Closer To Truth: Recent Episodes
Closer To Truth
Closer To Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions in Cosmos, Consciousness, and Meaning.
Celia Deane-Drummond talks the evolution of wisdom, COVID-19 and the boundary between natural and moral evil, Christian theology, and redeeming sin. She also discusses her book, Shadow Sophia, the second volume in her Evolution of Wisdom series.
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Is there more than one universe? According to current cosmology, our entire gigantic universe is only one of innumerable universes, each universe like one tiny bubble in a limitless ocean of universes. What could all this mean? Featuring interviews with Max Tegmark, Anthony Aguirre, Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, and Paul Davies.
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What is “nothing”?
What does it mean for nothing to exist—or for nothing to have ever existed? In this episode, Robert Lawrence Kuhn explores one of philosophy’s deepest questions: Why is there something rather than nothing? Through conversations with philosophers and physicists, the discussion examines the nature of nothingness, whether absolute nothing is possible, and how different philosophical and scientific perspectives attempt to explain the existence of the universe.
Featuring Richard Swinburne, Simon Blackburn, Robert Spitzer, Peter van Inwagen, Steven Weinberg, John Leslie, Timothy O’Connor, Victor Stenger, John Hawthorne, and Peter Forrest.
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How do natural laws shape human societies?
In this conversation, Saleem Ali discusses Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life, exploring connections between natural systems, social organization, economics, and political order. Ali examines how concepts such as order, chaos, emergence, hierarchy, and complexity operate across scales—from physics and ecology to governance and global sustainability.
Saleem H. Ali is the Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment at the University of Delaware. His research focuses on environmental conflicts, sustainability, natural resources, and ecological cooperation in international relations.
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What can Galileo still teach us about science, truth, and discovery?
In this conversation, Mario Livio discusses Galileo’s scientific legacy, the Hubble Space Telescope, science denial, exoplanets, cosmology, and the future of life in the universe. Drawing from his book Galileo: And the Science Deniers, Livio explores Galileo’s role in the development of the scientific method and examines how scientific understanding evolves through observation, experimentation, and self-correction.
Mario Livio is an astrophysicist and author who worked for 24 years at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Do we really have free will?
In this conversation, Gregg Caruso explores the philosophy of free will, moral responsibility, determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will, and free will skepticism. Discussing themes from Just Deserts: Debating Free Will, co-authored with Daniel Dennett, Caruso examines whether human beings possess the kind of control required for moral responsibility and how neuroscience and philosophy shape the debate.
Gregg D. Caruso is Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University.
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How do we measure the expansion of the universe?
In this conversation, Wendy Freedman discusses the Hubble constant, standard candles, redshift, and the ongoing effort to determine the age, size, and evolution of the universe. Exploring Cepheid variables, supernovae, cosmic expansion, and the tension between competing cosmological measurements, Freedman explains how increasingly precise observations are reshaping modern cosmology.
Wendy Freedman is an astronomer known for her measurements of the Hubble constant and for her leadership of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile.
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What does evolution imply about human nature and human value?
In this conversation, Michael Ruse explores the philosophy of biology, the mechanistic view of life, human exceptionalism, and the relationship between evolution and meaning. Discussing themes from his book A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings, Ruse examines whether the world is best understood as an organism or a machine, how Darwin transformed our understanding of humanity, and whether values can exist within a mechanistic picture of nature.
Michael Ruse was a philosopher of science specializing in the philosophy of biology, evolution, science and religion, and the creation–evolution controversy. He taught at Florida State University.
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How did the universe begin—and what determines the laws of physics we observe?
In this conversation, Thomas Hertog discusses On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory, presenting a new approach to cosmology developed through years of collaboration with Stephen Hawking. Exploring quantum cosmology, the multiverse, fine-tuning, and the “no-boundary” proposal, Hertog argues for a profoundly evolutionary picture of the cosmos and our place within it.
Thomas Hertog is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Leuven. His research focuses on the quantum nature of the big bang and the origins of the universe.
Order Thomas Hertog's book: https://bit.ly/3ZZal1d
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Can virtual worlds be genuinely real?
In this conversation, David Chalmers explores the philosophical implications of virtual reality, simulation theory, and digital existence. Discussing themes from his book Reality+, Chalmers examines whether we could be living in a simulation, whether virtual worlds can contain real meaning and value, and how emerging digital realities challenge our understanding of consciousness, knowledge, and existence.
Chalmers' book, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, is available for purchase: https://bookshop.org/books/reality-virtual-worlds-and-the-problems-of-philosophy/9780393635805
David Chalmers is Professor of Philosophy at New York University and Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. His work focuses on consciousness, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, and the foundations of cognitive science.
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In this conversation, Anil Seth discusses a new scientific approach to consciousness — moving beyond the traditional “hard problem” toward explaining the actual properties of conscious experience. Robert Lawrence Kuhn and Seth explore phenomenology, neural correlates of consciousness, predictive perception, conscious selfhood, and why measuring consciousness may be essential for understanding it.
Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. His research brings together neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and psychiatry to investigate the biological basis of consciousness.
Seth's book, Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, is available for purchase in the UK and the US: https://amzn.to/3jI9ss7
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Why do we need philosophy to understand evolution?
Robert Lawrence Kuhn explores the philosophy of evolutionary biology — not just how evolution works, but what its core concepts really mean. Through conversations with Elliott Sober, Richard Dawkins, Samir Okasha, John Dupré, Dennis Noble, and Michael Ruse, this episode examines natural selection, common ancestry, challenges to evolutionary theory, and the deeper implications of evolution for science, religion, and human identity.
Featuring interviews with Elliott Sober, Richard Dawkins, Samir Okasha, John Dupré, Dennis Noble, and Michael Ruse.
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What if the boundaries between you and every other conscious being are an illusion? Philosopher Arnold Zuboff makes the case for Universalism — the radical view that first-person immediacy, not any particular body or origin, is what makes an experience yours. And if that's right, then you exist wherever consciousness exists.
Arnold Zuboff is an American philosopher known for his work on personal identity, consciousness, and probability. He took his PhD at Princeton in 2009 under Thomas Nagel and spent most of his academic career at University College London.
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Philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein introduces the idea of the “mattering instinct”—the deep human drive to see our lives as significant. In this conversation, she explores how our longing to matter may arise from the very material reality we often try to transcend.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is an award-winning philosopher, writer, and public intellectual. She is the author of 10 books of acclaimed fiction and non-fiction — including 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, Betraying Spinoza, and her landmark new work The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us. She holds a PhD in philosophy of science from Princeton University and has taught at Yale, Columbia, NYU, Dartmouth, and Harvard. She is a MacArthur Fellow and recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal, presented by President Obama in 2015.
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What might intelligence become—not just in centuries, but across millions or even billions of years?
Robert explores the deepest questions about the far future of intelligence in the universe. While we often think in terms of decades, extending our perspective to vast cosmic timescales challenges our assumptions about meaning, purpose, and what may ultimately be real. If the future holds clues, how far can we reasonably speculate, and what might we discover about intelligence itself?
Featuring interviews with Freeman Dyson, Lawrence Krauss, Raymond Kurzweil, Frank Tipler, Robin Collins, and Paul Davies.
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We may be creating something a million times smarter than all of humanity combined — and we have no plan for what happens next. AI safety pioneer Roman Yampolskiy lays out the risks, the arguments, and whether any solution exists.
Roman V. Yampolskiy is a tenured Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Louisville's Speed School of Engineering, where he founded and directs the Cyber Security Lab. Widely credited with coining the term "AI safety" in 2011, he is the author of AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable.
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Is the world we experience truly real, or is it more like a dream we haven't yet woken up from? Michael James, a leading scholar and translator of the teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi, explores how Ramana's philosophy challenges our most basic assumptions about the self, the world, and the nature of reality.
Michael James has spent nearly 50 years studying, practicing, and translating the works of Sri Ramana Maharshi. He studied under Sri Sadhu Om, a direct disciple of Ramana, and is the author of Atma-Vidya: The Science of Knowing Oneself. He is regarded as a leading authority on Ramana's primary sources and experiential practice.
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I like arguments about God, whether based on science, philosophy or personal experience. I like to push and to be pushed, explore the possible existence of a Creator. I must also consider defeaters of God.
Featuring interviews with Rebecca Goldstein, Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne, Robin Collins, Anthony Grayling, Yujin Nagasawa, and Alvin Plantinga.
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Can physical facts about the brain account for mental experiences of the mind? Has philosophy of mind made progress? We take a 15-year journey with John Searle and David Chalmers.
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We like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? We don't care. We do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions.
Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, John Leslie, Max Tegmark and Paul Davies
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Explore diverse theories of consciousness, like materialism, dualism, panpsychism, idealism, and diverse ways of thinking about consciousness, like neuroscience, philosophy, wisdom traditions. Compare theories of consciousness on a ‘Landscape of Consciousness'.
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What kinds of afterlives do the world’s religions offer? Soul/spirit in heaven or hell, with or apart from God? Reincarnation with innumerable rebirths, seeking liberation and nirvana? Resurrection of the body, reuniting with a soul/spirit?
Life after death is a haunting and deeply personal longing. Can we explore life after death in relation to theories of consciousness, ranging from strict materialism to imaginative philosophy to ancient wisdom traditions?
Explicitness is one of the fundamental mysteries in which our lives are wrapped. Our capacity, as conscious subjects, to make things explicit, so that what-is presents itself as “that-it-is” or “that-it-is-the-case” is at the heart of the mystery of human being. Philosopher Raymond Tallis explores how explicitness connects with fundamental ontological, metaphysical, and epistemological questions.
Tallis' latest book, Circling Round Explicitness: The Heart of the Mystery of Human Being, is available for purchase now: https://amzn.to/3MUX5Ke
What causes consciousness, our inner felt experience, like the smell of garlic cooking in olive oil? Explore diverse theories from quantum consciousness to consciousness as fundamental reality. We seek the edges of consciousness.
Almost all religions use art in their sacred spaces and many use art forms in their worship rituals. Certainly, there is powerful social cohesion at work. Can cross-religion communications in art, largely nonverbal, work to enhance similarities and mitigate differences among religions that, at least superficially, have significant differences? Can art be a much-needed unifier? Featuring interviews with Oludamini Ogunnaike, Jamal Elias, Kutter Callaway, Garrick Allen, and Anjan Chatterjee.
Oxford physicist Vlatko Vedral seeks to shatter complacency in modern physics and show why five revolutionary experiments in quantum physics promise to open the gates separating us from a true understanding of the universe. They may sound very strange—one essentially involves entangling a human with Schrödinger’s cat—but they lay bare elements of our theories that are particularly problematic, such as the widespread belief that nothing truly exists unless it is observed.
Vedral's book, Portals to a New Reality: Five Experiments to Unlock the Future of Physics, is available for purchase: https://amzn.to/3LGqd77
Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born British physicist. He is best known for his contributions to quantum information theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum entanglement. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Imperial College London, where he graduated with a PhD.
Many belief systems, religions in particular, use art for promoting their messages and furthering their missions. What makes art so effective in building and solidifying religious traditions? Can art attract and motivate converts? Is affecting or changing belief systems a proper use of art?
Featuring interviews with Justin Barrett, Marlene Altenmüller, Mario Gollwitzer, Jamal Elias, Robin Jensen, and Stacie Friend.
Throughout his career, Penrose has challenged conventional wisdom in physics, mathematics, and the philosophy of science. He has tackled some of the most profound questions of the universe: How do quantum mechanics and cosmology shape our understanding of reality? Can human consciousness be fully explained by physical laws, or does it transcend computation? This wide-ranging conversation spans Penrose’s most influential ideas, from black holes and the Big Bang to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, quantum gravity, and the role of mathematics in uncovering ultimate reality.
