MeaningofLife.tv
136 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 67 ratingsConversations about philosophy, science, religion and spirituality
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Episodes
Kant Stop Critiquin' (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & David Ottlinger)
November 29, 2021 18:35 - 1 hour - 59.5 MBA bizarre Washington Post column about critical theory and Immanuel Kant ... Why has Kant become a bogeyman? ... How contingent is the history of philosophy? ... Relativism vs. rationalism ... What Kant meant by the "Critique of Pure Reason" ... Steven Pinker and the problem with rationalists ... David explains what Kant actually believed ...
The Dharma of Bob 8: A Cosmic View of Our Situation (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
November 24, 2021 01:01 - 1 hour - 94.6 MBWhat part of secular-guru space (if any) does Bob occupy? ... On the origin of Bob’s theses (by means of natural selection) ... The mind-boggling mystery of consciousness ... Could evolution have a larger purpose? ... The “global brain” as the flowering of natural selection’s seed ... Saving our species by transcending some species-typical tendencies ... The algorithm of evolution as “the Logos” ... How cognitive biases get in the way of global cooperation ... The positive feeling of...
The Dharma of Bob 7: Cognitive Bias and Conflict (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
September 21, 2021 22:07 - 1 hour - 44.5 MBRemembering Michael Brooks ... The existential stakes of enlightenment ... Overcoming the affective dimension of cognitive bias ... Bringing broader awareness to the concept of cognitive bias ... Cognitive bias and the roots of war ... The folly of feedback loops ... Quelling our primitive retributive impulses ... Taking a mulligan in your meditation practice ... Focusing on the hindrances ... Can you fail at meditation? ...
Saving Anti-Wokeness from Itself (David Ottlinger & Cathy Young)
September 15, 2021 20:19 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBA plea to the weary to return to the Woke Wars ... Who is James Lindsay? ... Lindsay's book, Cynical Theories ... Lindsay's other critiques of wokeness ... The religion of wokeness, the religion of anti-wokeness ... Lindsay jumps on the Trump train (starts shoveling coal) ... The anti-semitism thing ... David: In a way, Lindsay is on the side of BLM ...
Contesting Determinism (Robert Wright & Oliver Burkeman)
September 14, 2021 22:12 - 1 hour - 33.8 MBOliver's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Oliver outlines “compatibilism,” the idea that free will and determinism can coexist ... Bob: Everyone should be a free will agnostic ... The occasionally dramatic consequences of arguments against free will ... Would determinism require us to reform our approach to criminal justice? ... A (possible) quantum hack for free will vs. determinism ... Bob thinks compatibilism is bullshit ... ... ... but Oliver tries to ...
The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics (Robert Wright & John Horgan)
September 07, 2021 22:17 - 1 hour - 34.9 MBJohn's recent bout of fever-induced hallucinations ... Does math actually help you understand QM? ... What experiments in QM have and have not verified ... John: All interpretations of QM are bad ... What do we want from science? ... "An operating system for reality" ...
Debating the Sexual Psychology of Men and Women (Robert Wright & Agustín Fuentes)
August 25, 2021 01:02 - 1 hour - 37.3 MBDisavowing the naturalistic fallacy ... Why “sex” may not mean what you think it means ... Did evolution make women “choosier” about sex partners than men? ... Haggling over the price of sperm and eggs ... Agustín: Empirical studies complicate evolutionary psychology’s theoretical models ... The evolutionary significance of non-reproductive sex ... Why are males bigger than females in our species? ... Looking at pornography (for insights into human evolution) ... Are male and female ...
Consolations of Physics (John Horgan & Sabine Hossenfelder)
August 05, 2021 16:30 - 1 hour - 28.8 MBSabine inspires John's quantum experiment ... Sabine previews her book-in-progress ... Isn't quantum mechanics non-deterministic? ... Is consciousness conserved? ... John and Sabine tangle over free will ... Physics creationism ... Will quantum mechanics be replaced? ...
