Introduction to The Portal
In July 2019, Eric Weinstein launched The Portal Podcast. Drawing on "portal story" motifs in literature, the show aims to bring its audience into contact with the most fundamental and transcendent aspects of reality, to break the intellectual stasis that pervades our institutions, to foster individual sense-making, and to galvanize the search for a more hopeful and transformative future. Since launch, the podcast has released over 40 episodes, spread between interviews and audio essays. Other content, including dozens of Instagram livestreams and several standalone YouTube videos, have been released since the start of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Eric is also active on Twitter.
The content on this page covers The Portal's main ideas to help new listeners see their common threads. Our community is built around understanding and further conveying these ideas; we encourage you to join one of our Discord servers to chat and learn, and to contribute to one of our projects.
For more information about the community, see The Portal Group.
For more information about this wiki, see The Portal Wiki.
Selected Portal Content
The podcast episodes listed below explore central themes of The Portal. They are available as audio and video on major streaming services and as transcripts on The Portal Blog. The Portal Clips YouTube channel also has excerpts from the podcast and community-made videos on recurring themes, such as this video on the Twin Nuclei Problem and this video on the N^2 revolution. Other community members have also made their own videos related to The Portal, such as this video on kayfabe.
For a comprehensive list of Portal content, see All Episodes of The Portal Podcast and also All Content by Eric Weinstein.
Edge Essays
Some of the earliest discussion of the podcast's core ideas occur in Eric Weinstein's Edge.org essays. These are brief essays in response to an annual themed question posed by Edge.
| Question | Answer | Year |
|---|---|---|
| What is the Last Question? | The Last Question | 2018 |
| What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known? | Russell Conjugation | 2017 |
| What Do You Consider the Most Interesting Recent (Scientific) News? What Makes It Important? | Anthropic Capitalism And The New Gimmick Economy | 2016 |
| What Scientific Idea Is Ready for Retirement? | M-theory / String Theory is the Only Game in Town | 2014 |
| What *Should* We Be Worried About? | Excellence | 2013 |
| What is Your Favorite Deep, Elegant, or Beautiful Explanation? | Einstein's Revenge: The New Geometric Quantum | 2012 |
| What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit? | Kayfabe | 2011 |
| How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? | Go Virtual Young Man | 2010 |