23 June 2025
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Nov 1, 2019 —
Robert Wright & Preston Greene
- Why many intelligent people think we’re living in a simulation
- The philosophical argument that you’re probably not real
- How cosmic rays might (and might not) reveal that reality is fake
- Preston’s dire warning against trying to determine if we’re in a simulation
- Is the simulation hypothesis non-falsifiable?
- Is “the simulation” just religion for atheists?
TAGS atheism | cosmology | death | history | philosophy | physics | religion | science | technology | the future
Oct 18, 2019 —
Robert Wright & John Horgan
- What is scientism, and who is doing it?
- Postmodernism and whether science just tells “stories”
- John criticizes the “ideological fervor” of evolutionary psychology
- The hubris of scientists in the ’80s and ’90s
- Has science reached its fundamental limits in trying to explain consciousness?
- John wins his Nobel Prize “long bet” on string theory
- The various corrupting influences on scientists
- A brief debate on higher purpose
TAGS atheism | cognitive science | Daniel Dennett | evolution | mind-body problem | physics | religion | science
Sep 1, 2019 —
Robert Wright & Alexander Wendt
- Why Alex shifted from international relations to quantum physics
- Alex: “We are walking wave functions”
- Do the origins of consciousness and free will lie in the wave collapse?
- Quantum decision theory and human irrationality
- The advantage of viewing humanity as quantum rather than classical
- How a nation-state is like a quantum state
- Alex: Language is best understood quantumly
- The possibility of collective consciousness
Nov 30, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Sabine Hossenfelder
- Sabine’s new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- Sabine: There’s no reason to think the four fundamental forces can be unified
- What “beauty” means to a physicist
- The weirdness of the Higgs Boson
- Must there be an explanation for the fundamental forces?
- Sabine: Multiverse theory isn’t science
- What Sabine wants physicists to be doing instead of chasing beauty
Jul 11, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Michael Shermer
- Michael’s controversial Scientific American column on the “final mysterians”
- Bob’s thought experiment about God and quantum mechanics
- The split among philosophers over the free will question
- Revisiting Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, “What is it like to be a bat?”
- What’s a harder problem, God or consciousness?
- What laws should govern a colony on Mars?
- Michael reports from inside the Intellectual Dark Web
- Deconstructing Jordan Peterson’s appeal
- Bob: Life is hard and religion can help
TAGS consciousness | Daniel Dennett | free will | Islam | New Atheists | philosophy | physics | religion | Richard Dawkins | science
Jun 25, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Stuart Hameroff
- The Hameroff-Penrose theory of quantum consciousness
- Why we’ll never construct a true artificial intelligence
- The implications of quantum consciousness for free will
- Do microtubules in the brain explain consciousness?
- How quantum physics could help us understand anesthesia
- Why Stuart doesn’t dismiss paranormal research
- Could quantum entanglement explain paranormal phenomena?
Jun 15, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Jim Holt
- Jim’s new book of essays, When Einstein Walked with Gödel
- The Platonists who believe mathematics is transcendent
- Against viewing math as transcendent
- The implications of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
- What’s so special about light? Einstein can explain
- Tachyons, the hypothetical particles that travel faster than light
- How Jim became a “rigorous dilettante” (with cameos by B.F. Skinner and Bette Midler)
Jun 4, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Brian Greene
- Why a particle isn’t what you think it is
- Reasons to doubt the many worlds interpretation
- The theory Einstein developed that he didn’t believe
- Would going back in time violate the laws of physics?
- Black holes and the natural selection of universes
- What are the strings in string theory made of?
- Audience Q and A
May 25, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Massimo Pigliucci
- What is the Logos?
- The practicality of metaphysics
- Philo of Alexandria’s vision of global harmony
- Plotinus and the connection between human and divine
- The Logos and Christianity
- The Logos as an algorithm
- Why do the laws of physics infallibly work?
- Carl Jung and the Logos (and Jordan Peterson’s Jungianism)
Feb 23, 2018 —
Robert Wright & Galen Strawson
- Why scientific materialism is harder to define than you think
- Galen explains panpsychism
- What does “mind is all there is to reality” mean?
- Is human consciousness epiphenomenal?
- Do physical laws come from somewhere?
- Is it like something to be a rock? (And is Galen saying it is?)
- Galen: Discussion of the mind-body problem was better 100 years ago
Feb 2, 2017 —
Robert Wright, Deepak Chopra, & Michael Shermer
TAGS Buddhism | cognitive science | consciousness | enlightenment | Hinduism | human nature | meditation | mysticism | perception | philosophy | physics | psychology | science | self | spirituality
Dec 5, 2016 —
Daniel Kaufman & Massimo Pigliucci
- How do ancient and modern philosophy differ?
- Philosophy as a way of life
- How the scientific revolution changed philosophy
- Has modern ethics gone down the wrong path?
- Why did ethicists turn away from virtues and toward moral rules?
- Do universal ethical principles exist?
- What Sam Harris gets wrong about ethics
Nov 4, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Christof Koch
- The search for non-human consciousness
- Consciousness in the organic and inorganic worlds
- Measuring consciousness
- Lucky us: The universe breeds consciousness
- How scientific and spiritual worldviews can enrich each other
- Artificial intelligence is not (necessarily) artificial consciousness
- The Allen Institute for Brain Science and its mission
TAGS Buddhism | cognitive science | consciousness | ethics | evolution | panpsychism | physics | science | spirituality | technology | the future
Oct 26, 2016 —
Robert Wright & David Chalmers
TAGS cognitive science | consciousness | evolution | human nature | mind-body problem | physics | psychology | science
Oct 18, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Margaret Wertheim
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | Daniel Dennett | philosophy | physics | religion | science | spirituality
Oct 9, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Wesley Wildman
- Wesley explains “transreligious theology”
- What’s religious about religious naturalism?
- Can science help us understand ultimate reality?
- Bringing religious thought and philosophy together
- Be skeptical of spiritual experiences
- Don’t just love your enemies, understand them
- Wesley: “Purpose” isn’t a useful category
TAGS atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | consciousness | meditation | Paul Tillich | philosophy | physics | psychology | religion | science | spirituality | tribalism
Sep 1, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Ken Wharton
- The future is real, and we could travel there
- Reasons to think the future may influence the present
- Can retro-causality explain quantum entanglement?
- Why our intuitions about time are wrong
- Is there a place for free will in a deterministic universe?
- The many worlds theory, quantum computers, and events without causes
Aug 28, 2016 —
Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger
- Putting Kant’s work in context
- Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Prolegomena
- Kant’s radical innovations in the Critique
- Defining different kinds of thought
- Active and passive faculties of the mind
- Are there two worlds, or two aspects of one world?
- Consequences of intertwining the world and the mind
Aug 8, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Susan Schneider
TAGS cognitive science | compassion | consciousness | death | free will | human nature | identity | mind-body problem | philosophy | physics | psychology | science | technology | the future | transhumanism
Feb 13, 2016 —
Daniel Kaufman & Massimo Pigliucci
- What constitutes an explanation in the natural sciences?
- Looking for a categorical difference between natural and social sciences
- Biological and social explanations of human behavior
- The difference between the narratives of social and physical sciences
- Does social science explain events or their interpretations?
- Must a science have “laws”? Are there social scientific laws?
Jan 25, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Jeremy England
- Jeremy’s new theory and the origins of life
- Wrestling with the second law of thermodynamics
- Self-organizing systems and self-replicating ones
- Natural selection as a special case of more general physical laws
- The role of ritual in Jeremy’s Jewish faith
- The laws of physics were written by people, not God
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