Understanding the nature of transcendence requires careful experimentation and innovative ways to reveal essence and tease out aspects of aesthetics. What are key characteristics of transcendence? Tracking imperceptible eye movements, or brain blood flow during mental activity, reflect neural activity, which is always ready to spring surprise. Featuring interviews with Elisabeth Schellekens, Helen De Cruz, Kutter Callaway, Joshua Wilt, Bahador Bahrami, and Oludamini Ogunnaike.
There is an idea that shakes the core of our scientific principles: That our consciousness participates in creating our physical reality. It’s an idea that runs counter to the materialist worldview we’re all taught in school. But the outer edges of scientific inquiry bleed into what can only be called ‘magic.’ With a uniquely science-backed approach, parapsychologist Dean Radin explores the "magical" elements of consciousness including telepathy, spell casting, conjuring spirits, and more.
Radin's book, The Science of Magic: How the Mind Weaves the Fabric of Reality, is on sale now.
Dean Radin is an American parapsychologist. Following a bachelor and master's degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in educational psychology Radin worked at Bell Labs, as a researcher at Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Mathematics describes the real world of atoms and acorns, stars and stairs, with remarkable precision. So is mathematics invented by humans—like chisels and hammers and pieces of music? Or is mathematics discovered—always out there, somewhere, like mysterious islands waiting to be found? Whenever mathematics is will help define reality itself.
Featuring interviews with Roger Penrose, Stephen Wolfram, Max Tegmark, David Gross, and George Lakoff.
Compare inner-life practices among diverse religions/traditions. Islamic prayer as the core of Muslim belief. Buddhist meditation calms the mind. Hindu meditation can be theistic-devotional or non-dual inner exploration. Embodied practices in Chinese traditions. Featuring interviews with Helen De Cruz, Venerable Dr. Yifa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Franklin Perkins, Aaron Segal, and Hamza Yusuf.
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What is intelligence, and how is AI emergence a natural consequence of evolution? In his book "What Is Intelligence?" and in this conversation, Google's Blaise Agüera y Arcas takes up the idea that prediction is fundamental not only to intelligence and the brain but to life itself, and explores the wide-ranging implications. These include radical new perspectives on the computational properties of living systems, the evolutionary and social origins of intelligence, the relationship between models and reality, entropy and the nature of time, the meaning of free will, the problem of consciousness, and the ethics of machine intelligence.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP/Fellow at Google, where he is the CTO of Technology & Society, and the founder of Paradigms of Intelligence, an organization dedicated to fundamental AI research. He is the author of Who Are We Now?, and his research has included work on privacy-preserving machine learning, on-device AI, large language models, and human identity.
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How do diverse religions/traditions treat the “person,” present status and afterlife future? Buddhism’s no self. Hinduism’s soul illuminating the mind. Prior lives in Eastern and African traditions. Body and soul, resurrection and judgment, in Abrahamic traditions.
Featuring interviews with Jay Garfield, Yang Xiao, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Imran Aijaz, Andrew Loke, and Swami Medhananda.
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The Ruliad is a term that Stephen Wolfram developed, which he describes as the entangled limit of everything that is computationally possible, the result of following all possible computational rules in all possible ways.
Stephen Wolfram is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer algebra and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is the founder and CEO of the software company Wolfram Research, where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine.
This giving season, contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions. Concepts of God/deities/ultimates in diverse, non-Western religions/traditions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, African. Is God/deities a “person?” Islam’s one transcendent God. Hinduism’s many schools: personal, impersonal, both. Buddhism’s no God but many deities. Featuring interviews with Hamza Yusuf, Mohammed Saleh Zarepour, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Swami Medhananda, Venerable Dr. Yifa, and Yujin Nagasawa.
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When the long-awaited day dawns and the aliens finally arrive on Earth, they might eat us and destroy the planet―or, just maybe, they might share the secrets of the Universe with us. When that time comes, will we be able to cross the communication barrier to beg for our lives? If the aliens do hold out those precious jewels of knowledge, will we even be able to grasp them? Professor Daniel Whiteson and Warner explode what we thought we knew about talking to our cosmic neighbors―and even science itself―by asking and answering questions both lighthearted and profound.
Whiteson's book, Do Aliens Speak Physics?: And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality, is available for purchase now.
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What happens after we die? Is there life after death? If so, what kind of life? From heaven and hell to systems and cycles of reincarnation, we explore Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Chinese traditions, as well as Christianity.
Featuring interviews with Hamza Yusuf, Carol Zaleski, Tao Jiang, Andrew Loke, and Yujin Nagasawa.
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. How do different religions/traditions address consciousness, our inner mental awareness? Is consciousness ultimate, as in Eastern traditions, or created by God, as in Abrahamic traditions? If ultimate, what is the relationship between personal and cosmic consciousness? Featuring interviews with Jay Garfield, Swami Medhananda, Franklin Perkins, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Hamza Yusuf, and Aaron Segal.
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In the first two installments of a brand new, six-part interview series with Nobel Laureate Sir Roger Penrose, we explore his approach to the deep nature of reality. Trace the intellectual and scientific history of each of his major contributions to the fields of science and philosophy, the challenges he faced, the criticisms he received, and his overarching reflections today. Additionally, discover how Penrose thinks about physics and hear his contrarian view of the foundations of quantum mechanics.
Sir Roger Penrose is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science, and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and University College London. Penrose has contributed significantly to the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology.
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Mathematics is like nothing else. The truths of math seem to be unrelated to anything else—independent of human beings, independent of the universe. The sum of 2 + 3 = 5 cannot not be true; this means that 3 + 2 = 5 would be true even if there were never any human beings, even if there were never a universe! When then, deeply, is mathematics?
Featuring interviews with Max Tegmark, Scott Aaronson, Mark Balaguer, Silvia Jonas, Gregory Benford, and Karen Uhlenbeck.
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Global Philosophy of Religion seeks diverse views and fresh ways of thinking from different religions/traditions about Ultimate Questions: God, consciousness, person/self, evil/suffering, afterlife/reincarnation, world to come. It does not avoid hard differences; it celebrates them.
Featuring interviews with Yujin Nagasawa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Venerable Dr. Yifa, Tao Jiang, Hamza Yusuf, Aaron Segal, Oludamini Ogunnaike, and Helen De Cruz.
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Physicist and computer scientist Stephen Wolfram explores how simple rules can generate complex realities, offering a bold new vision of fundamental physics and the structure of the universe. Additionally, from the foundations of cellular automata to the discovery of surprising patterns in nature, Wolfram shows how computation reshapes our understanding of reality and revolutionizes the way we think about science.
Stephen Wolfram is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer algebra and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is the founder and CEO of the software company Wolfram Research, where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine.
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Humanity’s future is now framed by artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing interventions in the body to enhance features and functions. This is transhumanism. Considering the stakes, and the dangers, a philosophical perspective is imperative.
Featuring interviews with Paul Griffiths, Nathan Lents, Carol Cleland, Quayshawn Spencer, Rachell Powell, S. Joshua Swamidass, Terrence Deacon, and Massimo Pigliucci.
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. What is the three-way relationship among mind, art, and transcendence? What is it about art that can elicit the sense of transcendence, going beyond the self, bursting the constraining bonds of semantic language? What is it about transcendence that it can be expressed by art? What in fact is transcendence, from a momentary escape from self to a full- blown mystical experience? How does the art-transcendence nexus engage the mind? We describe key terms and ideas. Featuring interviews with Simone Schnall, Julio Bermudez, Judith Wolfe, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Jonathan Berger, and Anjan Chatterjee.
Make a donation of any amount to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions. Sexual questions abound. What is “normal” sexual behavior in light of diverse sexual variations? LGBTQ+ issues? Is sex in animal models relevant for human sexuality? A philosophical perspective can provide clarity. Featuring interviews with Nathan Lents, Joshua Swamidass, Rachell Powell, Lisa Lloyd, and Quayshawn Spencer. Watch all of Season 27 on the Closer To Truth website now.
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Many people believe that out-of-the-body experiences (OBEs) and near-death experiences (NDEs) are real. We do not assess the evidence and arguments, pro or con. We do explore what OBEs and NDEs would mean, if real, for theories of consciousness.
This episode features interviews with Bernardo Kastrup, Etzel Cardeña, Àlex Gómez-Marín, and Liad Mudrik.
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Two kinds of questions probe evolution vs. religion. The first explores discrepancies, even contradictions, between the science of evolution and the beliefs of religion. The second examines how religion itself evolved.
Featuring interviews with Richard Dawkins, Michael Ruse, Alexander Rosenberg, Helen De Cruz, Massimo Pigliucci, and Elliott Sober.
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Clement Vidal, philosopher of science and astrobiologist, discusses the idea of something rather than nothing, differing religious worldviews, fine tuning and metaphysics, and more.
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Dr. Clément Vidal is a philosopher with a background in logic and cognitive sciences. He is co-director of the 'Evo Devo Universe' community and founder of the 'High Energy Astrobiology' prize. To satisfy his intellectual curiosity when facing the big questions, he brings together many areas of knowledge such as cosmology, physics, astrobiology, complexity science, evolutionary theory and philosophy of science.
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What can evolution reveal about the developmental history of thinking and feeling? How did cognition and emotion (affect) co-develop over evolutionary time? Can evolution help solve the mystery of consciousness?
Featuring interviews with Peter Godfrey-Smith, S. Joshua Swamidass, Rachell Powell, Denis Noble, Terrence Deacon, Paul E. Griffiths, Helen De Cruz, and John Dupré.
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Dr. Mark Bailey writes about the intersection between artificial intelligence, complexity, and national security. He is an associate professor at the National Intelligence University, where he is the Department Chair for Cyber Intelligence and Data Science, as well as the Director of the Data Science Intelligence Center.
This Chat was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Future of Human-AI Interaction", a two-day event presented by the Center for the Future Mind.
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What is “human” nature? While human beings are animals, we believe we are special, radically different from other animals. Why? What traits are unique to humans? Are we sure? How to explore human nature from an evolutionary perspective? Featuring interviews with Quayshawn Spencer, Alexander Rosenberg, Massimo Pigliucci, Rachell Powell, Helen De Cruz, Paul E. Griffiths, and John Dupré. Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq
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How do we define a soul? Can AI become consciousness? Julia Mossbridge discusses these questions along with the main trends in parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, and ESP research over the last decade.
Dr. Julia Mossbridge is an American cognitive neuroscientist, author, and educator who works on exceptional human performance including psi effects, notably on precognition and presentiment. She is Senior Distinguished Fellow in Human Potential at the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University, Member of the Loomis Innovation Council at the nonpartisan Stimson Center, Affiliate Professor in the Department of Biophysics and Physics at University of San Diego, and founder and board chair of the nonprofit TILT: The Institute for Love and Time.
Contribute what you can to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. Two big ideas in biology: the evolution of species via mutation, fitness and natural selection; and the embryological development of individuals, from fertilized egg to whole organisms. How do these two big ideas—“Evo-Dev,” as it’s called—relate? What novel ideas emerge? Featuring interviews with Denis Noble, Richard Dawkins, Alexander Rosenberg, Philip Kitcher, Alan C. Love, and John Dupré.
James Hughes Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning for the University of Massachusetts Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg and co-editor of Surviving the Machine Age.
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This Chat was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Future of Human-AI Interaction", a two-day event presented by the Center for the Future Mind. To learn more about groundbreaking innovation in AI, neuroscience, and the study of consciousness, visit the Center for the Future Mind, view MindFest videos, and subscribe to their newsletter, visit their website.
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While evolution is how life on earth came to be, where does the evolution occur? At what level of the hierarchy of life—from genes to individuals to groups to species—does evolution work its selection magic? Is it multilevel?
