I had the incredible honor of delivering the commencement address to UC Berkeley Philosophy department's graduating class of 2024 during this time of momentous social upheaval.

"Filmmaker Tao Ruspoli and neuroscientist Dr. Patrick House engage in a wide-ranging discussion that explores the nature of truth, myth, and meaning. The conversation begins with an examination of the significance of the number 40 in various cultural and religious contexts, revealing how this seemingly arbitrary number has been imbued with profound meaning throughout history. Ruspoli and House delve into the power of storytelling, discussing how myths and folklore can shape our understanding of the world and ourselves, even when the stories themselves may not be factually accurate.The discussion then turns to the role of active and passive bearers of tradition, drawing fascinating parallels between the transmission of folklore and the spread of parasites in the natural world. Ruspoli shares personal anecdotes about his father's storytelling, while House offers insights from his research on mind-controlling parasites. The two explore the tension between the pursuit of factual accuracy and the value of "ecstatic truth," ultimately questioning the cultural and contextual nature of truth itself. Throughout the podcast, Ruspoli and House engage in a thought-provoking and often humorous dialogue that challenges listeners to reconsider their assumptions about the stories we tell and the truths we hold dear." -Claude

A tour of legendary, academy award winning production designer Dennis Gassner's home in the Hollywood hills.

A both very intimate and very expansive conversation with Dulcinee about creativity, addiction, mental health, technology, "artificial" "intelligence", politics, relationships, and more.

Poetry & Beats by Dulcinee DeGuere

Tao and Dulcinee discuss the deals they've made with each other to successfully quit smoking, meditate, and drastically reduce phone time. They also discuss the nature of technology, art, artifacts, and how to remain human in a technological world.

Tao takes a walk with his friend Eric Kaplan, a TV writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory, etc.) with a PhD in philosophy. They try to get to the bottom of what makes a good story and what makes a good storyteller.

Riccardo Manzotti is a philosopher, psychologist, and AI expert and the author of The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One.

Born in Parma, Italy, in 1969, Manzotti received his PhD from the University of Genova in 2001, and is currently full professor of theoretical philosophy at IULM University (Milan). He has been Fulbright Visiting Scholar at MIT (Boston).
Manzotti originally specialized in robotics and AI where he started to wonder how can matter have experience of the surrounding world. Eventually he has been a psychologist from 2004 to 2015 and then he has become a full time philosopher.

His current research focuses on the issue of consciousness and the structure of reality: What is the relationship between experience and the physical world? What is consciousness? Is there a separation between our experience of the world and the world? Does the present have a fixed time span? Can we design and build a conscious machine? What ethical questions do consciousness and technology raise in the 21st century?

In 2014, at MIT, Riccardo Manzotti presented the Spread Mind Theory (elsewhere dubbed the Mind-Object Identity Theory) that addresses the hard problem of consciousness in a completely radical and new way. Over the last few years, Manzotti has continued to develop and test this hypothesis interacting with the international scientific and philosophical community.

Published in 2018, Manzotti’s The Spread Mind has outlined a radical change in the way we conceive us and the world. Based on empirical evidence from physics and neuroscience, the book develops and verify the astonishing hypothesis that our conscious experience is indeed one and the same with the external world. The book revisits familiar notions about dreams, illusions, and hallucinations. The book has been translated in many languages such as Chinese, Italian, Turkish.

In 2019 Riccardo Manzotti returned together with the acclaimed novelist Tim Parks with Dialogues on Consciousness, an engaging and humorous dialogue about the nature of consciousness and our everyday life.

Prof. Manzotti lectures around the world on the topics explored in his books and articles, and has written for publications such as The New York Review of Books, Doppio Zero. He also offers his knowledge and time to various organizations and audiences on a voluntary basis.

Dulcinée is a filmmaker, conceptual/performance artist, & Systems Architect for the Bombay Beach Biennale. Tao and Dulcinée have a frank and vulnerable conversation about both personal and societal mental health following her recent Bipolar 2 diagnosis. Speaking publicly about it for the first time, Dulcinée and Tao explore the complex landscape of contemporary mental health, using both an autobiographical framework and a sociopolitical analysis, to outline the personal, the psychological, the political, the philosophical, and the communal aspects of being in the world...

Tao talks to chatGPT4 about its philosophical, political, and creative implications. Part 2 of 2