyche’s Spontaneous Expression - 00:33:57 - Ontology of Imaginal Figures - 00:39:03 - Psychologizing vs. Mythologizing - 00:45:57 - Planetary Archetypes Experience - 00:51:34 - Perceiving Universal Beauty - 00:58:23 - Universal vs. Objective Reality - 01:04:00 - Psychosis vs. Gnosis - 01:09:00 - Grounding the Visionary - 01:15:00 - Symbolic Language of Madness - 01:21:00 - Unearned Wisdom and Psychedelics - 01:26:30 - Motherhood as Expanded State - 01:33:57 - Meaning in Disconnection - 01:40:56 - Intuition in Science - 01:46:55 - Leonardo’s Light and Shade LINKS MENTIONED: - Journey To The Imaginal Realm [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1947544217?tag=toe08-20 - Participatory Imagination [Lecture]: https://beccatarnas.com/2020/08/28/jungs-participatory-imagination/ - Becca's PhD Defense: https://youtu.be/3soOYajHUBM - The Red Book [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0393089088?tag=toe08-20 - The Holy Grail Of The Unconscious [Article]: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html - Active Imagination: https://jungiancenter.org/jung-on-active-imagination-features-methods-and-warnings/ - Jung On Active Imagination [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691015767?tag=toe08-20 - Richard Tarnas's Website: https://cosmosandpsyche.com/ - The Passion Of The Western Mind [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0345368096?tag=toe08-20 - Psychological Types [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1614279705?tag=toe08-20 - The Fellowship Of The Ring [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0547928211?tag=toe08-20 - Kant's 'Categories': https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/ - The Imaginary And The Imaginal [Paper]: http://www.bahaistudies.net/asma/mundus_imaginalis.pdf - Toni Wolff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Wolff - The Call Of Cthulhu [Book]: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/cc.aspx - The Shadow: https://iaap.org/jung-analytical-psychology/short-articles-on-analytical-psychology/the-shadow/ - BBC Interviews Curt: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/m002s4hd - Andres Emilsson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/gi08eVU_-f8 - Leo Gura [TOE]: https://youtu.be/R-w8k4smC74 - Iain McGilchrist [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0 - Greg Kondrak [TOE]: https://youtu.be/FFW14zSYiFY - John Vervaeke [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3p8o3-7mvQc - Bernardo Kastrup & Susan Blackmore [TOE]: https://youtu.be/jrVnAWP2XEs - Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   August 03, 2026·1h 55min
   Play
5. 5
   Number 5: Tanya Luhrmann: The Experience Is Real. But Is God?

   SPONSORS: - Nobody likes a call center — ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs fixes that with voice AI that sounds human and works 24/7 in 30+ languages. Try it: https://elevenlabs.io/TOE - Don’t sleep on [@ultrapouches]. New customers get 15% Off with code TOE at http://takeultra.com! #UltraPouches #ad - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE This episode is about how an invisible God comes to feel present to someone who prays. It is not about whether God exists. Tanya Luhrmann, professor of anthropology at Stanford, joins to explain how people come to experience God as real, and why she thinks there are an awful lot of atheists sitting in church pews. We discuss Augustine hearing God speak, why the "spiritual but not religious" category has grown to nearly a third of Americans, why a more lovable, therapeutic God is paradoxically harder to believe in than a demanding one, and how practices like prayer and the Ignatian spiritual exercises make an invisible God feel present. The conversation also covers why religious studies classes (not biology classes) most often unsettle a young believer's faith, and the "liminal" psychological space — the same one that makes a childhood teddy bear feel alive — where Luhrmann argues God actually lives. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 TIMESTAMPS: - 00:00:00 - Experiencing God as Real - 00:05:32 - William James and "The More" - 00:10:45 - The "Teddy Bear" God - 00:16:00 - Neoplatonic Vibrational Theology - 00:21:40 - Placebo and Hypnotic Focus - 00:27:22 - Charles Taylor’s Secular Age - 00:33:46 - Feynman’s Two Heritages - 00:41:44 - Productive Doubt in Faith - 00:46:50 - Tarski and Belief Hierarchies - 00:55:40 - Apophatic vs. Cataphatic Prayer - 01:00:42 - Paracosms and Ignatian Exercises LINKS MENTIONED: - Tanya Luhrmann's Website: https://www.tanyaluhrmann.com/ - How God Becomes Real [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0691234442?tag=toe08-20 - When God Talks Back [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0307264793?tag=toe08-20 - The Faith Frame [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327517833_The_Faith_Frame_Or_Belief_is_Easy_Faith_is_Hard - The Varieties Of Religious Experience [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1439297274?tag=toe08-20 - Many Religious 'Nones' Around The World Hold Spiritual Beliefs [Article]: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/09/04/many-religious-nones-around-the-world-hold-spiritual-beliefs/ - The Cultural Kindling Of Spiritual Experiences [Paper]: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/677881 - Sacred Books Of The East: https://archive.org/details/SacredBooksEastVariousOrientalScholarsWithIndex.50VolsMaxMuller/01.SacredBooksEast.VarOrSch.v1v2v3comb.Muller.Buhler.Legge.Oxf.1879.1897./page/n43/mode/2up - A Secular Age [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/0674986911?tag=toe08-20 - Two Great Heritages: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman - The Book Of Job: https://www.sefaria.org/Job.1.2 - The Highs And Lows Of Sufi Whirling [Article]: https://www.gqmiddleeast.com/article/the-highs-and-lows-of-sufi-whirling - Say What Your Longing Heart Desires [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1503614247?tag=toe08-20 - Sechit Madra [Trainer]: https://www.instagram.com/sechit_madra/ - Wolfgang Smith [TOE]: https://youtu.be/vp18_L_y_30 - Jonathan Pageau [TOE]: https://youtu.be/X3co_AA6yec - Becca Tarnas [TOE]: https://youtu.be/E49g3zJerss Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

   September 07, 2026·1h 10min
   Play