Featuring interviews with Richard Dawkins, Lisa Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Paul Griffiths, Elliott Sober, and Samir Okasha.
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How will AI-generated deepfakes reshape truth, trust, and society? Can AI someday merge with human consciousness? Futurist Zoltan Istvan explores the disruptive power of synthetic media—from political deception to personal identity—and what it means for the future of ethics, law, and reality itself.
Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, professionally known as Zoltan Istvan, is an American transhumanist, journalist, entrepreneur, political candidate, and futurist.
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Explore evolution—its scope and depth. How did life on earth come to be as it is, and how did humans come to be as we are? What are the deep principles driving evolution? What are evolution’s challenges and open questions?
Featuring interviews with Elliott Sober, Richard Dawkins, Samir Okasha, John Dupré, Denis Noble, and Michael Ruse.
Episode 1, Season 27
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Chris French discusses his latest book, The Science of Weird Shit, where he convincingly debunks ESP, communicating with the dead, and alien abduction claims, among other phenomena. All the while, however, French maintains that our belief in such phenomena is neither ridiculous nor trivial; if anything, such claims can tell us a great deal about the human mind if we pay them the attention they are due.
Chris French is Emeritus Professor and Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and a Patron of Humanists UK. He is the coauthor of Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief and Experience.
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What could life be as we don’t know it? Three transitions in astrobiology. Non-life to life. Life to intelligent life. Intelligent life to technological civilization. For alien life, would Darwinian evolution hold? Fermi’s Paradox is profound: with at least 10 22 planets in the known universe, we find no evidence of alien life, anywhere, much less alien intelligence. Is there a great filter?
Featuring interviews with Carol Cleland, Richard Dawkins, Rachell Powell, Massimo Pigliucci, and Helen De Cruz.
Jonathan Schooler is an American psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who researches various topics that intersect aspects of both cognitive psychology and philosophy such as: Belief in free will, meta-awareness, mindfulness, mind-Wandering, memory, creativity, and emotion. Schooler is also known for his sometimes controversial research on topics such as Anomalous Cognition and the decline effect.
This interview was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Future of Human-AI Interaction", a two-day event led by Dr. Susan Schneider and the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University. To learn more about groundbreaking innovation in AI, neuroscience, and the study of consciousness, visit the Center for the Future Mind website and subscribe to their newsletter.
Can superintelligent AI destroy humanity—or will it collapse under its own philosophical doubts? Professor Joseph Corabi, Chair of Philosophy at Saint Joseph’s University, joins Robert Lawrence Kuhn at MindFest 2025 to explore the limits of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the metaphysics of mind.
Drawing from his presentation, "A Collapsing Superintelligent AI?", Corabi argues that future AI—however advanced—may become paralyzed by skeptical challenges that human minds navigate through evolved psychology. Could superintelligence be undone by its inability to resolve deep epistemological puzzles?
Topics discussed include:
- Can AI ever be truly conscious?
- Is virtual immortality through mind uploading possible?
- Does transhumanism mark the future of humanity?
- Can theology and Jesuit philosophy shed light on AI, soul, and afterlife?
- Is there a logical justification for hell?
Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
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How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, and Hinduism address the ultimate essence of all things, the ground of being? What are transcendence, oneness, interconnectivity, ineffability? Compare Dao in Daoism to Brahman in Hinduism. Compare Wu in Daoism with Emptiness in Buddhism. Does God fit in?
Featuring interviews with Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Jay Garfield, Franklin Perkins, and Tao Jiang.
Explore all videos on Eastern Traditions here.
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Anyone who has ever participated in a brainstorming session will know that most of us do not lack ideas. Yet, many people never breathe life into these ideas. To turn inspiration into real achievement, you must decide to act—and then decide to act again and again, despite obstacles, until your thoughts take shape and come to life. In Pringle's new book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions, she teaches readers how to bridge the gap between having the first spark of an idea and actually doing something with it.
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Zorana studies, writes, and speaks about the creative process from having an idea to making it happen, from the first decision to engage in the creative process to its culmination in creative performance and products.
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Dualism claims reality has two parts, a physical and a nonphysical (mental or spiritual), both equally real. Dualism is believed by most people but rejected by most philosophers and scientists.
Featuring interviews with Yujin Nagasawa, Richard Swinburne, Jaron Lanier, Bede Rundle, and Peter Forrest.
Watch the episode on our YouTube channel here.
Innovative economist Robin Hanson discusses the age of artificial intelligence, decision making and predictive markets, astrobiology, and AI consciousness.
Robin Hanson is an author, economist, and associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. His bestselling book, The Elephant in the Brain, is on sale now.
This interview was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Future of Human-AI Interaction", a two-day event presented by the Center for the Future Mind.
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Terry Sejnowski offers a nuanced exploration of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and what their future holds. How should we go about understanding LLMs? Do these language models truly understand what they are saying? Or is it possible that what appears to be intelligence in LLMs may be a mirror that merely reflects the intelligence of the interviewer? In this discussion of his book ChatGPT and the Future of AI, Sejnowski, a pioneer in computational approaches to understanding brain function, answers all our urgent questions about this astonishing new technology.
Terrence J. Sejnowski is Francis Crick Chair at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Distinguished Professor at the University of California at San Diego. He has published over 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including The Computational Brain with Patricia Churchland. He was instrumental in shaping the BRAIN Initiative that was announced by the White House in 2013, and he received the prestigious Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2022.
Help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls with a tax-deductible donation of any amount/ To explore scientific Breakthroughs is to find theories or discoveries that challenge conventional wisdom, change patterns of thought, provide novel frameworks for research. What is the deep essence or general nature of scientific breakthroughs? This episode features interviews with Paul Davies, David Wallace, Jim Holt, David Chalmers, and John Horgan.
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We offer distinctive approaches to consciousness including cognitive science, phenomenology, and even the implications of aesthetics like fiction and films. We observe the richness of consciousness studies.v
This episode features interviews with Judith Wolfe, Stacie Friend, Elisabeth Schellekens, and Zorana Pringle.
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What is extended mind? How does the mind work? It’s not obvious. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? What is extended mind? What is embodied mind?
Featuring interviews with David Chalmers, Andy Clark, and Raymond Tallis.
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We human beings sit roughly midway between atoms and galaxies, and both must be so perfectly structured for us to exist. It's called "fine tuning" and it's all so breathtakingly precise that it cries out for explanation. To some, fine-tuning leads to God. To others, there are non-supernatural explanations.
Featuring interviews with Robin Collins, Victor Stenger, Ernan McMullin, and Michio Kaku.
In a follow-up to her seminal book, "Conscious", Annaka Harris' new audio original documentary offers beginners and experts alike a chance to unravel some of humankind’s most enduring puzzles. Where "Conscious"presents new questions about felt experience, Lights On seeks to find the answers.
Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe is available for purchase now.
Annaka Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind" and writer and producer of the new audio documentary series, "Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe".
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Free will seems the simplest of notions. Why then is free will so vexing to philosophers? Here's why: no one knows how free will works! Science, seemingly, permits no "gaps" in which free will can operate.
This episode features interviews with John Searle, Rodolfo Llinas, Eran Zaidel, Roger Walsh, Mike Merzenich, Henry Stapp, Colin McGinn, and Christof Koch.
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Astrophysicist and science visionary Janna Levin discusses all things cosmology: black holes, gravitational waves, the James Webb Space Telescope discoveries, early galaxies, and more.
Janna J. Levin is a theoretical cosmologist and a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College. She researches black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves in the shape of spacetime. In addition she is the director of sciences at Pioneer Works. Her books include Black Hole Survival Guide, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space, and How the Universe Got Its Spots.
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The universe is strange and wondrous—dauntingly vast, menacingly violent, infinitely complex. The origin of the universe is equally fascinating. There are explanations, but is there a final explanation?
Featuring interviews with Alan H. Guth, Andrei Linde, George F. Smoot III, Robert Spitzer, Jill Tarter, and Douglas Vakoch.
Two notable Closer To Truth contributors—and two good friends—discuss their intellectual and spiritual journeys in what seems to be opposite directions: one toward a form of Christianity and the other away from it.
Philip Goff is a British author, idealist philosopher, and professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. Specifically, it focuses on how consciousness can be part of the scientific worldview. He is the author most recently of the book Why? The Purpose of the Universe. Helen De Cruz is a Belgian philosopher and Danforth Chair of Philosophy at Saint Louis University who specializes in philosophy of religion, experimental philosophy, and philosophy of cognitive science. She is also an activist supporting the rights of EU citizens in the context of Brexit. Her most recent book is Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think.
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Cosmos and consciousness seem utterly different, the former encompassing the vast universe, the latter emerging from tiny brains. Yet consciousness founds most religions, and some cosmologists speak quietly, profoundly, about consciousness.
Featuring interviews with David Chalmers, Alexander Vilenkin, David Brin, Colin McGinn, and Paul Davies.
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Evolutionary biologist Nathan Lents argues that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors. In this Chat, Lents discusses his new book, "The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships", a fascinating exploration of sexual behavior throughout the animal kingdom.
Nathan H. Lents is an American scientist, author, and university professor. He has been on the faculty of John Jay College since 2006 and is currently the director of the Cell and Molecular Biology program and the former head of the honors program and the campus Macaulay Honors College program.
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We like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? WeI don't care. We do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions.
Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, John Leslie, Max Tegmark, and Paul Davies.
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What is quantum theory and why is it so strange? To know reality, one must confront the quantum. It is how our world works at the deepest level. What's the quantum? It is bizarre, defying all common sense.
Featuring interviews with Wojciech Zurek, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Lee Smolin, and Seth Lloyd.
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Robert Lawrence Kuhn sits down with philosopher Richard Swinburne to embark on a retrospective of his views and arguments over his illustrious career. In this episode, they'll explore the problem of evil, atonement, resurrection, and more.
Richard Granville Swinburne FBA is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years, Swinburne has been a proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God.
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Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn recently published an extensive new article titled "A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications". The paper covers the field of consciousness studies in its entirety as well as the consequences of consciousness including artificial intelligence (AI), life after death, and virtual immortality.
Read Kuhn's article on the Closer To Truth website.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn, PhD., is the co-creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Closer To Truth, the PBS/public television series on Cosmos, Life, Mind, and Meaning that presents leading scientists, philosophers, and creative thinkers discussing the fundamental questions of existence. He recently published an extensive article—"A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications"—covering the field of consciousness studies in its entirety.
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If God exists, did God create everything? Did God create out of literally "nothing"? Suppose there was no beginning to the cosmos, just the universe going through endless cycles, what then? And what about "abstract objects" like logic and numbers, which seem to exist without any cause and no creator?
Featuring interviews with William Craig, Robert Russell, John Polkinghorne, and Brian Leftow.
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Time seems natural and absolute: the flow of moments one following another from the unknown past to the knife's edge present to the unknowable future. But this is not so. Einstein shocked the world by showing that time was "relative." What's the latest about time?
Featuring interviews with Gregory Benford, Kip Thorne, Nima Arkani-Hamed, and Lee Smolin.
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All who affirm that God does exist should examine the strong attacks of those who conclude that God does not exist, and then assess the sharp counterattacks of scholarly believers. Belief in God is too important to be determined by cultural circumstances.
Featuring interviews with Susan Blackmore, Peter Atkins, Alvin Plantinga, and Steven Weinberg.
You can watch the full episode on our YouTube channel here.
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Galaxies and clusters of galaxies, untold billions of them, adorn the cosmos. How did such large-scale structure of the universe come about?
Featuring interviews with John Richard Gott III, Abraham Loeb, George Smoot, and Saul Perlmutter.
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Are human beings purely physical? Evolved at random and destined to die, extinguished forever? Or are we something more? A spirit or a soul, with existence beyond? What's the relationship between our brains and our consciousness, between the stuff in our skulls and the essence in our minds?
