Jan 20
Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, "The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
A bold reimagining of life that bridges science, philosophy, cybernetics, and the complexities of biological existence The Organism Is a Theory: Giuseppe Longo on Biology, Mathematics, and AI (Giuseppe Longo and Adam Nocek, 2026) is an intriguing synthesis of decades of interdis ... Show More
1h 13m
Jan 19
Steve Ramirez, "How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past" (Princeton UP, 2025)
As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain science, he foresees a future where we can replace our negative memories with positive ones. In How to Change a Memory, Ramirez d ... Show More
50m 49s
Jan 18
Justin Gregg, "If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity" (Little, Brown, 2022)
What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sw ... Show More
30m 38s
Aug 2023
Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist
What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between ... Show More
17m 12s
Oct 2023
#91 — The Biology of Good and Evil
Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about the brain and human behavior. They discuss the relationship between reason and emotion, the role of the frontal cortex, the illusion of free will, punishment and retributive justice, neurological disorders and abnormal behavior, the re ... Show More
1h 38m
Jan 2015
7: "What is it like to be a psychopath?"
“Cognitive neuroscientist Kent Kiehl discusses his research and personal experience working with “those without conscience.” Scott and Kent demystify the historically fascinating illness as it relates to criminal activity, genius, evil, flourishing, the brain, gender and treatmen ... Show More
1h 5m
Sep 2021
The psychology of science denial, doubt and disbelief, with Gale Sinatra, PhD, and Barbara Hofer, PhD
On hot-button topics such as climate change, vaccines and genetically modified foods, science denial is rampant – and it crosses party and ideological lines. What are the psychological forces that lead people to disbelieve scientific consensus? Is science denial worse than it’s e ... Show More
36m 52s
Aug 2022
Daniel Bergner, "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches" (Ecco, 2022)
In The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches (Ecco, 3033), Daniel Bergner examines these and other by describing three riveting case studies in the context of the history of psychiatry and psychopharmacology. Alongside th ... Show More
36m 23s
Apr 2023
#317 — What Do We Know About Our Minds?
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Paul Bloom about the state of psychological science. They discuss fiction as a window onto the mind, recent developments in AI, the tension between misinformation and free speech, bullshitting vs lying, truth vs belonging, reliance on scientific authorit ... Show More
1h 7m
Feb 2013
Willem J. M. Levelt, “A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era” (Oxford UP, 2012)
The only disappointment with A History of Psycholinguistics: The Pre-Chomskyan Era (Oxford UP, 2012) is that, as the subtitle says, the story it tells stops at the cognitive revolution, before Pim Levelt is himself a major player in psycholinguistics. He says that telling the sto ... Show More
58m 27s
Exposing ethical dilemmas of neuroscientific research on violence, this book warns against a dystopian future in which behavior is narrowly defined in relation to our biological makeup. Biological explanations for violence have existed for centuries, as has criticism of this kind of deterministic science, haunted by a long history of horrific abuse. Yet, thi ... Show More
