Ep141 "What do brains and weather systems have in common?" with Nicole Rust
Does brain science need a new grand plan? Is the brain less like an assembly line and more like a weather system? What does this mean for what counts as explanatory, and how might AI help us in the ne...
16 Feb 36min
Ep140 "How does your brain decide what’s true?" with Sam Harris
Why do we believe what we believe? Why is changing our opinions so difficult, and why does a challenged belief so often feel like a personal attack? What if beliefs didn’t evolve to be true, but to be...
9 Feb 1h 20min
Ep139 "What does alignment look like in a society of AIs?" with Danielle Perszyk
Is intelligence a property of individual brains, or is it something that emerges from many brains trying to align with one another? How can we build AI agents to improve our understanding of the world...
2 Feb 58min
Ep138 "Why do our political brains mistake opinion for truth?" with Kaizen Asiedu
What if your confidence in your political beliefs does not correlate with their accuracy? Why does a pundit's outrage often feel so convincing and nuance so unsatisfying? Are conspiracy theories a pre...
26 Jan 1h 7min
Ep137 "Do cures ever create the next crisis?" with Thomas Goetz
Medications are among the most important advancements of science, but their social consequences are often complex. What if some of our most common diseases are design flaws of modern life? Does it mat...
19 Jan 47min
Ep136 "Why do we care about mattering?" with Rebecca Goldstein
What does it mean for your life to matter? We all talk a lot about happiness, pleasure, and meaning... but what if the real engine underneath it all is the need to feel we count? Is it possible that d...
12 Jan 41min
Ep135: What does neuroscience mean by hypnosis? with David Spiegel
What exactly is hypnosis? We’ve all heard of circus-like versions, but is there a real element to hypnosis that psychiatrists and neuroscientists are able to leverage? Can attention and expectation ch...
5 Jan 55min
Ep82 Re Broadcast "Why Do Your 30 Trillion Cells Feel Like a Self?" Part 1
Happy Holidays- New Episodes starting Jan. 5th Every cell in your body changes, so why do you have a sense of continuity of the self – as though you're the same person you were a month ago? What does ...
29 Dec 202529min