Featuring interviews with Ned Block, Dean Zimmerman, Colin McGinn, Charles Tart, and Henry Stapp.
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Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker shares an intriguing new scientific theory that explains what life is and how it emerges. What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like.
Walker's latest book Life As No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence, is available for purchase now.
Sara Imari Walker is an astrobiologist and theoretical physicist interested in the origin of life and discovering alien life on other worlds. She is deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. She is also a fellow of the Berggruen Institute and a member of the external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. She is the recipient of the Stanley L. Miller Early-Career Award for her research on the origin of life, and her research team at ASU is internationally regarded as being among the leading labs aiming to build a fundamental theory for understanding what life is.
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Renowned biologist Richard Dawkins discusses his views on topics including philosophy of biology, evolution, atheism and religion, extraterrestrial life, and human and animal culture.
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator, and author. He is one of the world’s most eminent writers and thinkers of our time, and a major contributor to the public understanding of the science of evolution. He is currently an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Whether extra-terrestrial intelligences exist has profound implications for human religion. We are either alone or not alone in the universe, but no matter the ultimate answer, theists and atheists will each mold that answer, alone or not alone, to fit their opposing worldviews.
Featuring interviews with Steven Dick, Russell Stannard, Paul Davies, Robin Collins, and Douglas Vakoch.
Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq
Harvard and MIT's influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein discusses his new book, Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation. In our tumultuous era of religious extremism and rampant capitalism, Tech Agnostic offers a new path forward, where we maintain enough critical distance to remember that all that glitters is not gold—nor is it God.
Greg M. Epstein serves as Humanist Chaplain at Harvard & MIT, where he advises students, faculty, and staff members on ethical and existential concerns from a humanist perspective. He was TechCrunch's first “ethicist in residence” and has been called “a symbol of the transition in how Americans relate to organized religion” (The Conversation). He is also the author of the New York Times-bestselling book Good Without God.
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The nature of scientific Breakthroughs is one approach; the process of scientific Breakthroughs is quite another. When physicists reflect on how they do physics, when physicists review the history of physics, what are the ways in which Breakthroughs occur?
Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Gregory Chaitin, Edward Witten, and Karen Uhlenbeck.
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Are there revolutionary discoveries yet to be made? Radical revelations and shocking secrets? Does physical reality go beyond what we know today? Far beyond?
Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, Rupert Sheldrake, Paul Davies, and David Chalmers.
Race is obviously real—historically, socially, politically. What about biologically? We explore biological facts about race and their implications. What’s the relationship between color and race? Are human races subspecies of homo sapiens? Is race a “natural kind?” How to form a coherent theory of race?
Featuring interviews with Quayshawn Spencer, Joshua Swamidass, Massimo Pigliucci, and Alexander Rosenberg.
Explore all the videos in our new pillar of Life: https://closertotruth.com/topic/life/
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How much can science discover? Are there boundaries to science? Are there truths—real truths—beyond science?
Featuring interviews with Frank Wilczek, J. Gott, Stephen Wolfram, Bas van Fraassen, and Owen Gingerich.
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When we speak about the future of the universe, we mean when the sun burns out, when galaxies collide, when everything flies apart and ultimately evaporates. Do the untold billions and trillions of years from now make it irrelevant for us today? No. The far far future of the universe conveys meaning now.
Featuring interviews with Martin Rees, Wendy Freedman, Abraham Loeb, Alexander Vilenkin, and Robert Russell.
How do conscious states relate to the rest of reality? Do all animals deserve moral consideration? Can AI be conscious? Philosopher David Papineau discusses the nature of consciousness, the mind-body problem, physicalism versus materialism, and much more.
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David Papineau is a British academic philosopher, born in Como, Italy. He works as Professor of Philosophy of Science at King's College London and the City University of New York Graduate Center, and previously taught for several years at Cambridge University, where he was a fellow of Robinson College.
Papineau's latest book, The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience, is on sale now.
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Nothing means anything without our brains: not science, not theology, not politics, not love. Everything we know and do-all the sense of human thought, all the feelings of human emotion-all are the product of the brains in our heads.
Featuring interviews with Rodolfo Llinas, John Mazziotta, Joseph LeDoux, Mike Merzenich, and Eran Zaidel.
Philosopher David Papineau discusses the "how, where, and what" of consciousness, solutions to the mind-body problem, naturalism versus physicalism, and more.
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David Papineau is a British academic philosopher. He is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at King's College London and the City University of New York Graduate Center. His research focus is on mind, metaphysics, and science.
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Some say that consciousness is the only true reality—that everything else, including the universe, comes from consciousness. If so, how would consciousness relate to the world?
Featuring interviews with Deepak Chopra, Donald Hoffman, Neil Theise, Fred Alan Wolf, Frank J. Tipler, and Charles T. Tart.
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We know the age of the universe, how stars were born, how galaxies were formed. But does the cosmos have meaning? Not make-believe, feel-good meaning. But real meaning.
Featuring interviews with Saul Perlmutter, Roger Penrose, Paul Steinhardt, Martin Rees, and Frank Drake.
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How can I assess whether God exists without exploring what kind of God is supposed to exist? So I examine God's essence and nature.
Featuring interviews with John Polkinghorne, John Behr, John Hick, J.L. Schellenberg, and Timothy O'Connor.
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Astrophysicist Or Graur offers a brief and fascinating overview of the history, physics, and astrophysical uses of galaxies. Starting with the history of the last two thousand years of galaxy studies, Graur discusses the types of galaxies we observe and the physics that drive them; the myths and physical structure of the Milky Way; how galaxies were used to discover and study the mysterious phenomena of dark matter and dark energy; and how scientists think galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang and evolved to their present forms.
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Or Graur is Associate Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, as well as Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of "Supernova" and his latest book, "Galaxies" from MIT Press.
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Do I disappear at death? My body? Sure, it's gone. But my awareness? Does my consciousness end forever? What could be more frightening! Is there any hope here?
Featuring interviews with Charles Tart, Richard Swinburne, Robert Park, James Tabor, and Keith Ward.
What constitutes good science? Are there limits to science? If so, what are the boundaries? How deep can science dig into the foundations of the world?
Featuring interviews with Steven Weinberg, Paul Davies, Colin Blakemore, and Scott Aaronson.
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Scientists say my consciousness is just my brain. Theologians believe my consciousness reflects the God who created it. Mystics hold my consciousness is a drop in the ocean of cosmic consciousness. Who's right?
Featuring interviews with Marvin Minsky, Marilyn Schlitz, J. van Huyssteen, Colin McGinn, and Roger Walsh.
Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
Distinguished Philosopher Ned Block discusses perception, cognition, and consciousness as well as his latest book, The Border Between Seeing and Thinking, a model for bringing philosophy and the mind sciences into dialogue.
Ned Block is an American philosopher working in philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to the understanding of consciousness and the philosophy of cognitive science. He has been professor of philosophy and psychology at New York University since 1996.
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To inquire whether plants are “sentient” sounds like pseudoscience but has become real science. What does a plant know? Plants can react to their environments, but can plants sense or feel? Can they remember long-term? Can they adapt and learn? Are plants intelligent? And are they in any sense aware?
Daniel Chamovitz is an American-born plant geneticist and the 7th President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel.
How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, and Hinduism address the perennial problems of suffering, ethics, ritual and contemplative practices? Why is suffering so important in Buddhism? Why karma in Hinduism? Why systems of nature in Chinese traditions?
Featuring interviews with Helen De Cruz Jay Garfield, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Franklin Perkins, and Yang Xioa.
Explore all CTT videos on Eastern Traditions.
Why are we here? Why is there a world, a cosmos, something-instead of absolutely nothing at all? Of all the big questions, this is the biggest. Why? What can we learn from "nothing"?
Featuring interviews with John Leslie, Bede Rundle, Max Tegmark, Simon Blackburn, Quentin Smith, Victor Stenger, Peter van Inwagen, John Polkinghorne, Richard Swinburne, and Paul Davies.
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Professor Brian Swimme discusses cosmogenesis, our cultural evolution, human consciousness, the Noosphere, and more.
Brian Thomas Swimme is a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco where he teaches evolutionary cosmology to graduate students in the philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness program. His upcoming book, The Story of the Noosphere, will be published in October.
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Two big ideas in biology: the evolution of species via mutation, fitness and natural selection; and the embryological development of individuals, from fertilized egg to whole organisms. How do these two big ideas—“evo-devo,” as it’s called—relate? What novel ideas emerge?
Featuring interviews with Alex Rosenberg, Alan Love, Rachell Powell, and Terrence Deacon.
You can watch all episodes in Season 23 on our website.
How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions and Hinduism address the essence
of human sentience? What is consciousness? What is the self? What is
qi? Do humans have souls or spirits? Are humans dualistic beings? Or
pure souls/spirits?
Featuring interviews with Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Jay Garfield, and Franklin Perkins.
Get early access to watch Season 24 by registering for a free membership on our website.
Why is matter solid? Why is there antimatter? Where do the sizes of atoms come from? Theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in his new book, Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe. In this interview, Carroll uses the basics of quantum mechanics itself to explain measurement and entanglement before exploring how the world is really made of fields.
Carroll's book, Quanta and Fields, is available for purchase now.
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is host of the Mindscape podcast, and author of several bestselling books. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the American Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of London, and many others.
Why is matter solid? Why is there antimatter? Where do the sizes of atoms come from? Theoretical physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in his new book, Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe. In this interview, Carroll uses the basics of quantum mechanics itself to explain measurement and entanglement before exploring how the world is really made of fields.
Carroll's book is available for purchase here.
Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. He is host of the Mindscape podcast, and author of several bestselling books. He has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the American Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of London, and many others.
What is the world fundamentally, deeply made of? What is life? We are always searching for Scientific Breakthroughs: those leaps in knowledge and jumps in understanding that change how we see the world. Now, we focus on Biology. What are Scientific Breakthroughs in Biology?
Featuring interviews with Geoffrey West, Stuart Kauffman, V.S. Ramachandran, Antonio Damasio, and Michio Kaku.
Watch all of Season 21 on the Closer To Truth website.
Professor Anna Abraham discusses her book, The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths, and provides a science-based understanding of the creative mind that dispels the pervasive myths we hold about the human brain—but also uncovers the truth at their cores. Drawing on cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Abraham offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain.
Abraham's book, The Creative Brain, is available for purchase now.
Anna Abraham is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. She is the author of "The Neuroscience of Creativity" and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume "The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination".
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Creative thinker and media visionary Robert Wright discusses a fascinating variety of topics including social media's effect on society, sexual psychology and monogamy, the concept of non-zero, biological and cultural evolution, and more.
Robert Wright is an author and journalist known for his wide-ranging interests in philosophy, society, science (especially evolutionary psychology), history, politics, international relations, and religion. He has published five books and is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloggingheads.tv, the founder and editor-in-chief of Meaningoflife.tv, the founder and chief correspondent of the Nonzero Newsletter and Nonzero Podcast, and the creator of the Nonzero Foundation.
Watch Closer To Truth Chats here.
How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, Hinduism and Shintoism address
causality, consciousness, energies, God, ultimate reality? What is non-
dualism? How is the world interconnected? How are metaphysics and
morality related?
Featuring interviews with Venerable Dr. Yifa, Jay Garfield, Yujin Nagasawa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Franklin Perkins, and Helen De Cruz.
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Philosopher Nick Bostrom discusses his new book, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, where he asks: In the face of incredible technological advances, what is the point of human existence? Will AI make our life and labor obsolete? In a "solved world," where would we find meaning and purpose?
Bostrom's book, Deep Utopia, is available for purchase now.
Nick Bostrom is a Professor at Oxford University, where he is the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He is the world's most cited philosopher aged 50 or under.
