Joe Rogan Experience #2171 - Eric Weinstein & Terrence Howard

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. THTerrence Howard0:00

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Gentlemen, here we go. Terrence, thank you for coming back. It was, uh, a lot of fun having you on the first time. Obviously, a lot of people wanted to talk to you after they heard all these, uh, ideas of yours. And, and then my friend Eric reached out, and he said he would love to do it. Eric, one of my most brilliant friends. Um, y- tell everybody your background, like your academic background so people understand what you...

   4. EWEric Weinstein0:36

      Sure. So I'm, I'm a PhD in mathematics, specifically in mathematical physics. Uh, I've had positions in economics, mathematics, and physics departments at places like MIT, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harvard, after my doctorate, uh, Oxford, um, and I'm a podcaster in part-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00

      Very good podcaster.

   6. EWEric Weinstein1:01

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:01

      Boosted- Bring it back to Portal?

   8. EWEric Weinstein1:03

      Uh, you have a lot to do with all of these things, Joe.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:06

      This is my f- my, one of my favorite episodes of any podcast was your interview with Werner Herzog.

   10. EWEric Weinstein1:10

       Oh, man.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       That was a great episode.

   12. EWEric Weinstein1:12

       Have you had him in here?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       I have not, but I would love to.

   14. EWEric Weinstein1:14

       'Cause it seems to me like that's the conversation I wanna listen to-

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       I would like to corner him-

   16. EWEric Weinstein1:18

       ... is you, you, and Werner.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       ... because I believe that Grizzly Man was a secret comedy.

   18. EWEric Weinstein1:21

       (laughs)

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:22

       I really do. There's something about h- the way he edited Grizzly Man, I'm like, "This motherfucker is being funny on purpose." I know he is. I know he's, like, editing these, like, short clips so it's- the guy's so ridiculous-

   20. EWEric Weinstein1:34

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       ... that you start laughing.

   22. EWEric Weinstein1:36

       I didn't see it 'cause I, for-

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:37

       You haven't seen Grizzly Man?

   24. EWEric Weinstein1:38

       We have different tastes, sir.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:39

       How dare you.

   26. EWEric Weinstein1:40

       By the way-

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       It's a work of art.

   28. EWEric Weinstein1:41

       ... I, I need to also just say that I was not, uh, Terrence, I think, you know, I heard him on TMZ, um, the, I, I am not, I was not looking for a debate. I wanted to make sure that Terrence had his position steel manned so that anything that he didn't know how to do within mathematics that was legit, uh, gave a chance to put his best foot forward before he got, like, reviewed. And, uh, I didn't ask to come on. You asked to have me on. I'm happy to do it 'cause a friend of the show, but I'm just-

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:09

       Well, you reached out about the episode specifically-

   30. EWEric Weinstein2:11

       Yeah, sure.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Two is different. I…

   1. THTerrence Howard15:00

      Any other prime number, and I'll jump into this, any prime number that you subtract from another prime number, you always get a composite number, except with the situation of the number two. And there's so many people that... And that's why the, the prime numbers are unpredictable, because of that problem associated. So there's been a problem with two for so long.

   2. EWEric Weinstein15:20

      Two is different. I mean, y- you will find that, um, mathematicians will often talk about, uh, proving something for characteristic not equal to two. So they'll single out two as being just very, very different. So look that up when you, when we're done, and I'm happy to-

   3. THTerrence Howard15:35

      Yeah, but why? But why would they do that?

   4. EWEric Weinstein15:37

      Because then part of what you're saying, the prime two, two, it does belong as a prime, but it is also special. And in other words, I have the opportunity to straw man you if I want to, because what you just said sounded crazy, and I also have the prob- possibility to steel man you. So all the algebraic topologists who just heard, you know, for characteristic not equals to, to two, they're like saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair." And so in part, by just jumping into the middle of this, we don't have the benefit of putting your best foot-

   5. THTerrence Howard16:08

      Um, walking through...

