2 March 2021
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Feb 23, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Frank Wilczek
- What got Frank his Nobel Prize
- Frank’s new book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality
- Solving the mystery of dark matter
- Can quantum physics make sense?
- Frank: Mind emerges from matter, not the other way around
- Can you love an automaton?
- Complementarity as scientific concept and everyday attitude
- How Frank’s Catholic upbringing influenced his scientific thinking
- Is reality an algorithm?
- The limits of human intelligence
Feb 22, 2021 —
Nikita Petrov & John Horgan
Nikita Petrov and John Horgan contemplate the nature of ideas and their relationship to individual people and cultures.
Feb 10, 2021 —
Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger
- A new home for Sophia
- The (latest) defenestration of Kathleen Stock
- How sincere are pro-trans rights public intellectuals?
- Justin Weinberg’s essay on the Kathleen Stock incident
- David: “It’s the squishy middles that are gonna kill us”
- Dan: deplatforming people on social media is effectively censorship
- The death of public discourse and the rise of Trump
- How consensus crumbles
- David: we should get rid of the harm principle
Jan 26, 2021 —
Robert Wright & Josh Summers
- Continuing “the Dharma of Bob”
- The evolutionary logic of cognitive biases
- Attribution error, or why your enemies seem so damn evil
- Zero-sum biases in a non-zero-sum world
- Bob fixes social media
- How cognitive biases have shaped perceptions of the Capitol riot
- The psychology of tribalism and the BLM protests
Jan 18, 2021 —
John Horgan & Nikita Petrov
In the first of a series of bi-weekly conversations, Nikita Petrov and John Horgan talk about John’s hockey career, the Covid pandemic, Nikita’s escape from the city and search for a new lifestyle, the 60s, Russian laws about “foreign agents,” amanita muscaria mushrooms, inner emigration, the social responsibility of an artist, and more.
Jan 4, 2021 —
Daniel Kaufman & Kevin Currie-Knight
- Kevin’s book, Education in the Marketplace
- Dan and Kevin’s concern for Coleman Hughes’ intellectual freedom
- How young is too young for movement conservatism?
- What was the Intellectual Dark Web?
- The IDW’s central contradiction
- How Dan got involved with the conservative movement …
- … and why he left it
- Dan’s advice to Hughes: don’t trust the movement
Dec 28, 2020 —
John Horgan & Amanda Gefter
A conversation about nothing inspires a career in science writing. Physicist John Wheeler’s participatory cosmos. A new interpretation of quantum mechanics. Amanda’s second-person solution to the mind-body problem.
Dec 23, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Megan Fritts
- Megan: philosophy of religion shouldn’t focus on “proofs for God”
- Determining rational grounds for supernaturalism
- Why Dan rejects epistemic foundationalism
- Megan’s Christian agnosticism, Dan’s Jewish atheism
- Wittgenstein’s engagement with philosophy of religion
- What kind of authority would it be good for us to submit to?
- Dan has a revelation
- Has philosophy forgotten that it’s a humanistic discipline?
Dec 21, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Robert Gressis
- Robert’s essay, “The Philosophy Rapture”
- What counts as “relevant” philosophy?
- Philosophy’s “dirty insider game”
- Why are great philosophers overrepresented at elite universities?
- Generational decline, intellectual and attitudinal
- Do intellectual celebrity cultures produce shrinking intellectual gene pools?
- Dan: Our present-day celebrity philosophers will destroy the discipline
Dec 16, 2020 —
John Horgan & Michael Brooks
How Richard Dawkins helped Michael lose his faith. Michael’s infatuation with a 16th-century “quantum astrologer.” Are dreams of a final theory delusional? John’s new stream-of-consciousness memoir “Pay Attention.”
Dec 14, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Milton Lawson
- The new issue of Milton’s comic book, Thompson Heller: Detective Interstellar
- Christopher Hitchens’ influence on Milton’s comic
- The anxieties of robot personhood
- The economic determinants of comic book production
- How a new comic writer finds an artist
- The comic book art division of labor
- Thompson Heller’s future
Dec 8, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Massimo Pigliucci
- Could evolution have a higher purpose?
- The value of (some) untestable hypotheses
- What zombies can (and can’t) teach us about consciousness
- Evolutionary teleology vs. evolutionary teleonomy
- Why does evolution produce increasingly complex forms of life?
- Distinguishing between physical laws and natural processes
- Could the hypothesis that evolution is serving a larger purpose be tested?
Nov 30, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Josh Summers
- Continuing the exploration of “the Dharma of Bob”
- Bob: There is no good alternative to global community
- Defining non-zero-sumness
- How genetic “selfishness” led to altruism
- The psychology of tribalism
- Can we bridge the polarization divide?
- Sadly, self-transcendence isn’t genetically inheritable
- Does Bob see cause for optimism?
Nov 5, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Crispin Sartwell
- The origins of “standpoint theory”
- Are Dan and Crispin white?
- Defining standpoint theory
- Dan: Standpoint theory presents an irrefutable hypothesis
- Crispin: “All knowledge is from some standpoint”
- Dan: There is no single black perspective on race
- Why don’t people trust experts?
- Is this argument good for society right now?
Nov 3, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Josh Summers
- Philo of Alexandria, seminal Logos theorist
- Bob: Teleology is perfectly compatible with a scientific worldview
- A logic shaping the unfolding of life
- How Jordan Peterson understands the Logos
- Does order flow from consciousness?