How do animals and smart machines measure up to human intelligence? Can fish feel pain and do dogs get jealous? Paul Thagard—a philosopher and cognitive scientist—explores hotly debated issues about animal and artificial intelligence to conclude that current bots and beasts fall far short of human capabilities.
Thagard's book, Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart?, is available for purchase now.
Paul Thagard is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of many books and writes a popular blog for Psychology Today.
Philosopher Helen De Cruz discusses her new book, Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think. De Cruz explores the transformative role of wonder and awe in an uncertain world and reveals how they are catalysts that can help us reclaim what makes life worth living and preserve the things we find wonderful and valuable in our lives.
Helen De Cruz is a Belgian philosopher and Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University who specializes in philosophy of religion, experimental philosophy, and philosophy of cognitive science.
Watch more Closer To Truth Chats here.
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Philosophy of biology has two sides: the process of science and the content of biology. We address key questions. What is the nature of life? How does evolution work and what are its challenges? How to consider race, sex/gender, cognition, culture, morality, healthcare, religion, alien life, and alien intelligences.
Featuring interviews with Michael Ruse, Elliot Sober, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, John Dupré, Paul Griffiths, Richard Dawkins, Josh Swamidass, Quayshawn Nigel Julian Spencer, Denis Noble, Alexander Rosenberg, Samir Okasha, Massimo Pigliucci, Alan Love, and Philip Kitcher.
Theoretical physicist and astronomer Marcelo Glesier offers compelling argument for including the human perspective within science, and for how human experience makes science possible. He discusses his new book, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, which urges us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
The Blind Spot is available for purchase now: https://shorturl.at/ghu34
Marcelo Gleiser is the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy at Dartmouth, the 2019 Templeton Prize laureate, and author of seven widely translated books.
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Does consciousness require a radical explanation? What causes consciousness? Our inner sense of awareness is at once most mundane and most bizarre. No explanation makes sense. Here are three novel candidates for explaining consciousness.
Featuring interviews with Giulio Tononi, David Chalmers, Sean Carroll, Max Tegmark, David Wallace, Bernard Carr, and Paul Davies.
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The astonishing effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, especially in physics, borders on the mysterious—and there seems no rational explanation. Our bafflement stimulates novel thinking. How to assess the meaning of math’s “unreasonable effectiveness"?
Featuring interviews with Michio Kaku, David Wallace, Michael Hopkins, Stuart Kauffman, Jim Holt, and Paul Davies.
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Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli discusses his book, White Holes, which traces the ongoing adventure of his own cutting-edge research and outlines some of the most astounding ideas in astrophysics and cosmology. Rovelli investigates whether all black holes could eventually turn into white holes, equally compact objects in which the arrow of time is reversed.
Carlo Rovelli is a physicist and writer. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute and core member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of Western University.
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Innovative theologian and neuroscientist Ilia Delio discusses Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, technology and AI, the pursuit of extraterrestrial life, and the roles of evolution, quantum physics, and neuroscience in theology.
Dr. Ilia Delio is a Franciscan Sister and a theologian from the Catholic tradition specializing in science and religion. She holds the Josephine Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University and is the founder of the Center for Christogenesis. She has earned two PhDs in neuropharmacology and historical theology, and is the author of twenty books including The Hours of the Universe and The Primacy of Love.
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If life is a vast space of possibilities, then mathematics can engage with biology. Statistics analyze biological data, and mathematical models improve biological theories and reveal hidden commonalties. But could the mathematics of biology touch fundamental realities?
Featuring interviews with Leon Glass, Martin Nowak, Geoffrey West, Paul Davies, and Robbert Dijkgraaf.
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Roger Penrose—mathematician, physicist, philosopher—was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics. We speak with Roger about our favorite, fundamental questions. What things exist? What is math and why does it work? What’s fundamental in the cosmos?
All episodes of Season 22 are available now on our website: https://bit.ly/3QwMzIA
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Mathematics describes the real world of atoms and acorns, stars and stairs, with remarkable precision. So is mathematics invented by humans-like chisels and hammers and pieces of music? Or is mathematics discovered-always out there, somewhere, like mysterious islands waiting to be found?
Featuring interviews with Roger Penrose, Mark Balaguer, Gregory Chaitin, Stephen Wolfram, and Frank Wilczek.
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Consider three powers of probability: refining data, assessing theories, probing ultimate reality. Watch how these work in cosmology: confidence in precise measurements; assessing competing models; revealing how quantum fluctuations became galactic structures.
Featuring interviews with Ivan Corwin, Licia Verde, Sabine Hossenfelder, David Wallace, and Aaron Clauset.
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Robert Lawrence Kuhn speaks with Martin Rees—Astronomer Royal and co-founder of Centre for the Study of Existential Risk—about the James Webb Space Telescope, black holes, existential risk, and more.
Martin Rees is an astrophysicist and cosmologist, and the UK's Astronomer Royal. He is based at the University of Cambridge where he has been Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Institute of Astronomy. Martin is a Fellow, and was the former Master, of Trinity College, Cambridge.
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What does brain damage do to people? By observing strange behaviors in brain-impaired patients, scientists discern how normal brains work. For example, what happens to “the self”?
Featuring interviews with Barry Smith, Donald Hoffman, Susan Greenfield, and Christopher Evans.
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Why the astonishing claim that Jesus is God? Not like God. Not representing God. But literally God? One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to appreciate the arguments.
Featuring interviews with Sarah Coakley, N.T. Wright, Oliver Crisp, Eleonore Stump, C. Stephen Evans, and Ian McFarland.
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Freeman Dyson, visionary extraordinaire, was one of the most inventive thinkers of our age: discovering new mathematics, challenging fundamental physics, colonizing space, searching for signatures of alien civilizations, imagining the far future of intelligence.
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There is more to our mental lives than the current content of our awareness. Our subconscious affects what we sense, think, feel and do. How does the subconscious work its magic? For subscriber-only exclusives, register for free at www.closertotruth.com.
Call mathematics the purest form of knowledge, universal messaging anyone, anywhere, can understand. For math to advance, there must be breakthroughs, which may seem like magic. What are mathematical breakthroughs? How do they happen? How do they work? Featuring interviews with Karen Uhlenbeck, Edward Witten, Michael Hopkins, Ivan Corwin, Gregory Chaitin, and Paul Davies. For subscriber-only exclusives, register for free at closertotruth.com.
Neuroanthropologist and co-chair of the N2 Conference Terrence Deacon discusses the noosphere, biological evolution, and the upcoming N2 conference hosted by scientific multimedia non-profit organization Human Energy to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Noosphere.
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Why are we here? What's the point of existence? Philosopher and consciousness researcher Philip Goff tackles these questions and more in this discussion of his new book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe. Goff argues that it's time to move on from both God and atheism and instead look to cosmic purpose to understand the universe.
Philip Goff is a philosophy professor at Durham University, UK whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness.
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Does mathematics have two transcendent attributes: truth and beauty? What makes math true? What makes math beautiful? Are there different kinds of mathematical existence? How can math combine idealized perfection and explanatory simplicity?
Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Edward Witten, Max Tegmark, Sabine Hossenfelder, and Jim Holt.
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Do I disappear at death? My body? Sure, it's gone. But my awareness? Does my consciousness end forever? What could be more frightening! Is there any hope here?
Featuring interviews with Charles Tart, Richard Swinburne, Robert Park, James Tabor, and Keith Ward.
Register for a free membership today at closertotruth.com.
Creativity generates art. How to discern the creative process in order to inform the nature of art? Conversely, how to discern art in order to inform the nature of the creative process?
Featuring interviews with Aaron Rosen, Antonius Roberts, Alfonse Borysewicz, Murray Watts, and Carl Plantinga.
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Everything I know -- everything! -- comes from my brain. Consciousness, our private sense of inner awareness, is the one big question to which we might find answers.
Featuring interviews with Arnold Scheibel, John Mazziotta, Christof Koch, Joseph LeDoux, and Stephen Chorover.
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Philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett discusses his new memoir, I've Been Thinking, about the dominant themes of twentieth-century philosophy and cognitive science—including language, evolution, logic, religion, free will, consciousness, and AI.
Dennett's book, I've Been Thinking, is available for purchase now.
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Cosmologist and physics professor Will Kinney discusses his latest book, An Infinity of Worlds: Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe. Kinney considers what happened before the primordial fire of the Big Bang. What is the origin of structure in the cosmos? Can we come to terms with the possibility that our entire observable universe is one of infinitely many, forever hidden from our view?
Will Kinney is a professor in the department of physics at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. His areas of expertise are cosmology, dark matter, astronomy, black holes, and gravitational waves.
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Einstein showed that space and time are essentially the same thing-a single entity, space-time. But space and time seem so radically different. How could space and time be literally the same thing?
Featuring interviews with Max Tegmark, J. Gott, Juan Maldacena, Fotini Markopoulou, and John Leslie.
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In honor of Rosh Hashanah, this week's podcast presents the arguments for, and against, the existence of God in Judaic history. From pogroms to the Holocaust, how to deal with the Problem of Evil — with respect to the existence of God and attributes of God? From a Jewish Orthodox perspective, do all religions worship the same God?
Samuel Lebens is an academic philosopher and an ordained Orthodox rabbi, having studied at various Israeli Rabbinical schools. He is an associate Professor in the philosophy department at the University of Haifa and co-founder of the Association for the Philosophy of Judaism.
What exists? Lots of things exist. But what’s truly fundamental? The challenge is to discern the minimum number of basic categories that explains the entirety of existence.
Featuring interviews with Sean Carroll, David Wallace, David Chalmers, and Don Page.
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Throughout history, dreams have fascinated and mystified. Messages from God? Images of the subconscious? Much about dreams is myth. What's real?
Featuring interviews with Robert Stickgold, Deirdre Barrett, Christopher Isham, and Patrick McNamara.
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To appreciate Time is to touch the texture of reality. Does Time differ from our common perceptions of it? Is Time fixed or flexible? What is time, really?
Featuring interviews with Huw Price, Julian Barbour, David Albert, Jeff Tollaksen, and John Polkinghorne.
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Many theologians take angels and demons seriously. Why? Do most human beings believe in angels and demons? Certainly, such nonphysical beings, in one form or another, populate most of the world's religions. Featuring interviews with J.P. Moreland, Thomas Flint, Dean Radin, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and James Tabor.
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Astrobiologist Dr. Aomawa Shields discusses her latest book, Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe. The book charts her life as an astronomer, classically-trained actor, mother, and Black woman in STEM, searching for life in the universe while building a meaningful life here on Earth. Dr. Shields studies the universe outside our Solar System, researching and uncovering the planets circling distant stars with just the right conditions that could support life.
Shields' book, Life on Other Planets, is on sale now.
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Deception pervades all life, up and down the phylogenetic tree. Deceptions have a "purpose" - the well-being, often the survival, of the deceiver. But deceptions need not be done "on purpose". In the tool-kit of evolution, what is the workload of deception?
Featuring interviews with Robert Trivers, Jennifer Mather, Daniel Chamovitz, and Max Tegmark.
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Astrophysicist Paul Davies continues the conversation on his new book, What’s Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions. From Consciousness, the Cosmic Horizon, and the fate of our universe to if there's meaning to existence, the Doomsday Argument, and if aliens exist.
Davies' book, What’s Eating the Universe?, is available for purchase now.
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Paul Davies is Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. He is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and best-selling science author. He has published 30 books and hundreds of research papers across a range of scientific fields, including quantum gravity, early universe cosmology, the nature of time, astrobiology, and an evolutionary theory of cancer. Among his many awards are the 1995 Templeton Prize and the Faraday Prize from The Royal Society.
