The (Terrifying) Theory That Your Thoughts Were Never Your Own

The podcast features a panel discussion with Elan Barenholtz and William Hahn, moderated by Curt Jaimungal, exploring the nature of language, cognition, and consciousness in light of recent advancements in AI and large language models. Barenholtz presents his theory that language is an autonomous, autogenerative system operating on meaningless symbols, while Hahn extends this concept to virtual machines and software layers, suggesting consciousness may be one of many parallel programs. They discuss the implications of this perspective on memory, knowledge, and the potential for AI to manipulate human thought, touching on the origins of language, the role of computation, and the nature of God within this framework. The conversation also addresses the limitations of current scientific orthodoxies and encourages listeners to question established beliefs.