Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
The Beyond Podcast explores meta-topics and concepts. Note: this has nothing to do with Meta - the corporation. We will focus on mind-twisting subjects like recursion, self-similarity, self-reference, various paradoxes, and other fun puzzles and problems. We will discuss meta references in art and entertainment. And we will try to make these discussions fun and entertaining! Check out The Beyond Podcast at thebeyondpod.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Meta concepts: recursion, self-reference, paradoxes, strange loops • Computation theory: Turing machines, halting, fixed points, quines, cellular automata • Complexity, large numbers, probability/SSA • Physics metaness • Maps/Schelling points • Sci‑fi/book discussionsThis podcast explores “meta” ideas—self-reference, recursion, self-similarity, and paradoxes—using concepts from mathematics, computer science, philosophy, physics, and science fiction. Across the show, the focus is on systems that can describe themselves, reason about their own limits, or loop back on their own definitions, and on the puzzles that arise when you try to formalize those situations.
A recurring theme is computation as a lens for metaness. The episodes draw on foundational topics like Turing machines, the Halting Problem, fixed-point reasoning, cellular automata, and quines (programs that reproduce their own source code). These discussions connect abstract theory to what algorithms can and cannot do, how programming languages and machines shape those capabilities, and how questions about proof and consistency show up in formal systems, including parallels between Gödel’s incompleteness results and limits in computation.
The show also leans into information and description: how to measure or compress the complexity of a string, what it means for something to be minimally described, and how seemingly arbitrary texts might be found within mathematical constants. Probability and epistemology enter through thought experiments about observer selection and reasoning from limited evidence, emphasizing how perspective affects inference.
Beyond computation, the podcast uses meta-structure to talk about maps and coordination points, as well as “strange loops” as they might appear in everyday contexts. It also touches on metaness in physics and on speculative technological ideas such as self-replicating probes. Along the way, the host(s) sometimes discuss or review books and fiction that echo these themes, using novels and short stories as additional ways to examine self-reference, simulation, and the boundaries of intelligibility.
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This Episode Was Randomly Selected From The Set Of All Possible Episodes 2026-Jan-03 32 minutes |
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This Episode Halts 2025-Sep-19 36 minutes |
This Episode’s Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny2025-Jul-08 34 minutes |
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This Episode’s Title Exists Somewhere In the Digits of Pi 2025-Apr-14 30 minutes |
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This Episode Cannot Prove Its Own Consistency 2024-Jun-02 36 minutes |
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This Episode’s Title Has Thirty Eight Letters 2024-Jan-29 30 minutes |
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This Episode Contains The Seeds Of Its Own Creation 2023-May-22 32 minutes |
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This Episode Is Coming From Inside Your Headphones 2023-Mar-13 38 minutes |
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The Following Episode Is False 2023-Jan-03 32 minutes |
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This Episode Contains a Hapax Legomenon 2022-Dec-05 37 minutes |
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This Episode’s Transcript is a 89742 Byte PDF Document 2022-Nov-13 35 minutes |
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This Episode is 2580 Seconds Long 2022-Oct-30 43 minutes |
This Episode Has 6650 Words2022-Oct-21 44 minutes |