   6. EWEric Weinstein16:08

      ... forward because, you know, if you say one (laughs) one times one equals two, everybody knows that that's crazy. But what you actually may mean and what, the fact that you don't use certain terms or the fact that you use certain pronunciations that c- communicate to me something very positive, which is that you taught yourself, you learned this stuff from reading about it because nobody taught you, or you wouldn't pronounce certain words the way you pronounce them.

   7. THTerrence Howard16:31

      True. True. Um-

   8. EWEric Weinstein16:32

      Yeah, so, you know, in part, you always have the ability to make fun of somebody who pronounces a word the way it's read on the page, and then you also have the opportunity to say, "Holy cow, that guy actually taught himself. That's more impressive."

   9. THTerrence Howard16:44

      Right.

   10. EWEric Weinstein16:44

       And so, so in part, what I wanna do is I wanna (laughs) start by giving you your best, your best foot forward and see if I even understood what you said when you went into this whole flower of life rift that becomes your, y- your larger theory. And the only way I know how to do this is to see whether or not I actually grasped it.

   11. THTerrence Howard17:05

       Let's go.

   12. EWEric Weinstein17:05

       Because, you know, I also had to spend some time. I didn't spend a ton of time, but, you know, my time is valuable, your time is valuable.

   13. THTerrence Howard17:12

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   14. EWEric Weinstein17:12

       So let's do this thing.

   15. THTerrence Howard17:13

       Yeah, so I, I, I will follow your lead. Um-

   16. EWEric Weinstein17:16

       All right.

   17. What's going on with the number two? (laughs) I'm sitting over here going, "Hey-"

   18. The CIA, the CIA is in charge of the number two.

   19. What's up with two?

   20. Two is different, because of what he said, you know?

   21. Right.

   22. The, the fact that the even/odd distinction-

   23. Isn't that odd, though, that two is different?

   24. THTerrence Howard17:29

       But the problem-

   25. EWEric Weinstein17:29

       What a strange thing.

   26. THTerrence Howard17:30

       The problem that associ- that's associated with the number two is because of the identity principle, which I call the Jim Crow laws of mathematics.

   27. EWEric Weinstein17:39

       (laughs)

   28. (laughs)

   29. THTerrence Howard17:39

       That eight times one equal... I know you don't wanna go into it yet.

   30. EWEric Weinstein17:42

       It's okay.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. THTerrence Howard30:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      (laughs)

   3. EWEric Weinstein30:00

      (laughs)

   4. Be right back.

   5. Actually, could we g- is there a way to bring the temperature, uh...

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Yeah, we can lower the temperature in here.

   7. EWEric Weinstein30:05

      Yeah, 'cause I'm schvitzing.

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:07

      Yeah. Well, you are wearing a jacket, sir.

   9. EWEric Weinstein30:08

      I-... Well, because I'm trying to be professional.

   10. THTerrence Howard30:10

       That's right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:10

       That's hilarious. Isn't that adorable? Like I like how you dress, Matt.

   12. EWEric Weinstein30:14

       Can I do pitchers of that cold coffee any more?

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:15

       Beautiful geometric pattern on your hoodie. Looks much more comfortable.

   14. THTerrence Howard30:18

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:18

       This thing you're doing, everybody does that. Smart as you are, you could wear a fucking dirty Nirvana T-shirt.

   16. THTerrence Howard30:25

       (laughs) You come in...

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:26

       You don't need, you don't need this nonsense suit.

   18. EWEric Weinstein30:28

       Okay.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:28

       Although I do enjoy a good suit.

   20. THTerrence Howard30:29

       But most of, most of the stuff that I've been-

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:32

       (laughs)

   22. THTerrence Howard30:32

       ... pointing out-

   23. EWEric Weinstein30:33

       Don't try to control everything. (laughs)

   24. THTerrence Howard30:34

       ... the, the, the stuff I've been pointing out has been the blaring inconsistencies that they shove down and tell you, "Just accept." And I j- and if I hadn't ha-... If I didn't come up with a separate cosmog... I didn't come up with it. If a separate cosmogony hadn't been handed to me, given to me-

   25. EWEric Weinstein30:52

       Terrence.