Time Management for Mortals (Robert Wright & Oliver Burkeman)
August 04, 2021 01:09 - 1 hour - 37.5 MBOliver’s new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Why is it so hard to accept the limits of our productivity? ... Prioritizing mindfully ... Heideggerian time management ... Finding value in even "meaningless" work ... Reducing the lure of distractions ... Ten tools for embracing your finitude ... Five (pretty intense) questions for reflection ...
The Dharma of Bob 6: The Explain/Excuse Conflation (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
July 06, 2021 22:09 - 1 hour - 39.6 MBJosh's aversion to the term "guru" ... Explaining the explain/excuse conflation ... The (possible) evolutionary origins of (biased) arguing ... Are humans mismatched to their modern environment? ... Building strengths vs. addressing deficiencies ... Defusing attribution error ... Making cognitive empathy cool ... Using meditation to strengthen cognitive empathy ... The mythical side of Bob ... Rationalists, effective altruists, and other possible fellow travelers ...
Should Darwin Be Cancelled? (Robert Wright & Agustín Fuentes)
June 08, 2021 22:15 - 1 hour - 33.7 MBAgustín on what he was and wasn’t saying in his controversial Science piece on Darwin ... What is biological anthropology? ... What social media critiques of Agustín’s editorial missed ... Untangling Darwin’s attitudes toward race and genocide ... Darwin’s worries about his theory’s acceptance ... What do female gibbons want? ... Agustín: Commonly used racial categories are unscientific ... The changing rules for competition among males ... Okay, so should we cancel Darwin or not? ...
Quantum Mechanics and the Quest for Final Knowledge (John Horgan & Philip Ball)
June 07, 2021 14:01 - 1 hour - 33.3 MBWill science ever absorb the arts and humanities? ... Why Phil wrote a book about quantum mechanics ... Knowing quantum math doesn’t necessarily help ... Is "information” the key to quantum mechanics? ... What quantum computing can and can’t do ... The weirdness and arbitrariness of existence ...
Saving the World One Podcast at a Time (Robert Wright & Rob Wiblin)
May 25, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 43.5 MBDefining effective altruism ... Rob explains the meaning of ‘80,000 Hours’ ... Should young people dedicate their careers to fighting climate change? ... The Apocalypse Aversion Project ... How cognitive biases fuel tribalism ... Bob: We need a psychological revolution ... Are external threats the best way to bring people together? ... The balance between surveillance and public safety ... Bob: Let's retire the word 'apologist' ... Making rationality cool ... Rob challenges Bob to f...
The Dharma of Bob 5: Mindful Defiance (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
May 11, 2021 22:10 - 1 hour - 45.5 MBJosh tries to help Bob retool his meditation practice ... Identifying the purpose of your practice ... What to do when your mind wanders ... Tuning your mind ... The Four Rs ... Can mindfulness help us bolster our courage? ... Learning to tolerate blowback from your tribe ... Suffering and the psychology of tribalism ... Developing a non-zero-sum relationship with your own mind ... So you say you've been called a neofascist... ...
Despite Our Best Intentions (Robert Wright & Paul Bloom)
May 05, 2021 01:51 - 1 hour - 43.3 MBThe value of defying your tribe ... Egocentric bias and attribution error ... The thin line between between courage and acting like an asshole ... Why do we punish people for unintentional transgressions? ... To understand all is to forgive all … ... … but forgiveness won’t get you retweets ... Are people’s politics as irrational as they seem? ... William James’ preternatural insight into human psychology ... Should the Philip Roth biography have been pulled? ... Reliving the worst d...
Circling the Elephant (Robert Wright & John Thatamanil)
April 27, 2021 22:03 - 1 hour - 34 MBJohn’s new book, Circling the Elephant: A Comparative Theology of Religious Diversity ... John’s early religious sensibility ... The Advaita Vedanta tradition in Hinduism ... Grappling with the human predicament ... Approaches to ultimate reality ... John’s brush with non-dualistic experience ... Why John doesn’t consider himself a perennialist ... Touching the infinite elephant ...