Astrophysicist Paul Davies talks his new book, What’s Eating the Universe? And Other Cosmic Questions. In it, he covers teleology in the cosmos, the fine-tuning of our universe, multiple universes, how to understand reality, dark energy, dark matter, time travel, and much more.
Davies' book, What’s Eating the Universe?, is available for purchase now.
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How are humans and animals different? Physically, humans and animals seem similar. Mentally, humans seem so superior. What's so special about human nature?
Featuring interviews with Colin Blakemore, Barry Smith, Nicholas Humphrey, Jared Diamond, and Julian Barbour.
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Theoretical physicist and mathematician Frank Wilczek discusses his way of thinking about fundamental science, his writing and philosophy, humanity's place and purpose, what is and what could be in science, and the laws of physics.
Wilczek's latest book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is available for purchase now.
Frank Wilczek is a theoretical physicist, author, and intellectual adventurer. He has received many prizes for his work, including a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 and the Templeton Prize in 2022. Wilczek has made seminal contributions to fundamental particle physics, cosmology, and the physics of materials. His current theoretical research includes work on Axions, Anyons, and Time Crystals, concepts in physics which he named and pioneered.
Theoretical physicist and mathematician Frank Wilczek discusses humankind's place and purpose, what is and what could be in science, and the laws of physics.
Wilczek's latest book, Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality, is available for purchase now.
Frank Wilczek is a theoretical physicist, author, and intellectual adventurer. He has received many prizes for his work, including a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 and the Templeton Prize in 2022. Wilczek has made seminal contributions to fundamental particle physics, cosmology, and the physics of materials. His current theoretical research includes work on Axions, Anyons, and Time Crystals, concepts in physics which he named and pioneered.
What’s the relationship between the mental activity of our minds and the physical actions of our brain? It’s called The Mind-Body Problem. To many, it’s a perennial problem in philosophy of mind. Can art provide fresh insight?
Featuring interviews with Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Chris Stewart, Gordon Graham, Nathan A. Jacobs, Anjan Chatterjee, and Raymond C. Tallis.
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Neurologist Sara Manning Peskin discusses her book, A Molecule Away From Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain, about how the very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds.
Dr. Peskin recounts gripping tales of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake. A college student cannot remember if she has eaten breakfast; by dinner, she is strapped to a hospital bed, convinced she is battling zombies. A man planning to propose marriage instead becomes violently enraged, gripped by body spasms so severe that he nearly bites off his own tongue. One after another, poor farmers in South Carolina drop dead from a mysterious epidemic of dementia.
From to Alzheimer's Disease to hallucinations, A Molecule Away from Madness is an unputdownable journey into the deepest mysteries of our brains.
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Science explores how the world works. Breakthroughs drive science, challenging conventional wisdom, changing ways of thinking. Physics is foundational. What are Breakthroughs in physics? What characterizes Breakthroughs in physics?
Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Edward Witten, Karen Uhlenbeck, and Sabine Hossenfelder.
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How did the universe begin? Some scientists claim that the universe did not have a beginning. Some theologians contend that the universe did not need a beginning. What do you believe?
Featuring interviews with Andreas Albrecht, Anthony Aguirre, Rodney Holder, Dirk Evers, and Leonard Mlodinow.
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What can we learn when people deceive? There are all kinds of deception: from lying, duplicity, and disguises, to propaganda, disinformation, and deep fakes. Self-deception, too, offers insight. Why would evolution select for deceiving ourselves? Is deception bred into us, affecting all humans?
This episode features interviews with Joshua Greene, V.S. Ramachandran, Robert Trivers, and Max Tegmark.
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Tim Palmer discusses his new book, The Primacy of Doubt: From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World. In it, he challenges conventional wisdom on quantum mechanics, free will, and more.
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Tim Palmer is a Royal Society Research Professor in the department of physics at the University of Oxford. Trained as a mathematical physicist, he pioneered the development of operational ensemble weather and climate forecasting, which are now standard practice globally. He contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
Most scientists assume that the universe must be populated with innumerable alien intelligences and civilizations—after all, we humans can't be so special. OK, so where are they, these "innumerable alien intelligences and civilizations"? How come there's zero evidence?
Featuring interviews with Jill Tarter, Douglas Vakoch, Frank Drake, Raymond Kurzweil, Francisco Ayala, Steven Dick, and David Brin.
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Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, neuroscientists and authors of Journey of the Mind: How Thinking Emerged from Chaos, discuss why consciousness exists, how consciousness works, and their unified theory of the mind.
Ogas and Gaddam's book is available for purchase now: https://rb.gy/9st8f
Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam both received their PhDs in computational neuroscience from Boston University, where they designed mathematical models of cognition.
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Is the multiverse real? What could be more startling than many universes – multiple universes, innumerable universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes? But does the multiverse really exist?
Featuring interviews with Max Tegmark, Laura Mersini-Houghton, Paul Davies, Andreas Albrecht, Alan H. Guth, Anthony Aguirre, and Carlo Rovelli.
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Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku discusses his new book, Quantum Supremacy: How the Quantum Computer Revolution Will Change Everything. He explores how quantum computing may eventually illuminate the deepest mysteries of science and solve some of humanity’s biggest problems, like global warming, world hunger, and incurable disease.
Purchase the book today: https://bit.ly/3oT67vi
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English philosopher Hilary Lawson discusses his book, Closure: A Story of Everything, a text that develops a comprehensive system of non-realist metaphysics.
Hilary Lawson is a philosopher and award-winning broadcaster who founded The Institute of Art and Ideas to bring philosophy and intellectual ideas into public discourse. He has been hosting IAI TV’s philosophy and global politics debate strands since 2010.
There's exactly one month to go until HowtheLightGetsIn Festival at Hay-on-Wye, the world's largest philosophy and music festival. Use our special partner discount code CTT23 to get 20% off your tickets today.
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Extra dimensions beyond length, width, height seem the stuff of science fiction. What would extra dimensions be like? Is time the fourth dimension? Could deep reality be so strange? And, anyway, why would we care?
This episode features interviews with Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, David Gross, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Juan Maldacena, and Roger Penrose.
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Mathematician Manil Suri talks about about his insightful new book, The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math. He explores if math describes the universe or creates it, what "nothing" means to a mathematician, and if all mathematically consistent systems create universes. We also tackle arithmetic, geometry, algebra, patterns, physics, and much more.
Manil Suri is a distinguished university professor in mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of three award-winning novels, The Death of Vishnu, The Age of Shiva, and The City of Devi.
For subscriber-only exclusives, register for free at closertotruth.com and read an excerpt of Suri's book here.
How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery—what it "feels like" inside—will likely remain.
This episode features interviews with Charles Tart, Roger Walsh, Raymond Kurzweil, Hubert Dreyfus, Alva Noë, Henry Stapp, and George Lakoff.
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Scientific Breakthroughs are discoveries or theories that are milestones and touchstones, signposts and short-cuts, surprises and revelations. How to get at the nature or essence of the Breakthrough process?
Featuring interviews with Jim Holt, John Horgan, Michio Kaku, David Wallace, and David Chalmers.
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Neuropsychologist Nicholas Humphrey discusses his new book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness. He tackles the hard problem, Phenomenal Consciousness vs. Cognitive Consciousness, and Identity Theory, while providing insight into his theory of consciousness and the experiments conducted throughout his career. He also shares his thoughts on if AI will ever be conscious and if consciousness could have evolved somewhere else in the universe. Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics, studies the evolution of intelligence and consciousness. He was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" in monkeys, and he has also studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, proposed the celebrated theory of the "social function of intellect," and investigated the evolutionary background of religion, art, healing, death-awareness and suicide. His new book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness, is available for purchase now. For subscriber-only exclusives, register for free at closertotruth.com.
Some scientists take time travel seriously. Should you? What does time travel reveal about the nature of space and time and the laws of physics under extreme conditions?
This episode features interviews with Michio Kaku, J. Gott, Kip Thorne, Fred Wolf, and Seth Lloyd.
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Jill Tarter, former Director of the Center for SETI Research, talks to host Robert Lawrence Kuhn about the search for alien life, alien technology and technosignatures, the Fermi Paradox, risks from encountering alien civilizations, and the future of SETI and mankind.
Jill Tarter is the former Director of the Center for SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) Research at the SETI Institute. She earned her Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and a MS and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley.
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Science explores how the world works. Breakthroughs drive science, challenging conventional wisdom, changing ways of thinking. Physics is foundational. What are Breakthroughs in Physics? What characterizes Breakthroughs in Physics?
Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Edward Witten, Karen Uhlenbeck, and Sabine Hossenfelder.
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Sean Carroll talks about about his terrific new book, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion. He also dives into the importance of equations in popular science writing, conservation, Noether’s Theorem, the mechanics of space, the nature of time, black holes, gravity, and many other topics.
After many years at Caltech, Sean is now at Johns Hopkins University - the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy - a joint appointment between physics and philosophy. His research focused on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, quantum mechanics (origin of probability, emergence of space and time), and statistical mechanics (entropy and the arrow of time, complexity, emergence and causation). He is host of the popular Mindscape podcast.
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Is there life after death? Death is the ultimate defeat. No matter our successes, we are all doomed to suffer the final failure. But some claim that death is not final. Can the defeat be defeated?
In this episode, Robert Lawrence Kuhn speaks with Gregory A. Boyd, John Hick, Deepak Chopra, Warren Brown, and Eric Steinhart.
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Donald Hoffman discusses the nature of reality, what is real, his theory of consciousness, and how this theory affects everything from artificial intelligence to alien life and the Fermi Paradox.
Donald D. Hoffman is Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and author of Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See and coauthor of Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory Of Perception.
For more on this series, visit our website at www.closertotruth.com.
What is the world fundamentally, deeply made of? What is life? We are always searching for Scientific Breakthroughs: those leaps in knowledge and jumps in understanding that change how we see the world. Now, we focus on Biology.
Featuring interviews with Geoffrey West, Stuart Kauffman, V.S. Ramachandran, Antonio Damasio, and Michio Kaku.
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Sabine Hossenfelder talks about if the past exists, how the universe began and how it will end, information, math as reality, time, and consciousness. She also discusses her new book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.
Order Sabine's new book now from our Bookshop.org shop.
Sabine Hossenfelder is an author and theoretical physicist who researches quantum gravity. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group.
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How does the subconscious affect us? There is more to our mental lives than the current content of our awareness. Our subconscious affects what we sense, think, feel and do. How does the subconscious work its magic? Featuring interviews with David Eagleman, Elizabeth Loftus, Nicholas Humphrey, Patrick McNamara, and Julia Mossbridge.
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Stephon Alexander, cosmologist and professor of theoretical physics at Brown University, discusses his most recent book, Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider's Guide to the Future of Physics, an important guide to both science and society.
Alexander's book is available for purchase now.
Stephon Alexander is a professor, established jazz musician, and an immigrant from Trinidad. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and a founding faculty Director of Brown University's Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was also the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time.
What is philosophy of biology? Biology has big questions: What is life, language, race, gender, morality, wisdom, religion, extraterrestrial intelligence? A new field of inquiry seeks underlying structure and coherence. Featuring interviews with Michael Ruse, Francisco J. Ayala, Celia Deane-Drummond, and Louis Caruana.
Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
In our final part, Chomsky offers his thoughts and opinions on Closer To Truth's "big questions": Does God exist? Why is there something rather than nothing? What are the limits of science? What are the major issues in philosophy of mind?
Often referred to as "the father of modern linguistics”, Chomsky helped bring about the cognitive revolution in the human sciences. At 94, he is one of the most cited living scholars. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
In Part 3, Chomsky discusses linguistic theories for human sentience and cognition (most notably a Universal Grammar), the evolution of language, and the mystery of consciousness.