   26. THTerrence Howard30:53

       That's why I explained that thing.

   27. EWEric Weinstein30:54

       Y- y- y-

   28. THTerrence Howard30:55

       Okay, I'm gonna be quiet because-

   29. EWEric Weinstein30:56

       All right.

   30. THTerrence Howard30:57

       ... I'll, I'll, I'll --
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   They had a bad…

   1. THTerrence Howard45:00

      point on were... Because Einstein's theory of relativity was so easy and it predicted all of the movements of things, it did... They allowed... They, they abandoned-

   2. EWEric Weinstein45:09

      They had a bad idea of what the ether was going to be, and special relativity said-

   3. THTerrence Howard45:13

      'Cause they thought it was still.

   4. EWEric Weinstein45:14

      Yeah.

   5. THTerrence Howard45:15

      They thought it was-

   6. EWEric Weinstein45:15

      In a certain sense. And what you are trying to say, the way I interpret it, again, and I don't know if, if I'm right if we don't do the work, is, hey, the spiritual successor to the idea of the ether exists.

   7. THTerrence Howard45:30

      Yes.

   8. EWEric Weinstein45:30

      And that thing has properties, and if you say... If, if I put a vector bundle on top of a Lorentzian manifold, then you don't have a contradiction, and if you call that the ether, that's more or less w- what we work with. And then we do this weird thing where we say, "Well, they used to think the ether existed, and it didn't. Ha ha ha." And that's not really-

   9. THTerrence Howard45:50

      No. 'Cause that's when they said that space was a vacuum, and they realized that space is not a-

   10. EWEric Weinstein45:54

       The vacuum ain't a vacuum.

   11. THTerrence Howard45:55

       ... it's not a vacuum.

   12. EWEric Weinstein45:56

       Yeah. The-

   13. THTerrence Howard45:56

       It's not a vacuum.

   14. EWEric Weinstein45:57

       The vac- Do you know how much is going on in that vacuum? It's all going on in that vacuum.

   15. THTerrence Howard45:59

       Yes, that, all of this stuff and that's-

   16. EWEric Weinstein46:01

       I understand.

   17. THTerrence Howard46:02

       So what's-

   18. EWEric Weinstein46:02

       So this is the thing which is if you step on this thing the wrong way, everybody laughs and says, "Ha ha ha. He doesn't understand the Michelson-Morley experiment. He doesn't understand why there's no ether." And then we secretly sneak it back in, in this-

   19. THTerrence Howard46:15

       Thank you.

   20. EWEric Weinstein46:16

       Thank you, Joe. Cheers.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:18

       Cheers, Joe.

   22. THTerrence Howard46:18

       Yeah, cheers. (glasses clinking)

   23. EWEric Weinstein46:20

       Yeah, look at these professional spherical cubes.

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:23

       Yeah. They're cool, right? Brown ice cream with a sh-

   25. THTerrence Howard46:25

       Ah. Now I can have a conversation.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:27

       Oh, yeah. Now. (laughs)

   27. THTerrence Howard46:28

       Mm. Ahh.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:29

       Freedom.

   29. EWEric Weinstein46:29

       So, uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:30

       Mental freedom in a glass.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   No. What you mean…

   1. THTerrence Howard1:00:00

      four bubbles?

   2. EWEric Weinstein1:00:00

      No. What you mean by negative space ... Negative curvature and negative space are different concepts. So, the word negative is appearing twice, and that's why we're confused. Again, you know, there are a million of these gotchas where you're- you're not g-

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      Can you, uh, describe the difference between the two?

   4. EWEric Weinstein1:00:12

      Sure. If I take the tip of my nose, that's gonna be positive curvature because I've got one, uh-

   5. THTerrence Howard1:00:19

      Extending out.

