# Slavoj Zizek: “Buddhism Can’t Explain This” Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488/slavoj-zizek-buddhism-can-t-explain-this Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488/slavoj-zizek-buddhism-can-t-explain-this.md Podcast: [Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal](https://stenobird.com/podcast/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488) Published: 2026-04-27T14:04:00+00:00 Episode link: https://s.gum.fm/s-62d83916a854b1cc0031878d/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/TEMI2684168828.mp3?updated=1777299407 Audio file: https://s.gum.fm/s-62d83916a854b1cc0031878d/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/TEMI2684168828.mp3?updated=1777299407 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488/episodes/slavoj-zizek-buddhism-can-t-explain-this Duration seconds: 5719 ## Resource 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 subscribe to The Economist for their science and tech coverage. As a TOE listener, get 35% off! No other podcast has this: https://economist.com/TOESlavoj 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 Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs - Crypto: https://commerce.coinbase.com/checkout/de803625-87d3-4300-ab6d-85d4258834a9 - PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=XUBHNMFXUX5S4 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 - Sta… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488/episodes/slavoj-zizek-buddhism-can-t-explain-this/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/theories-of-everything-with-curt-jaimungal-6685488/slavoj-zizek-buddhism-can-t-explain-this.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.