Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas6 Apr 2020

91 | Scott Barry Kaufman on the Psychology of Transcendence

If one of the ambitious goals of philosophy is to determine the meaning of life, one of the ambitious goals of psychology is to tell us how to achieve it. An influential work in this direction was Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs — a list of human needs, often displayed suggestively in the form of a pyramid, ranging from the most basic (food and shelter) to the most refined. At the top lurks "self-actualization," the ultimate goal of achieving one's creative capacities. Psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman has elaborated on this model, both by exploring less-well-known writings of Maslow's, and also by incorporating more recent empirical psychological studies. He suggests the more dynamical metaphor of a sailboat, where the hull represents basic security needs and the sail more creative and dynamical capabilities. It's an interesting take on the importance of appreciating that the nature of our lives is one of constant flux.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Scott Barry Kaufman received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Yale University. He has taught at Columbia University, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. He is the host of The Psychology Podcast. He was named by Business Insider as one of the "50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world." He is the author of numerous books; his most recent, Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, is published April 7.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(436)

361 | Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Talk and Work Together

One of the characteristics of life is that living organisms gather information and put it to use. Even one of the simplest lifeforms, bacteria, are able to sense features of their surroundings and alt...

20 Jul 0s

Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | July 2026

Welcome to the July 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

13 Jul 4h 3min

360 | Marc Berman on the Science of Touching Grass

Modern life has, in many ways, removed us from the environments in which our ancestors lived and adapted. Not only do we spend time looking at screens, but we spend time indoors, or outdoors but in ur...

6 Jul 1h 29min

359 | Solo: Theories of Dark Energy

The cosmological constant, as discussed last episode, provides a perfectly good (thus far) explanation for why we observe the universe to be accelerating. But it might not be the right explanation, an...

29 Jun 1h 56min

358 | Solo: Vacuum Energy and the Cosmological Constant

The most surprising discovery in fundamental physics during my career as a scientist was undoubtedly the acceleration of the universe, announced in 1998. The most straightforward explanation for these...

22 Jun 1h 59min

357 | Jeff Coller on mRNA, Vaccines, and Bespoke Therapeutics

Messenger RNA (mRNA) plays a literally central role in the functioning of life as we know it, shuttling information back and forth between the DNA where it is stored to the ribosome where it is used t...

15 Jun 1h 19min

356 | Andrea Wulf on Enlightenment, Nature, Romanticism, and Modernity

All ideas have a history, no matter how inevitable and well-entrenched they may seem to us today. The later Enlightenment was a heady time when people were exploring new conceptions of nature, humanit...

8 Jun 1h 17min

AMA | June 2026

Welcome to the June 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreo...

1 Jun 3h 57min