   6. EWEric Weinstein1:00:21

      One curve going one direction, and the other is going in ... They're curved in the same direction. On the other hand, if you look at, like, the crease of my nose, um, that's gonna be negative curvature because I've got one that's going like this and another that's going like that. Jamie, is it possible to take a look at a monkey saddle?

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:43

      Oh, wow.

   8. EWEric Weinstein1:00:44

      So, that would be negatively curved, right? 'Cause you'd have, you'd have things going in opposite directions.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

      That looks like a cool seat.

   10. THTerrence Howard1:00:52

       Yeah.

   11. EWEric Weinstein1:00:53

       (laughs)

   12. THTerrence Howard1:00:53

       (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

       Yeah. That looked a little comfortable.

   14. EWEric Weinstein1:00:55

       Okay. So, negative curvature is-

   15. THTerrence Howard1:00:56

       I actually have a model of that.

   16. EWEric Weinstein1:00:57

       Yeah. So, negative curvature would be what we would be talking about with like, um, hyperbolic space. And spherical curvature would be what we were talking about with the inside of those curve linear triangles on his ... So, he's making ... Again ...... I don't see this as... This isn't where I think it's worth, you know, saying he's wrong. He just doesn't know the language and doesn't know that there's a, a formalization of it. Now, if you take, um... So the other structure that he keeps running across is an octahedral curvilinear, um... I don't know what... It's not really a platonic solid because it's not flat. It's-

   17. THTerrence Howard1:01:36

       Well, no. If you go and push ... You have to push on the, um, jewel on the side, Jamie. If you go to the side of the thing, press on that jewel, and then go to the purp- to that blue on that right. That blue, yep. And then you get where-

   18. EWEric Weinstein1:01:52

       Okay.

   19. THTerrence Howard1:01:52

       ... eight bubbles were.

   20. EWEric Weinstein1:01:53

       So now what he's doing is he's saying if I have eight bubbles and these bubbles, all ... Each face of this object-

   21. THTerrence Howard1:02:03

       Mm.

   22. EWEric Weinstein1:02:03

       ... this octahedral object, um, he's taking a s- a sort of curvilinear triangle on a sphere, and he's imagining that these things are all sort of racing towards each other. Um, and how would you gener- No, no, no. Don't. If you put those two in, he's gonna go into a different world.

   23. THTerrence Howard1:02:28

       No, no, no. No, no.

   24. EWEric Weinstein1:02:28

       So if we take the-

   25. THTerrence Howard1:02:29

       You can just tap on each one of those tetraeds. Just tap it, it'll go away.

   26. EWEric Weinstein1:02:32

       Okay.

   27. THTerrence Howard1:02:32

       Tap, it'll go away.

   28. EWEric Weinstein1:02:33

       Now, how would you generate-

   29. THTerrence Howard1:02:35

       Thank you.

   30. EWEric Weinstein1:02:35

       So Neil doesn't know where this comes from, right? Now, the way in which, uh, you would do this, I believe, is that you would take a ... Let me think about how you did this. Um, you take the eight-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:15:22

   Even though I have…

   1. EWEric Weinstein1:15:00

      the odds that he's doing something new in mathematics, I'll be blunt, are very, very small.

   2. THTerrence Howard1:15:04

      Even though I have patents on it that shows that all of this is probably-

   3. EWEric Weinstein1:15:07

      I don't wanna go there. The patents do not speak to what you think that they speak to.

   4. THTerrence Howard1:15:11

      That's ... Okay.

   5. EWEric Weinstein1:15:13

      And look, you, you, you can see into my heart. I'm not trying to-

   6. THTerrence Howard1:15:16

      No. No, no, no, no, no, no.

   7. EWEric Weinstein1:15:18

      All right.

   8. THTerrence Howard1:15:18

      But we were talking. I told, I told you that-

   9. EWEric Weinstein1:15:20

      Yeah.

   10. THTerrence Howard1:15:20

       ... they produce a super symmetrical su- structure there.

Episode duration: 4:03:25