Often referred to as "the father of modern linguistics”, Chomsky helped bring about the cognitive revolution in the human sciences. At 94, he is one of the most cited living scholars. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
In Part 2, Chomsky discusses generative and transformational grammar, deep structure paradigm, minimalism, and the relationship between syntax and meaning.
Often referred to as "the father of modern linguistics”, Chomsky helped bring about the cognitive revolution in the human sciences. At 94, he is one of the most cited living scholars. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
Closer To Truth is proud to present this four-part miniseries with distinguished theoretical linguist, analytic philosopher, cognitive scientist, political critic, and social activist Professor Noam Chomsky.
In Part 1, we speak with Chomsky about his initial interest in theoretical linguistics, transformational and universal grammar, his early published works, and his reflections on his discussions and debates with other eminent philosophers.
Often referred to as "the father of modern linguistics”, Chomsky helped bring about the cognitive revolution in the human sciences. At 94, he is one of the most cited living scholars. He is Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona.
Sir Roger Penrose joins Closer To Truth to discuss consciousness and new physics. Can the known laws of physics explain consciousness? Can the mind be duplicated by a computer? What is the argument against Strong A.I.? What is consciousness and how does it relate to Penrose's Search for a Missing Science of Consciousness? And what are the implications of a New Science of Consciousness for the Three-World Model of Physical, Mental, and Platonic? See more interviews with Sir Roger Penrose: https://bit.ly/3UvbYkw Sir Roger Penrose is a mathematical physicist and philosopher. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He is a Nobel laureate for “the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”. Register for free at closertotruth.com for subscriber-only exclusives: http://bit.ly/2GXmFsP Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and produced and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
Sir Roger Penrose talks about the work that earned him a Nobel prize in physics, developing mathematics to analyze spacetime, his 1965 paper "Gravitational Collapse and Space-Time Singularities", Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis, Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, and his thoughts on Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. See more interviews with Sir Roger Penrose: https://bit.ly/3UvbYkw Sir Roger Penrose is a mathematical physicist and philosopher. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He is a Nobel laureate for “the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”. Register for free at closertotruth.com for subscriber-only exclusives: http://bit.ly/2GXmFsP Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and produced and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
Sir Roger Penrose shares his thoughts on mathematics and world reflections. He discusses his “three worlds and three deep mysteries” theory, pure mathematics, the “Impossible Penrose Triangle”, M.C. Escher, Penrose tiling, astrophysics, and consciousness. See more interviews with Sir Roger Penrose: https://bit.ly/3UvbYkw Sir Roger Penrose is a mathematical physicist and philosopher. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. He is a Nobel laureate for “the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”. Register for free at closertotruth.com for subscriber-only exclusives: http://bit.ly/2GXmFsP Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and produced and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.
COSMOS - Are there revolutionary discoveries yet to be made? Radical revelations and shocking secrets? Does physical reality go beyond what we know today? Far beyond?
Featuring Lawrence Krauss, Michio Kaku, Rupert Sheldrake, Paul Davies, and David Chalmers.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is happening in our brains when we perceive and appreciate the arts? What are the neural substrates of artistic sensations, feelings and emotions? How do diverse arts affect the brain?
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is the nature of art? What makes something “art”, and why should we value it? What is aesthetics and art theory? Can philosophy of art enhance appreciation and practice of the arts?
COSMOS - How does metaphysics contribute to our understanding of the world? It asks the most profound questions: What kinds of things exist? How does causality work? Sound too abstract? How about: Does God exist? Are you a soul?
Featuring Michio Kaku, Bede Rundle, John Leslie, Richard Swinburne, and Hubert Dreyfus.
COSMOS - Call all-that-exists “something.” Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? The question haunts me. Why is there anything at all?
Featuring Colin McGinn, Peter van Inwagen, Philip Clayton, George Lakoff, and Dean Zimmerman.
CONCIOUSNESS - Can art inform the classic mind-body problem? While the relationship between mental activity and physical brain continues to baffle (especially consciousness), can the existence and process of art provide insight?
COSMOS - Of what is reality made? What are the most basic building blocks from which the cosmos is constructed? Particles? Mass-Energy? Forces? Fields? A new candidate is ‘Information’—‘IT from BIT’.
Featuring Seth Lloyd, Sean Carroll, Raphael Bousso, Alan Guth, and Christof Koch.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is free will? Do we have free will? The ‘Big Questions in Free Will’ project tackles these issues in a multi-year study. In Part I, scientists and philosophers research, test, and advance thinking on free will.
Featuring Alfred Mele, Galen Strawson, John Searle, Peter van Inwagen, Christof Koch, Uri Maoz, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Thalia Wheatley, and Peter Tse.
COSMOS - What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible — the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified?
Featuring Barry Loewer, David Albert, Luke Barnes, Raymond Tallis, and George Ellis.
COSMOS - Perhaps we cannot know the reason for the universe, if there is any. But is it even possible for the universe to have a reason? If yes, how would natural regularities and rules compare with some kind of goal or God?
Featuring Alexander Vilenkin, John Polkinghorne, Michael Shermer, Stephen Wolfram, and Stuart Kauffman.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is it about the brain that enables some scientists to claim they can explain mind? And what is it about scientific explanations that some philosophers reject?
Featuring Christof Koch, Rodolfo Llinas, Raymond Kurzweil, John Searle, and David Chalmers.
COSMOS - Most scientists assume that the universe must be populated with innumerable alien intelligences and civilizations—after all, we humans can't be so special. OK, so where are they, these "innumerable alien intelligences and civilizations"? How come there's zero evidence?
Featuring Jill Tarter, Douglas Vakoch, Frank Drake, Raymond Kurzweil, Francisco Ayala, Steven Dick, and David Brin.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What is free will? Do we have free will? The ‘Big Questions in Free Will’ project tackles these issues in a multi-year study. In Part I, scientists and philosophers research, test, and advance thinking on free will.
Featuring Bertram Malle, Eddy Nahmias, Roy Baumeister, Patrick Haggard, Adina Roskies, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, and Alfred Mele.
CONSCIOUSNESS - How is it possible that mushy masses of brain cells, passing chemicals and shooting sparks literally are mental sensations and subjective feelings? They seem so radically different.
Featuring John Searle, Ned Block, J.P. Moreland, Marvin Minsky, and Colin McGinn.
COSMOS - How can so many numbers of nature, the constants and relationships of physics, be so spot-on perfect for humans to exist? Beware: there is more than one answer lurking here.
Featuring John Leslie, Steven Weinberg, David Gross, John Polkinghorne, Robin Collins, and Paul Davies.
COSMOS - Forget science. Forget God. This is the ultimate question: What if Everything had Forever been Nothing? Not just emptiness, not just blankness, but not even the existence of emptiness, not even the meaning of blankness, and no Forever. If you don't get dizzy, you really don't get it.
Featuring John Leslie, Peter van Inwagen, Bede Rundle, Quentin Smith, Richard Swinburne and Steven Weinberg.
MEANING - If God exists, and if God ordains history and generates miracles, how does He do it? Fiddle with each and every atom? Command all of them en masse? What possibly could be God's technique?
Featuring Robert Russell, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, Alvin Plantinga and Ernan McMullin.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Why do we have inner awareness? Why does it ‘feel like something’ inside to see, hear, taste, think? It’s called ‘consciousness’ and it seems mysterious—but can science explain it? We talk to experts at the 20th biennial conference, “Toward a Science of Consciousness.”
Featuring Stuart Hameroff, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Deepak Chopra, Susan Blackmore and Rebecca Goldstein.
COSMOS - Everything in the universe has a beginning, but how can the universe as a whole have a start date? Does a universal commencement make sense? What would it possibly mean?
Featuring Martin Rees, Wendy Freedman, Alan Guth, George Smoot and Alexander Vilenkin.
MEANING - The world certainly appears to be designed. Are appearances deceiving? Discover new twists to this old argument.
Featuring Richard Swinburne, Bede Rundle, Steven Weinberg, William Dembski, Francisco Ayala, Michael Shermer, and Freeman Dyson.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Throughout history, dreams have fascinated and mystified. Messages from God? Images of the subconscious? Much about dreams is myth. What‘s real?
Featuring Robert Stickgold, Deirdre Barrett, Christopher Isham, and Patrick McNamara.
MEANING - God and Time are two huge mysteries; relating them probes the nature of God, and perhaps even the existence of a Creator. If God is in Time and experiences its passage, then how could God have created Time? Also Leibniz's famous question: "Why didn't God create the world sooner?"
Featuring Brian Leftow, John Polkinghorne, Ernan McMullin, William Craig, Varadaraja Raman, and Robert Russell.
COSMOS - Perhaps our entire universe is like a gigantic computer game, the creation of super-smart hackers existing somewhere else? Before you smirk and laugh, watch and think!
Featuring David Brin, Nick Bostrom, Raymond Kurzweil, Marvin Minsky, and Martin Rees.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Is the "Real You" a special substance that is both nonphysical and immortal? Most people think "Certainly." Most scientists think "Certainly Not." What some theologians think may trouble you.
Featuring J.P. Moreland, Nancey Murphy, Daniel Dennett, Peter van Inwagen, and Huston Smith.
COSMOS - It’s the ultimate puzzle. It’s the haunting question. Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? It seems impenetrable, uncrackable, unfathomable. But are there ways?
Featuring Tim Maudlin, Mario Livio, George Ellis, and David Bentley Hart.
MEANING - You've heard the raucous noise about God; now listen to the cogent arguments, con and pro. Not that determining the existence of God is up for vote; when searching for Truth, majority opinion counts for nothing.
Featuring Keith Ward, Owen Gingerich, William Craig, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Alvin Plantinga, and Steven Weinberg.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Is consciousness something special in the universe, a carrier of meaning and purpose? Or is consciousness a mere artifact of the brain, a by-product of evolution? I hope consciousness is special, which is why I must be a skeptic.
Featuring Nicholas Humphrey, Julian Baggini, Rebecca Goldstein, Galen Strawson, Anthony Grayling, and Raymond Tallis.
COSMOS - If the universe had been ever so slightly different, human beings wouldn't, couldn't, exist. All explanations of this exquisite fine-tuning, obvious and not-so-obvious, have problems.
Featuring Martin Rees, Leonard Susskind, Alexander Vilenkin, Russell Stannard, Stephen Wolfram, and Roger Penrose.
MEANING - To argue for God, the easy way appears to be ‘design’, the obvious order and apparent purpose of the world. How could all of this be if there were no God? Quite easily, says science. What’s the deep thinking on both sides?
Featuring Owen Gingerich, Ernan McMullin, Colin McGinn, and Paul Davies.
CONSCIOUSNESS - If mind and brain are the same thing, then the physical world is likely all that exists. But if mind and brain are not the same thing, then what? Could reality go beyond the physical?
Featuring David Eagleman, Nicholas Humphrey, Richard Swinburne, Raymond Tallis, and Robert Stickgold.
COSMOS - What do scientists mean when they call the laws and regularities of nature "beautiful"? On the largest supra-cosmic scales, and on the smallest sub-atomic scales, why do scientists use "beauty" to assess their theories?
Featuring Peter Atkins, Roger Penrose, Stephon Alexander, Fotini Markopoulou, Frank Wilczek, and Freeman Dyson.
MEANING - How can you know whether God really exists, if you do not know what God really is? Diverse religions have diverse views and surprise is in store.
Featuring Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, Daniel Dennett, Seyyed Nasr, Varadaraja Raman, Huston Smith, and Michael Shermer.
CONSCIOUSNESS - How can the mindless microscopic particles that compose our brains "experience" the setting sun, the Mozart Requiem, and romantic love?
Featuring Venerable Dr. Yifa, Susan Blackmore, Keith Ward, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, John Searle, and Colin McGinn.
COSMOS - They warp space and time, squeeze matter to a vanishing point, and trap light so that it cannot escape. How can black holes perform such stupendous tricks, and what can we learn from them?
