<p>Every week, podcaster Curt Jaimungal immerses himself in big ideas and complex theories to prepare for long, in-depth interviews with some of the world’s leading thinkers on his show Theories of Everything. His guests are wide-ranging - renowned physicists, mathematicians but also philosophers - investigating questions of existence and the nature of reality. He takes it very seriously, as part of a wider quest to find a worldview. But one day, he’s shocked to discover he feels disorientated by what he’d previously considered a mere intellectual exercise. </p><p>Matthew Syed asks whether certain ideas and practices are riskier, perhaps more dangerous to explore than others. He discovers ideas around selfhood in particular can send people into a spin and traces the history of when practices based on self-observation became popularised in western societies, often outside of their intended context. He assesses the dangers of ‘ontological whiplash’, a term podcaster Curt gives to the experience of constantly going from one set of ideas to another. And he receives sound advice from his old friend Dr Iain McGilchrist - a psychiatrist, philosopher, and bestselling author - on how best to maintain a sense of equilibrium when exploring questions of the self and consciousness. </p><p>With Curt Jaimungal, creator and podcast host of Theories of Everything; Willoughby Britton, associate professor of psychiatry and human behaviour at Brown University Medical School and director of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Brown University School of Public Health; Brahmacharini Shripriya Chaitanya, Hindu monk with Chinmaya Mission; and Dr Iain McGilchrist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and author of the bestselling book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.</p><p>Featuring excerpts from Curt Jaimungal’s Theories of Everything YouTube channel: Why Consciousness is Fundamental with Donald Hoffman, July 30, 2020 Noam Chomsky: Panpsychism, LLMs, Artificial Consciousness, October 25, 2022</p><p>Rupert Spira: Non-Dualism, God, &amp; Death, June 21, 2021 Matter and Mind: Rethinking Consciousness with Iain McGilchrist, November 26, 2024 </p><p>Presenter: Matthew Syed Producer: Vishva Samani Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey Sound Designer: Mark Pittam Production Coordinator: Joe Savage Theme by Ioana Selaru A Novel production for BBC Radio 4</p>