29 March 2025
subscribe
Archived Programs
Popular Tags
MeaningofLife.tv videos
Subscribe to MeaningofLife.tv videos via podcast or email
Mar 20, 2017 —
Robert Wright & S. Matthew Liao
TAGS biology | climate change | cognitive science | drugs | ethics | genetics | love | memory | mental health | science | technology | the future | war
Feb 24, 2017 —
Josh Summers & Ellen Langer
TAGS Buddhism | cognitive science | empathy | human nature | meditation | mindfulness | perception | psychology | science
Feb 15, 2017 —
Robert Wright & Robert Stickgold
TAGS biology | cognitive science | consciousness | creativity | dreaming | evolution | psychology | science
Feb 6, 2017 —
Daniel Kaufman & Massimo Pigliucci
- Join the hordes clamoring for Massimo’s forthcoming book!
- The science of ethics
- Is morality baked into our biology?
- Can primates tell us where morality comes from?
- How Kant and moral psychology complement each other
- Nietzsche’s moral philosophy
- Warning: Chimps and bonobos are not hairy proto-humans!
- The trouble with studying morality in infants
TAGS cognitive science | ethics | evolution | human nature | justice | philosophy | psychology | science | tribalism
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
Jan 16, 2017 —
Robert Wright & James Currier
TAGS atheism | Buddhism | empathy | family | Hinduism | human nature | identity | meditation | philosophy | religion | ritual | science | spirituality | Sunday Assembly
Dec 18, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- Does Russian thought have anything to contribute to the world?
- Nikolay Fedorov, an eccentric thinker who influenced Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky
- Fedorov’s plan: Immortality for everyone
- “Kinship” as a fundamental property of all matter
- A mass movement for the spiritual unity of humankind
- Vladimir Solovyov’s The Meaning of Love: Sexuality as a path to a Christian utopia
- Christ as the ultimate role model
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | literature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
Dec 16, 2016 —
Philip Menchaca & Erik Vance
- Erik’s new book Suggestible You
- When snake oil actually works
- How your beliefs can change your body
- Why do people respond differently to the same placebo?
- How the discovery of “placebo genes” could transform medicine
- The fuzzy line between placebos and real medicine
- Erik’s visit to a Mexican witch doctor
Dec 6, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Paul Bloom
TAGS altruism | anger | Buddhism | cognitive science | compassion | empathy | enlightenment | ethics | human nature | meditation | moral imagination | Peter Singer | psychology | science
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 25, 2016 —
Philip Menchaca & Benjamin Zeller
TAGS Buddhism | Christianity | death | Donald Trump | economics | psychology | religion | science | spirituality
Oct 19, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Sam Harris
- Sam Harris, mystic and atheist
- The mystery of consciousness
- Is mysticism more like science than like religion?
- How religion makes progress
- Sam’s case for intolerance
- The root causes of extremism
- Religious and secular reasons to do good
- Ways religion may be closer to the truth than atheism
- A secular approach to death
TAGS agnosticism | atheism | Buddhism | Christianity | cognitive science | consciousness | death | empathy | ethics | evolution | history | Islam | meditation | mind-body problem | mindfulness | mysticism | nationalism | New Atheists | perception | poverty | psychology | religion | science | self | spirituality | tribalism
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
Oct 5, 2016 —
Vlad Chituc & Frank Bures
- The Geography of Madness, Frank’s book about “penis theft” and other “culture-bound” syndromes
- How believing that you’re going to die can kill you
- How to cure “penis theft?”
- The challenge of ethically responding to seemingly crazy beliefs
- Frank: The body isn’t like a machine
- Belief-boosted runners, windmill syndrome, and the weird case of Coca-Cola poisoning
Sep 21, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Erik Braun
- Erik’s book The Birth of Insight and its hero, Ledi Sayadaw
- Three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, and not-self
- Origins and characteristics of American Buddhism
- How Burmese politics shaped Western Buddhism
- Ledi’s take on how meditation leads to enlightenment
- The ethical side of Buddhist practice
- Erik’s meditation practice
TAGS Buddhism | consciousness | enlightenment | history | human nature | meditation | mind | mindfulness | philosophy | politics | psychology | religion | science | self
Sep 17, 2016 —
Nikita Petrov & George Young
- What is Russian cosmism?
- The religious side of cosmism
- Cosmism as a response to the challenges of the 20th century
- Nature as a temporary enemy and eternal friend
- Pavel Florensky, the Russian da Vinci
- Plant life as a spiritual ideal
- The father of the Soviet space program, and his weird spirituality
- Cosmism and transhumanism: Compare and contrast
- Cosmism as a Russian propaganda project
TAGS Christianity | consciousness | death | evolution | history | human nature | mysticism | occult | philosophy | politics | religion | science | spirituality | technology | the future | transhumanism
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 23, 2016 —
Robert Wright & Daniel Ogilvie
TAGS ancient philosophy | death | ethics | history | monotheism | New Atheists | philosophy | psychology | religion | Richard Dawkins | science | soul
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
Archives
- August 2021(3)
- July 2021(1)
- June 2021(2)
- May 2021(4)
- April 2021(3)
- March 2021(4)
- January 2021(4)
- October 2020(3)
- August 2020(5)
- July 2020(8)
- June 2020(6)
- May 2020(5)
- April 2020(5)
- March 2020(7)
- January 2020(3)
- October 2019(6)
- August 2019(3)
- July 2019(9)
- June 2019(13)
- May 2019(5)
- April 2019(9)
- March 2019(3)
- January 2019(9)
- December 2018(11)
- November 2018(12)
- October 2018(9)
- August 2018(9)
- July 2018(7)
- June 2018(12)
- May 2018(10)
- April 2018(6)
- March 2018(9)
- January 2018(11)
- October 2017(7)
- August 2017(8)
- July 2017(5)
- June 2017(8)
- May 2017(3)
- April 2017(6)
- March 2017(5)
- January 2017(27)
- December 2016(33)
- November 2016(12)
- October 2016(18)
- September 2016(13)
- August 2016(12)
- July 2016(8)
- June 2016(14)
- May 2016(15)
- April 2016(8)
- March 2016(10)
- February 2016(16)
- January 2016(8)
- December 2015(11)
- November 2015(11)
- October 2015(14)
- September 2015(11)
- August 2015(11)
- July 2015(10)
- August 2014(2)
- July 2014(1)
- May 2014(1)
- January 2014(3)
- October 2013(2)
- July 2013(1)
- May 2013(1)
- January 2013(1)
- June 2010(1)
- August 2003(12)
- July 2003(8)