Stephon Alexander: The Autodidactic Universe Learns Its Own Laws

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Previously titled “Stephon Alexander on The Autodidactic Universe, String Theory, Matrix Models & Cherns-Simons Gravity” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026

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Recorded19 Jan 2022

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YouTube link: https://youtu.be/4xlXUEEnZ6s Sponsors: https://curiositystream.thld.co/TOE for 25% off Curiosity Stream. https://brilliant.org/TOE for 20% off Brilliant. For Algo's podcast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9IfRw1QaTglRoX0sN11AQQ and website https://www.algo.com/. Merch (until end of Oct 2021): https://tinyurl.com/TOEmerch Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal Crypto: 3CSm4FH6975J8wvKp8x8BSefH6QCVuk736 PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/better-left-unsaid-with-curt-jaimungal/id1521758802 Pandora: https://pdora.co/33b9lfP Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e Subreddit r/TheoriesOfEverything: https://reddit.com/r/theoriesofeverything LINKS MENTIONED: -Fear of a Black Universe: https://amzn.to/3rxGFcj -The Jazz of Physics: https://amzn.to/3qR7KIx -Brian Keating's podcast with Stephon Alexander: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehEbrD42U_g TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:04:46 BTS banter and framing the conversation 00:06:05 The Autodidactic Universe 00:18:54 BMN vs BFSS (type IIA String Theory) 00:26:45 Lee Smolin's evolutionary model of the universe as black hole spawn 00:29:06 Curt posits a link between the matrix models and particles, rather than laws 00:30:36 Explaining D-branes and their dimensionality 00:36:02 When watching TOE, it's okay to be confused 00:36:55 Chern-Simons Gravity 00:49:03 Anomaly Cancellations 00:51:43 Klein Gordon equation and renormalization 00:55:55 What is a Theory of Everything? What are the conditions? 00:59:15 Stephon tells a story about Curt's brother's "genius" (they were in grad school together) 01:02:40 Doubting your own mathematical abilities 01:06:02 Advice for those in their 20s / 30s / 40s learning String Theory without a math background 01:10:24 Brian Keating is no friend to Stephon (kidding) 01:11:08 How does learning math / physics change with age? 01:15:14 Anomalies and purposeful mistakes leading to insights 01:18:02 No Go theorems (and AdS / CFT correspondence) 01:23:26 Why does the Graviton have Spin 2? 01:25:41 There are gems in Geometric Unity 01:29:12 Opinion on Stephen Wolfram's theory / project on physics 01:31:05 Future plans for TOE: Geometric Algebra and Categorical Unification * * * Just wrapped (April 2021) a documentary called Better Left Unsaid http://betterleftunsaidfilm.com on the topic of "when does the left go too far?" Visit that site if you'd like to watch it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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