Science, Fiction, and the Mind-Body Problem (John Horgan & Erik Hoel)
April 12, 2021 22:32 - 1 hour - 27.4 MBErik's new novel, The Revelations ... How Erik became a writer and a neuroscientist ... Erik defends integrated information theory ... The agnosticism of the novelist ... Should the mind-body problem have a single solutions? ...
The Dharma of Bob 4: Averting the Apocalypse (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
March 23, 2021 22:37 - 1 hour - 39 MBWho you callin' bodhisattva? ... Outlining the Apocalypse Aversion Project ... How meditation can make us better global citizens ... Why we need “cognitive crampons” ... Transcend and include ... The varieties of meditative experience ... Achieving micro-enlightenment ... The benefits of confronting your dark side ... Building a cognitively empathetic grassroots movement ...
Steven Pinker, the Unabomber, Quantum Physics, and DMT (Nikita Petrov & John Horgan)
March 22, 2021 22:49 - 1 hour - 127 MB...
Explaining Quantum Mechanics (John Horgan & Tim Maudlin)
March 08, 2021 19:49 - 1 hour - 34 MBWhy Tim became a philosopher ... John gets entangled in superposition ... Tim explains Bell’s Theorem with diagrams ... Tim rejects shutting up and calculating ... Will quantum computers lead to a better quantum theory? ...
Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy (Robert Wright & David Ottlinger)
March 02, 2021 23:00 - 1 hour - 38.6 MBDistinguishing between the numinous and the noumenal ... Kant’s religious vision ... The Copernican revolution in philosophy ... What, if anything, does the Buddhist idea of emptiness have to do with Kant? ... The transcendental status of space and time ... Can the Matrix help us understand Kant? ... Distinguishing between the noumenal and the phenomenal ... Can we transcend our phenomenal experience of the world? ...
Ten Keys to Reality (Robert Wright & Frank Wilczek)
February 23, 2021 23:22 - 1 hour - 42 MBWhat 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 ...
(What If) Ideas Are Alive (Nikita Petrov & John Horgan)
February 22, 2021 21:20 - 1 hour - 79 MB...
Questioning the Practice of Grading in Schools (Robert Gressis & Kevin Currie-Knight)
February 18, 2021 17:00 - 1 hour - 43.7 MBRob and Kevin make small talk ... Kevin describes and laments the grade economy ... What's the relationship between grades and learning? ... Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education" and how it has traumatized Rob ... Unschooling ... If schools suck so much, how did Rob and Kevin learn? ...
Free Speech and Academic Freedom in 2020 (Daniel Kaufman & David Ottlinger)
February 10, 2021 18:16 - 1 hour - 49.2 MBA 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 ...
Quantum Mechanics and “Reality” (John Horgan & Adam Becker)
February 01, 2021 16:59 - 1 hour - 33 MBDo you need math to grok quantum mechanics? ... Adam's quibble with Nils Bohr ... Explaining David Bohm’s pilot-wave model ... Defending the many-worlds hypothesis ... Are quantum mechanics and consciousness entangled? ... Will science ever explain the world? ...
The Dharma of Bob 3: Cognitive Biases (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
January 26, 2021 22:00 - 1 hour - 33.4 MBContinuing “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 ...
Introducing Psychopolitica (John Horgan & Nikita Petrov)
January 18, 2021 17:27 - 1 hour - 98.6 MB...
Spooky Action at a Distance (John Horgan & George Musser)
January 06, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 32.4 MBIs spacetime obsolete? ... Quantum spookiness explained! ... Black holes and the big bang are spooky too. ... What preceded space and time? ... Is physics just poetry with math? ... George’s next book: how mind relates to matter ...
The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism (Daniel Kaufman & Kevin Currie-Knight)
January 04, 2021 15:03 - 1 hour - 51.1 MBKevin'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 ...
Quantum Mechanics and Other Mysteries (John Horgan & Amanda Gefter)
December 28, 2020 09:00 - 1 hour - 30.9 MB...