- Moral progress and human interdependence
- Teleology without theology
- The Logos and the “simulation hypothesis”
Oct 13, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons
- Guthrie’s new book, Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity
- Guthrie’s personal faith journey
- The tradition of liberal Protestantism
- Human sexuality and evangelicalism
- Guthrie sees a liberatory counternarrative in Scripture
- What drives militant atheism?
- What happened to Christian antiwar activism?
- Do young progressives privilege identity over class?
- Why Guthrie prays for President Trump
Oct 7, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Robert Gressis
- A review of Kate Manne’s book Entitled sparks an online philosophy feud
- Is America systematically misogynistic?
- How Twitter incentivizes bad behavior
- The professional norms around book reviewing
- Dan sees “no honor all the way down” on the other side
- Self-immolating philosophers
- Is there a case for keeping some topics off limits?
Oct 1, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Josh Summers
- Applying cognitive empathy to the Supreme Court vacancy fight
- The danger of runaway retaliation
- Reviewing The Social Dilemma, a new documentary critical of social media
- Enhance your online stature by vilifying the other tribe!
- How will historians view the social media era?
- Can Democrats oppose Barrett mindfully?
- The links between yoga and mindfulness
Sep 8, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Sharon Salzberg
- How Sharon became one of the first Americans to study Buddhism in India
- Sharon’s new book, Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World
- Does meditation seal you off from the world?
- Mindfully coping with anger on social media
- There’s more political diversity among meditators than you might think
- Sharon explains lovingkindness meditation
- The difficult work of finding compassion for your enemies
- Planting seeds in a garden you never get to see
Sep 3, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Milton Lawson
- The incredible achievement of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
- The choices that led to the MCU’s greatness…
- …and the choices that didn’t quite work out
- Critiquing Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Dr. Strange
- Milton foresees future “Has Marvel Lost Its Way?” thinkpieces
- Blatant speculation on upcoming films
- Dan fears wokeness ruining Marvel movies
Aug 25, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Ingrid Newkirk
- Ingrid’s new book, Animalkind
- Animal rights vs. animal welfare
- Amazing facts about animals (and the many things we still don’t know)
- Is it bad to call your dog a “pet” (or for that matter “yours”)?
- Contemplating animal consciousness
- How unethical is Bob’s pescatarian diet?
- The rise of artificial meat
- Ingrid asks, “Do you think that animal was a volunteer?”
- Ingrid’s extremely unusual last will and testament
Aug 18, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Crispin Sartwell
- Explaining Crispin’s position on explanatory unity
- Dan: Meaning is part of social reality, it’s not all in our heads
- What is the substance of our ontological commitments?
- Why Dan thinks philosopher W.V.O. Quine is almost right
- The conspicuous absence of philosophers from the public discourse about values
- Metaphysics is not as complicated and important as people think it is
Jul 28, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Bruce Feiler
- Bruce’s new book, Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age
- Debunking the idea of the “predictable crises of adult life”
- Two kinds of life changes: “disruptors” and “lifequakes”
- Does Bob need a lifequake?
- Bruce: “The linear model of life transitions is just wrong”
- Millennials zigging and zagging
- The ABCs of meaning: agency, belonging, cause
- How to write your own life story
- Are the stories we tell about ourselves just BS? And is that okay?
- How to change the meaning of your life
Jul 26, 2020 —
Daniel Kaufman & Russell Blackford
- Russell’s book, The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism
- Preserving the liberal tradition
- Can the genie of stakes-inflation be put back in the bottle?
- Dan: Woke illiberalism is a kind of luxury
- Russell’s recommendations for keeping the liberal tradition alive
- The role of legislation and institutions in tamping down illiberalism
Jul 21, 2020 —
Robert Wright & David Livingstone Smith
- David’s new book, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It
- The tension at the heart of dehumanization
- David: Genocides are moralistic
- The essential role of psychological essentialism
- Dehumanization in American politics
- When David received death threats after critiquing Jordan Peterson
- The “Great Chain of Being” and our complex conception of monsters
- Why David doesn’t like the term “the banality of evil”
- How to resist dehumanization
Jul 19, 2020 —
John Horgan & Philip Goff
- Philip’s 2019 book, Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness
- What’s the difference between panpsychism and philosophical idealism?
- John: Solipsism is “an absolute impediment to a truly scientific theory of consciousness”
- Does panpsychism “cheat” when it comes to philosophy’s fundamental problems?
- The moral dimension of panpsychism
- Hallucinogens and mystical experience
Jul 14, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Bhikkhu Bodhi
- Buddhism and the military atrocities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka
- The early political history of Buddhism
- Varieties of Buddhist rationales for nonviolence
- The history of war between Southeast Asian nations
- Is warfare antithetical to attaining enlightenment?
- Justifications for non-pacifism
- Meditation and the antiwar mindset
- Foreign policy, anti-China sentiment, and BLM protests
Jul 7, 2020 —
Robert Wright & Rutger Bregman
- Rutger’s new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History
- Debunking the “veneer theory” of human nature
- Are violence and war intrinsic to human nature?
- The human self-domestication thesis
- Why Bob doesn’t like the idea of people “deserving punishment”
- Is it bad to emphasize the dark side of human nature?
- What the debunking of the Stanford Prison Experiment can teach us
- Giving money to rich people: Why the U in UBI?
- Would UBI turn us all into couch potatoes (or worse)?
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