Episode 24: The Perils of Empathy (with Paul Bloom)

David and Tamler continue their discussion of Leo Tolstoy's 'Confession.' When we left him last time, the famous author had bottomed out just years after writing two of the greatest novels ever writte...

16 Aug 20221h 32min

We have a sneak peek for our listeners--the first episode our new Patreon bonus series on David Milch's brilliant (but short-lived) series "Deadwood." In this inaugural edition of "The Ambulators" (we...

9 Aug 20221h 30min

David and Tamler find themselves unable to attach rational meaning to a single act in their entire lives. Let's say we publish more articles and books. What then? What about our kids? They're going of...

2 Aug 20221h 33min

David and Tamler mask up and wander through the audio and visual orgy of Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut. What is this movie really about? Dreams? Wealth and power? Marriage? Jealou...

19 Juli 20222h 35min

David and Tamler descend into the dark pits of Hell to look Satan in the eyes and discover the nature of evil. OK…that's not fully accurate, we just read and talk about a couple of philosophy articles...

6 Juli 20221h 33min

David and Tamler lose themselves in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (pr. 'chick sent me high') classic paper on the concept of flow. We talk about the features of flow activities – loss of ego, the merging ...

21 Juni 20221h 23min

Ivan Ilyich is a man. All men are mortal. So Ivan Ilyich is mortal. Sure absolutely, that's true for Ivan Ilyich and for all men. But we're not Ivan Ilyich and we're not 'all men'- so what does this h...

7 Juni 20221h 58min

David and Tamler explore the many variations of simulation theory, the view that our universe is just a computer generated model created by an advanced civilization that has reached "technological mat...

24 Maj 20221h 43min