Is Philosophy of Religion Still Necessary? (Daniel Kaufman & Megan Fritts)
December 23, 2020 17:00 - 1 hour - 33.8 MBMegan: 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? ...
The Decline of Great Philosophers (Daniel Kaufman & Robert Gressis)
December 21, 2020 14:58 - 1 hour - 37.2 MBRobert'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 ...
The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook (John Horgan & Michael Brooks)
December 16, 2020 14:04 - 1 hour - 33.9 MB...
How to Make a Comic Book (Daniel Kaufman & Milton Lawson)
December 14, 2020 16:55 - 1 hour - 39 MBThe 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 ...
Justifying Our Beliefs (Daniel Kaufman & Joshua Rasmussen)
December 09, 2020 17:08 - 1 hour - 35.6 MBJoshua’s views on basic beliefs ... How do we get from experience to justified belief? ... The connection between knowledge and awareness ... Is Dan actually a foundationalist? ... Where the chain of warrant ends ... Joshua’s engagement with the big questions in philosophy ... Running up against the boundaries of inquiry ...
Evolution and Purpose (Robert Wright & Massimo Pigliucci)
December 08, 2020 23:45 - 1 hour - 40.4 MBCould 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? ...
The Dharma of Bob 2: Nonzero (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
December 01, 2020 00:06 - 1 hour - 28.5 MBContinuing 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? ...
Lesser Evils (Daniel Kaufman & Kevin Currie-Knight)
November 19, 2020 00:57 - 1 hour - 39.5 MBWhy Kevin chose not to vote ... The two-party system vs. a multiparty parliamentary system ... Dan accuses Kevin of not confronting what the election was about ... Is Kevin acting like a spoiled brat? ... The logic of straight-ticket voting ... Kevin accuses Dan of having a pessimistic view of democracy ...
Debating Standpoint Theory (Daniel Kaufman & Crispin Sartwell)
November 06, 2020 00:10 - 1 hour - 36.7 MBThe 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? ...
The Dharma of Bob: The Logos (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
November 03, 2020 22:57 - 1 hour - 31.1 MBPhilo 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" ...
The Innovation Delusion (John Horgan & Lee Vinsel)
November 01, 2020 19:44 - 1 hour - 28.9 MBLee’s new book, The Innovation Delusion ... Is progress real? ... Lee’s critique of the documentary The Social Dilemma ... The necessity and dangers of “expertise” ... John’s problems with Buddhism ...
Just Faith (Robert Wright & Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons)
October 14, 2020 00:09 - 1 hour - 31 MBGuthrie'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 ...
Who Is Entitled? (Daniel Kaufman & Robert Gressis)
October 07, 2020 21:42 - 1 hour - 36.9 MBA 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? ...
Social Media and Cognitive Empathy (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)
October 01, 2020 22:17 - 1 hour - 31.4 MBApplying 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 ...
The Microfoundations of Marxism (Robert Gressis & Jaime Edwards)
September 22, 2020 01:47 - 1 hour - 43.7 MBJaime explains how Marx understood ideology ... Our tendency to get facts wrong in a self-serving way ... Cognitive biases that lead the working class astray ... Why do we have reason? ... "Thank God for the ruling class!" ... How do the elite get what they want? ... Imagining the meetings of the megarich ...
Persons, Minds, and Thingy Things (Robert Gressis & Jaime Edwards)
September 22, 2020 01:47 - 1 hour - 41 MBJaime explains how Marx understood ideology ... Our tendency to get facts wrong in a self-serving way ... Cognitive biases that lead the working class astray ... Why do we have reason? ... "Thank God for the ruling class!" ... How do the elite get what they want? ... Imagining the meetings of the megarich ...
Persons, Minds, and Thingy Things (Daniel Kaufman & Joshua Rasmussen)
September 15, 2020 03:42 - 1 hour - 37.6 MBHow can there be persons? ... Against hypostatic ontological commitment ... Things vs. thingy things ... Mind over matter, or vice versa? ... Are there minds? Dan isn't sure. ... Have philosophers gone beyond their ambit? ... Philosophy as service to people ...