Elan Barenholtz and William Hahn: Your Thoughts Were Never Your Own

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

Curt Jaimungal

Physics, Philosophy, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elan Barenholtz and William Hahn argue that language functions as a self‑generating organism that writes its own software into our minds, shaping cognition and behavior. Drawing on large language models, autoregression, and cognitive science, they suggest memory, self and even concepts of God are merely informational tokens.- 00:00 - Introduction- 05:28 - The Nature of Autoregression- 10:14 - Memory and Cognition Redefined- 11:28 - The Role of Language Models- 14:23 - Exploring Consciousness and Software- 26:22 - The Evolution of Language- 38:08 - Language: A Cultural Artifact- 54:19 - The Power and Danger of Language- 1:02:52 - Embracing Uncertainty in Knowledge- 1:04:59 - Courage to Believe in Ideas- 1:09:30 - Support and Engagement with ContentSPONSORS:- I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOERESOURCES:- Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com- Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e- Elan's Substack: https://elanbarenholtz.substack.com/- Elan's Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2grAjZsAAAAJ&hl=en- William's Blog: https://hahn.ai/blog/index.html- Ekkolapto's Site: https://www.ekkolapto.org/- Andrés Emilsson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/BBP8WZpYp0Y- Elan Barenholtz [TOE]: https://youtu.be/A36OumnSrWY- Anna Ciaunica & Michael Levin [TOE]: https://youtu.be/2aLhkm6QUgA- William Hahn [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3fkg0uTA3qU- Michael Levin's Presentation [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Exdz2HKP7u0- Stephen Wolfram [TOE]: https://youtu.be/0YRlQQw0d-4- Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: https://youtu.be/b_DUft-BdIE- Ai Panel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/abzXzPBW4_s- Joscha Bach & Ben Goertzel [TOE]: https://youtu.be/xw7omaQ8SgA- Noam Chomsky [TOE]: https://youtu.be/DQuiso493ro- Michael Levin Solo [TOE]: https://youtu.be/c8iFtaltX-s- Consciousness Iceberg [TOE]: https://youtu.be/65yjqIDghEk- Joscha Bach [TOE]: https://youtu.be/3MNBxfrmfmI- Scott Aaronson [TOE]: https://youtu.be/gGsh0_-q7LI- Iain McGilchrist [TOE]: https://youtu.be/Q9sBKCd2HD0- The Master and His Emissary [Book]: https://www.amazon.com/Master-His-Emissary-Divided-Western/dp/0300188374- Michael Levin & Karl Friston [TOE]: https://youtu.be/0yOV9Pzk2zw- Shape Rotators vs Wordcels [Article]: https://sasamilic.medium.com/some-thoughts-on-the-shape-rotator-vs-worcel-meme-f320261a21cd Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal features long-form, technically detailed interviews with leading researchers in physics, mathematics, consciousness, and philosophy, exploring topics at the level of active research. For academics, graduate students, and anyone seeking depth beyond popular science. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Right, that's it. Come on. Lights out. You've got a test tomorrow. Just two minutes. I'm about to reach the next level. It's going off now. Yeah, whatever. Let's see. Where's the app? Oh, here it is. What? How? Oh, no. You're out. Better look next time. Mom! It's game over for late nights on school nights. EE Wi-Fi controls help you get them off the Wi-Fi and into bed.
0:22.8	More parents are choosing EE broadband, the UK's fastest growing broadband provider.
0:27.8	To verify I see EE.cote.uk slash claims.
0:30.2	And this is where, you know, it starts to get a little bit disturbing.
0:34.1	Language is an autonomous informational system when may even call it an organism, and it runs in our brains.
0:41.1	It's downloaded against your will.
0:42.9	By the time you're reading the waiver, it's too late.
0:46.1	What makes you think your thoughts are your own?
0:49.5	According to groundbreaking work by professors Elon Berenholtz and William Hahn, every word you speak
0:56.0	comes from an alien intelligence that installed itself in your brain during infancy.
1:01.0	Language, they argue, is an organism that uses human minds as its substrate.
1:06.0	Elon Bernholz was interviewed before on this channel, and it went viral.
1:10.0	Link is in the description.
1:11.3	Professor Bernholt contends that our linguistic system operates on meaningless squiggles,
1:16.4	with no access to the rich sensory world of experience.
1:20.0	He believes that LLMs can master language but never feel pain, for instance.
1:25.4	Professor William Hahn, on the other hand, who's also been
1:27.7	interviewed and when viral link is in the description, extends this to virtual machines and
1:32.4	software layers. Professor Hahn thinks that consciousness is just one of many programs running
1:37.6	in parallel. I was invited to moderate this panel live at the University of Toronto with this
1:42.9	event organized by Echolopto.
1:45.2	Again, links to everything are in the description.
	...

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