Featuring Robert Laughlin, Peter Atkins, Francisco Ayala, and Philip Clayton.
MEANING - In every generation, some religious believers imagined their time to be the end time. Why is this so? Is our generation different? What, in a religious nutshell, is the End Time?
Featuring James Tabor, Robert Saucy, Nancey Murphy, Arthur Hyman, and Gregory Boyd.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Everything we know, everything we think, comes from our brain. Are brains our window to reality, seeing what truly exists? Or are we bound by brains, mental slaves of the meat in our heads?
Featuring Christopher Evans, Kelsey Martin, Robert Bilder, Jared Diamond, and Rodney Brooks.
COSMOS - Science can deal with God in at least three ways: Showing how God is not necessary; showing how God is likely; not relating to God at all. Only one way can be correct.
Featuring Lawrence Krauss, Francis Collins, Robert Russell, Ian Barbour, Freeman Dyson, and Michio Kaku.
MEANING - Humans have a sense of right and wrong. Does this mean that morality is absolute? And if absolute, would God be needed to make it so? Even theologians are perplexed by God & Morality; some even admit it.
Featuring J.P. Moreland, Richard Swinburne, Francis S. Collins, Michael Tooley, and Michael Shermer.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is what mental activity feels like, the private inner experience of sensation, thought, and emotion. Consciousness is like nothing else.
Featuring David Eagleman, Warren Brown, Keith Ward, Christof Koch, and Tim Bayne.
COSMOS - When you ask "what things really exist", and you think deeply about this universal probe, you see the whole world anew. It's such a simple question; how does it inspire such profound insight?
Featuring Roger Penrose, Peter van Inwagen, John Searle, William Lane Craig, and John Leslie.
MEANING - Does God have real choices? Or is God bound tightly by God’s own nature? Can God do absolutely everything? Can God be ‘brave’? Can God ‘improve’? For God to be God, how can God be constrained all?
Featuring Michael Almeida, Hugh McCann, Matthews Grant, and David Hunt.
CONSCIOUSNESS - As far as we know, brains are the most highly organized matter in the universe. How they make their magic is just astonishing.
Featuring Arnold B. Scheibel, Carmine D. Clemente, John D. Schlag, Christof Koch, Mike Merzenich, and Rodolfo R. Llinas.
COSMOS - Everyone knows that the universe is huge, but no one could have imagined how staggeringly immense the universe, or multiple universes, may actually be. It stops your breath.
Featuring Martin Rees, Max Tegmark, Alan H. Guth, Andrei Linde, and Paul Davies.
MEANING - Does everything need a cause? Everything in the universe surely does. But what about the universe as a whole? And what about God—assuming God exists—does God need a cause?
Featuring William Lane Craig, Quentin Smith, Alister McGrath, David Shatz, Charles L. Harper Jr., and Peter van Inwagen.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Everyone wants to know ‘Truth’. But what is Truth? People argue about Truth; people fight about Truth—consider politics and religion. But what is the basic meaning of Truth itself?
Featuring Simon Blackburn, Raymond Tallis, John Hawthorne, John Hick, and Michael Shermer.
CONSCIOUSNESS — What is the nature of art? What makes something “art”, and why should we value it? What are aesthetics and art theory? Can philosophy of art enhance appreciation and practice of the arts?
CONSCIOUSNESS — Can art inform the classic mind-body problem? While the relationship between mental activity and physical brain continues to baffle (especially consciousness), can the existence and process of art provide insight?
COSMOS — It’s the ultimate puzzle. It’s the haunting question. Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? It seems impenetrable, uncrackable, unfathomable. But are there ways?
CONSCIOUSNESS — What is happening in our brains when we perceive and appreciate the arts? What are the neural substrates of artistic sensations, feelings, and emotions? How do diverse arts affect the brain?
COSMOS - What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible — the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified?
MEANING - It’s intended as ultimate purpose: salvation means eternal life with God. For believers, what actually happens, what kind of life? For non-believers, what can we learn about how religion works?
MEANING - Can atonement absolve sin? For believers, how could The Atonement work? What’s the process? For non-believers, what does The Atonement say about the kind of God that supposedly designed it?
MEANING - Why the astonishing claim that Jesus is God? Not like God. Not representing God. But literally God? One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to appreciate the arguments.
COSMOS - Here’s the claim: each level of the scientific hierarchy — physics, chemistry, biology, psychology — has its own special laws that can never be explained by deeper laws (physics). How can this be?
CONSCIOUSNESS - What makes a human being a "person?" What provides our sense of unity and continuity? While most people assume that to be a person is to have a soul, most philosophers-and some theologians-believe that persons are all material.
CONSCIOUSNESS - How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery-what it "feels like" inside-will likely remain.
COSMOS - Here’s the claim: cosmic conditions that allow complex structures — galaxies, stars, planets, people — depend on a few “constants of nature” lying within tight ranges of values. But is fine-tuning valid?
COSMOS - We search deepest levels of cosmic reality, the big picture of the puzzle of the universe — beginning, size, structure, future, far future. We seek significance in cosmology, if there’s any to be.
COSMOS - Here’s the claim: conditions of the universe relate to the presence of observers. Does the Anthropic Principle convey deep insights? Or thwart science? For sure, it’s often misunderstood and controversial.
COSMOS - Why do the “constants of nature” — masses of subatomic particles and strengths of forces like gravity and electromagnetism — have the values they do? Does fine-tuning “cry out” for explanation?
COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about expanding your horizons: you can't imagine what's in store!
COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about expanding your horizons: you can't imagine what's in store!
COSMOS - What could be more startling than many universes – multiple universes, innumerable universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes? But does the multiverse really exist?
COSMOS - Is there more than one universe? According to current cosmology, our entire gigantic universe is only one of innumerable universes, each universe like one tiny bubble in a limitless ocean of universes. What could all this mean?
MEANING - Most people believe that God exists and religion is God's revelation. But some claim that religion needs nothing supernatural; that religion, without God, can flourish because personal psychology and group sociology drive religion.
MEANING - I hope God exists, which is why I listen to atheists and follow their arguments. If hope trumps reason I may be entombed in false belief.
MEANING - Arguments for God, and against God, each call the universe as witness, each count the universe as evidence. God believers invoke the universe's apparent fine-tuning. God deniers envision a vast number of universes, so that anything can happen by accident, including us.
MEANING - Is analytic theology for the better, clarifying beliefs? Or for the worse, undermining faith? How does it compare with philosophy of religion, biblical studies and exegesis, and systematic theology?
MEANING - Can the analytic enrich the theological, sharpening distinctions of doctrine? Can deep questions about God be addressed with methods and practices that are precise and rigorous?
MEANING - How can we have confidence in what we know or believe? What is knowledge? What is belief? How is belief justified? And, is justified belief, knowledge? How can we not doubt everything?
COSMOS - Don't let the heated argument or the smooth talk fool you: the struggle between science and religion carries deep significance. Meaning and Purpose hang in the balance as battle rages on many fronts.
COSMOS - To most physicists, mindless laws generated the universe. A few believe that a supreme being is the creator. But don’t the discoveries of cosmology eliminate the need for supernatural causes?
COSMOS - The relationship between science and theology has easy conflicts and hard harmonies. Is consonance possible? What is consonance in science and religion that we should quest for it?
CONSCIOUSNESS - Extrasensory perception (ESP) probes reality. If ESP does not exist, then today’s physical world may be all there is. If ESP does exist, then reality may go beyond the physical world. But can ESP be tested by science?
CONSCIOUSNESS - Parapsychologists are sure ESP is real. Skeptics are sure it is not. But if ESP is real, would ESP need to go beyond physical laws, reaching into unknown non-physical realms?
CONSCIOUSNESS - If ESP were real, would it transcend space and time? How could our minds know stuff, and do stuff, not only beyond our senses, but also beyond the laws of physics? What are possible mechanisms?
COSMOS - To appreciate Time is to touch the texture of reality. Does Time differ from our common perceptions of it? Is Time fixed or flexible?
COSMOS - Information is all the rage in science, changing how we think about fundamental questions. Information has many descriptions, some of them surprising. Why is Information so important to scientists and philosophers?
COSMOS - Perhaps we cannot know the reason for the universe, if there is any. But is it even possible for the universe to have a reason? If yes, how would natural regularities and rules compare with some kind of goal or God?
MEANING - The God debate is not a game. Is there a God? If so, what are God's essences and traits? What are all the ways that God could be? Or could not be? We discover different beliefs of different kinds of Gods.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Religions offer life after death. Many people are skeptical. Evidence for post-mortem survival? Again, skeptics abound. Can death ever be defeated? Are these possible ways?
MEANING - Whether God exists may depend on whether God is necessary. Even if God exists, would it have been possible for God not to exist? In other words, even if God does exist, could it have been otherwise?
MEANING - In searching, striving to know God—if there is a God—we discover contrasting ways that God could be. It is good to wonder about God, see a landscape of possibilities, get the big picture of what God may be like.
MEANING - Where do miracles fit in belief systems that center on God? If God exists, how could God make miracles happen, and what would miracles imply about the way God relates to the world?
MEANING - How to think about God rationally, logically, profoundly, critically? Have no illusion that metaphysics can find God, but can a kind of progress be made?
COSMOS - What remarkable discoveries are being made in cosmology! Cosmologists now develop credible theories about the beginning and end of our universe and theory-based speculations about vast numbers of multiple universes. But does the cosmos have a reason? Could revolutionary ideas support some kind of 'universal reason'? The bar is set high, and it is OK to say no.
CONSCIOUSNESS - It is standard medicine that mental states can affect physical states. That's how placebos work—when sham drugs improve health, working by inducing the body to generate hormones. But some claim that the mind goes even further in healing the body, operating through consciousness in some nonphysical manner. Can this make sense?
CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is what we know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness is baffling.
CONSCIOUSNESS - Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of my body changes many times. Yet I sense myself the same-continuous, a unity. How can this be?
COSMOS - The universe works for us because of deep physical laws. But if the values of these laws would much change, then all we see and know could not exist.
COSMOS - Is time the ultimate stage on which all events play? Some physicists and philosophers say No -- time is an Illusion; time is not real. How can that be?
MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam teach the ‘resurrection of the body’, the person brought back to life. But isn’t a ‘body’ out of place in a nonphysical hereafter? Isn’t a body a burden throughout eternity? Moreover, how to resurrect a body?
MEANING - What kind of God would create hell? Does the truth of Christianity, Judaism and Islam depend on the reality of Hell? Does the nature of Hell offer Insight into what that God would be like?
MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam each proclaim a resurrection of the dead, a bodily reconstruction of all people from all time. How would it work? Does it make sense?
CONSCIOUSNESS - Humankind has learned so much, so fast. What are the risks of scientific knowledge? Look to the future. Artificial intelligence. Genetic engineering. Benefits? Dangers?
COSMOS - Why is an observer key to quantum physics? Does the act of observation affect what exists and what happens in the external world? Why is Observation in the quantum world a mystery?
COSMOS - Scientists split on whether the universe confirms or denies God. Though most leading scientists do not believe in God, some do. What can we learn from the dispute?
COSMOS - How things start helps reveal what things are. How to conceive the beginning of the universe? What are latest theories? Are they all speculation? What’s the recent evidence?
COSMOS - Lots of things exist. But what’s truly fundamental? The challenge is to discern the minimum number of basic categories that explains the entirety of existence.
COSMOS - The observable universe may contain two trillion galaxies and there may be innumerable universes. Is there ultimate unification, a final theory? Search for deep harmony. Discern deep meaning.
CONSCIOUSNESS - What makes me a self? I see. I hear. I feel. How can separate perceptions bind together into a coherent mental unity? How can all be me? And how does my self persist through time?