Slavoj Zizek: “Buddhism Can’t Explain This”

SPONSORS: - Accelerate your efficiency. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at http://shopify.com/theories - Go to https://shortform.com/toe for a free trial and an exclusive $50 OFF on your annual subscription - I personally subscribe to The Economist. TOE listeners get 35% off the annual subscription. No other podcast has this! https://economist.com/TOE Slavoj Žižek doesn't answer your question — he dismantles it, rebuilds it, and hands you something stranger and more useful than what you started with. Philosopher, provocateur, and self-described pessimist, he's spent decades insisting on something most thinkers shy away from: that freedom isn't the absence of necessity — it's the moment you choose what you fundamentally are. The fall comes first. Paradise was never real to begin with. Reality is the gap, not the thing on either side of it. FOLLOW: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b92xAErofYQA7bU4e - Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/subscribe - Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt - Discord: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE - PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/paypalTOE TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - Socrates and Radical Freedom 00:05:02 - Quantum Indeterminacy vs. Freedom 00:10:06 - Ontological Collapse Paradoxes 00:15:07 - Adorno and Social Antinomies 00:20:36 - Democritus: Less Than Nothing 00:25:40 - Sartre and Existential Choice 00:30:45 - Freudian Death Drive 00:36:01 - Heidegger and Hysterical Awareness 00:42:10 - Imp of Perversity 00:48:07 - Einstein vs. Bohr 00:53:15 - God’s Ontological Laziness 00:58:17 - Hegel’s Retroactive Necessity 01:03:41 - Digital Spirituality and AI 01:09:18 - Stalin and Failed Projects 01:14:41 - Hegel in a Wired Brain 01:20:10 - Religious Convictions and Physics 01:25:12 - Zen Buddhism and War LINKS MENTIONED: - Slavoj's Books: https://amazon.com/stores/author/B000APK7P8 - Philosophical Investigations into Human Freedom: https://amazon.com/dp/0791468747?tag=toe08-20 - Freedom: A Disease Without Cure: https://amazon.com/dp/1350559164?tag=toe08-20 - Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1785.pdf - Binding, Minds & the Platonic Realm: https://youtu.be/0BVM0UC28nY - Quantum Healing: https://amazon.com/dp/0553348698?tag=toe08-20 - Republic of Silence: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1944/12/paris-alive-the-republic-of-silence/656012/ - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality: https://amazon.com/dp/0486434141?tag=toe08-20 - Beyond the Pleasure Principle: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Freud_Beyond_P_P.pdf - Philosophy of Spirit: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/jlindex.htm - Hegelian Reading of the New Science of Consciousness: https://www.crisiscritique.org/storage/app/media/2025-08-25/slavoj-zizek.pdf - The Mirror Stage: https://english.hku.hk/staff/kjohnson/PDF/LacanMirrorStageECRITS.pdf - Being and Time: https://amazon.com/dp/0061575593?tag=toe08-20 - Less Than Nothing: https://amazon.com/dp/1781681279?tag=toe08-20 - The Imp of the Perverse: https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Poe_Imp.pdf - Einstein-Bohr Debate: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/dk/bohr.htm - Ages of the World: https://amazon.com/dp/1438474059?tag=toe08-20 - Quantum History: https://amazon.com/dp/135056642X?tag=toe08-20 - Phenomenology of Spirit: https://amazon.com/dp/0198245971?tag=toe08-20 More links at https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices