Big Think

Expanding your worldview starts with understanding your brain. Stanford neuroscientist David Eagleman explains.

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David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, explores how our brains shape the reality we experience and why we often accept our perceptions as the only truth. From a young age, we develop our understanding of the world based on limited experiences and biases, which can lead us to form narrow views about what's true.

Eagleman explains that our genetics and life experiences wire our brains in unique ways, meaning that each of us sees the world a little differently. He introduces the idea of "perceptual genomics," which looks at how slight genetic differences influence our perception of reality. He also discusses how our brains naturally create in-groups and out-groups, a tendency rooted in evolution that affects how much empathy we feel for others.

To overcome these biases, Eagleman suggests that we start by recognizing our own prejudices, understanding the tactics of dehumanization, and connecting with others through shared interests. This approach helps us appreciate the diverse realities others experience, ultimately contributing to a more empathetic and understanding society.

Explore the Perception Box series hub ► https://bigthink.com/perception-box/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.

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About David Eagleman:

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

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About the video: Who decides what’s “normal” and why? In an age with increasingly deteriorating social norms, here’s how to find true guidance.

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Up next, Dating apps encourage our worst instincts. Here’s how to be more ethical ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXL2kjDoc04

Why do cultures develop social norms? They provide a general guidebook of how to behave in society, sometimes in an effort to help members of that culture live an easier life.

How do we evaluate if social norms are still valuable in this day and age? Investigation is the key to determining use. What was it originally for? Was it used as a method of protection? Is that use case still valuable right now?

With the dissolving of social norms, some are seeking guidance to inform how they live their lives. In the age of the self-described “expert,” there are coaches or guides for nearly every subject. But this can make for an overwhelming amount of options. Here’s how to know who to trust, according to author Christine Emba.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/great-question/christine-emba-social-norms/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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About Christine Emba:

Christine Emba is an opinion columnist and editor at The Washington Post, where she focuses on ideas, society, and culture. She is also a contributing editor at Comment Magazine and an editor at large at Wisdom of Crowds, which includes a podcast and newsletter. Before this, Emba was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at The New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. Her book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, is about the failures and potential of the sexual revolution in a post-#MeToo world. Emba was named one of the World’s Top 50 Thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2022.

This interview is an episode from ‪@The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ‪@JohnTempletonFoundation.

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Watch Lee Cronin’s next interview ► A bold new theory on why the universe keeps expanding https://youtu.be/cYliayfoSDk?feature=shared

Have we found a new way of defining life? This scientist thinks so.

Lee Cronin, the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, proposes that Assembly Theory may hold the key to discovering how life began and evolved. His theory introduces three parameters for understanding the transition from nonliving to living entities: the time it takes to make the object, the time it takes for the object to fall apart naturally, and the time the object can persist in living lineages. These parameters help to quantify life by calculating a system's construction, which measures the extent of selection that has occurred.

In his laboratory, Cronin and his team have used this concept to create an "origin of life machine." It aims to replicate the conditions that allow life to emerge from nonliving materials. By leveraging these time-based parameters, Cronin and his team are constructing engines designed to perform random chemistry experiments, seeking systems that exhibit these life-like characteristics.

If successful, this research could completely change how we think about where life came from —and its future.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/how-do-scientists-define-and-measure-life

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About Lee Cronin:

Leroy Cronin has one of the largest multidisciplinary, chemistry-based research teams in the world. He has given over 300 international talks and has authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers with recent work published in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He and his team are trying to make artificial life forms, find alien life, explore the digitization of chemistry, understand how information can be encoded into chemicals, and construct chemical computers.

He went to the University of York where he completed both a degree and PhD in chemistry and then went on to do postdocs in Edinburgh and Germany before becoming a lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham, and then Glasgow where he has been since 2002, working up the ranks to become the Regius Professor of Chemistry in 2013 at age 39.

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

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This interview is an episode from ‪@The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ‪@JohnTempletonFoundation.

Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube

Watch Lee Cronin’s next interview ► How the universe randomly unfolded from "quantum foam" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f6TSjR2Grk

The universe is inflating like a cosmic balloon. Lee Cronin, Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow, has a new theory about why.

Many scientists believe cosmic inflation is occurring as a result of the Big Bang, but Cronin has a different idea. Time, he explains, may be expanding alongside space. This suggests that time and life may have a deeper connection to one another.

According to Cronin, life could be seen as the amount of selection happening per unit volume, with selection being what keeps the universe inflated. Where there's interaction, there's selection, and, perhaps, this could explain the expansion.

We don't fully understand what drives the universe's expansion or what time truly is. Testing this idea, even if it's wrong, could lead to ground-breaking discoveries about the nature of time, space, and the forces that shape our universe.

Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/the-well/why-does-the-universe-keep-expanding

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About Lee Cronin:

Leroy Cronin has one of the largest multidisciplinary, chemistry-based research teams in the world. He has given over 300 international talks and has authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers with recent work published in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He and his team are trying to make artificial life forms, find alien life, explore the digitization of chemistry, understand how information can be encoded into chemicals, and construct chemical computers.

He went to the University of York where he completed both a degree and PhD in chemistry and then went on to do postdocs in Edinburgh and Germany before becoming a lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham, and then Glasgow where he has been since 2002, working up the ranks to become the Regius Professor of Chemistry in 2013 at age 39.

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

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The winners of the remote work boom? Utah, Arizona, and Maine. Here’s what the US’ post-pandemic migration looks like.

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Up next, 10 biggest world threats of 2024, ranked ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpPFdFdfxxM

In the wake of COVID, rising populations are shifting out of states like New York and California and moving to previously less-popular landscapes. The biggest beneficiaries of the post-pandemic economy have been states in the American South, including Texas and Florida, which has seen the fastest GDP growth of any state since the start of COVID, at more than a 20% increase.

What is driving these shifts in economic geography? Economist Joseph Politano points out that the most obvious factor is the increasing remote work possibilities. Some of the biggest states to lose residents have been dense, urbanized, unaffordable areas, and some of the biggest winners have been less dense, suburban, more affordable areas. People, when given the flexibility to tele-work, choose places that are more spacious suburban states than they did before the pandemic.

California and New York are going to have to reform a lot of their policies around housing, construction, and transportation if they want to compete in this new economy. And if they don't, the exodus to states like Texas and Florida will only continue.

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About Joseph Politano:

Joseph Politano is a Financial Management Analyst at the Bureau of Labor Statistics working to support the Labor Market Information and Occupational Health and Safety surveys that BLS conducts. He writes independently about economics, business, and public policy for a better world at apricitas.substack.com.

This interview is an episode from ‪@The-Well our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

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Watch Mary Helen’s next interview ► The powers of transcendent thinking, explained by a neuroscientist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxoVhcvun7g

Can the power of community transform our educational systems for the better? This neuroscientist says absolutely.

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is a neuroscientist and USC professor, and she has spent her career studying education and the ways we can enhance it. Her findings claim that diversity has a huge impact on brain growth and even life experience. She explains that similarly to how fabric is composed of thousands of intricately woven threads, our schools need the active coordination of many people and skills, making them stronger together.

Immordino-Yang stresses the importance of this strong social fabric, explaining that spending time around those who differ from us can help us become adaptable and truly deepen our understanding of the world around us. This idea calls for a new approach to education, where teachers and students work together to create systems of learning that help them grow alongside one another, instead of on confined and isolated paths.

Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/the-well/human-development-principles-could-unleash-our-collective-potential

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About Mary Helen Immordino-Yang:

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, EdD, is an expert on the psychological and neurobiological foundations of social emotion, self-awareness, and culture, and how they impact learning, development, and education.

She is a Professor of Education at the USC Rossier School of Education, a Professor of Psychology at the Brain and Creativity Institute, a faculty member in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Southern California, and the Director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning, and Education (CANDLE).

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

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About the video: Have we evolved to understand multiple rejections on Bumble, or survive more than one ghosting from Tinder? Christine Emba explores the sociology of modern dating and how to make them more ethical.

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Up next, How to date, mate, and find fulfillment ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QJ3M8M_RU8

Before online dating became ubiquitous, most people met their partners at work, school, or through a shared network of friends. But as apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have become the default for finding romance, an enormous shift from real life courtship to virtual has occurred.

How has this impacted the dating process? Online connections are often made independent of your normal circles, and lack supervision. This creates a lack of accountability that can encourage unethical behaviors such as harassment, objectification, ghosting, and worse from users.

How can we create a more positive environment on apps and ensure we’re dating with the best of intentions? Author Christine Emba explains.

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/explain-it-like-im-smart/christine-emba-dating-apps/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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About Christine Emba:

Christine Emba is an opinion columnist and editor at The Washington Post, where she focuses on ideas, society, and culture. She is also a contributing editor at Comment Magazine and an editor at large at Wisdom of Crowds, which includes a podcast and newsletter. Before this, Emba was the Hilton Kramer Fellow in Criticism at The New Criterion and a deputy editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, focusing on technology and innovation. Her book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation, is about the failures and potential of the sexual revolution in a post-#MeToo world. Emba was named one of the World’s Top 50 Thinkers by Prospect Magazine in 2022.

This interview is an episode from ‪@The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

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Watch Arthur Brooks’s next interview ► There is a formula for happiness — but it’s highly misunderstood | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJOi5z2IoG8

You’ve heard of cognition. Now, here’s metacognition: the act of thinking about thinking.

Arthur Brooks, author and public speaker, explains how metacognition helps us reflect on our emotional life, allowing our prefrontal cortex to evaluate signals from the limbic system. For instance, telling children to "use their words" instead of screaming encourages them to engage their prefrontal cortex. The same applies to adults: interrogate your emotions before reacting, and you might just become a more emotionally healthy person.

According to Brooks, this is a skill that can be developed over time, so if you’re new to the idea of consciously regulating your own emotions, it’s not too late. He stresses that negative emotions - though unenjoyable - are entirely normal and are even representative of a healthy brain. What matters is how we engage with these negative emotions and what lessons we take away from the experiences they give us.

Metacognition is a skill that requires patience and self-kindness. With enough practice and effort, we all can learn to master this ability and enhance our own happiness, as well as the happiness of those around us.

Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/the-well/use-metacognition-for-emotional-intelligence

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About Arthur Brooks:

Arthur C. Brooks is a professor at both the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, where he teaches public and nonprofit leadership and management practice. Before joining Harvard in July 2019, he spent ten years as the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a well-known public policy think tank in Washington, DC.

Brooks has written 11 books, including the bestsellers "Love Your Enemies" (2019), "The Conservative Heart" (2015), and "The Road to Freedom" (2012). He writes a column for The Atlantic, hosts the podcast "The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks," and is featured in the 2019 documentary "The Pursuit." He also serves on the board of the Legatum Institute, a think tank in London.

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

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Go Deeper with Big Think:

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This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the ‪@JohnTempletonFoundation.

Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube

Watch Lee Cronin’s next interview ► https://youtu.be/jtwkzZM-8Eg

How did something come from nothing? Chemist Lee Cronin explains.

According to current physics, the universe began with a Big Bang, leading to an expanding universe where matter, hydrogen, stars, and galaxies formed. From exploding stars came planets, and eventually, life emerged, leading to human beings and technology as we know it today.

Quantum physics reveals the universe as a field of probabilities, full of entirely random sequences. When these sequences produce objects that can copy themselves and survive in their environment, evolution takes place. This quantum randomness provides the fuel for these processes, making the universe appear deterministic over time.

Cronin uses a flipping coin as an example. If a system were truly random, it would yield an equivalent number of heads and tails on a flipped coin. If the coin were weighted, however, and showed mostly heads upon flipping, the system would be considered deterministic.

Cronin’s perspective might just be imperative to understanding how the universe has evolved, through processes of selection and replication, and eventually brought us to this place in space and time.

Read the full video transcript: https://bigthink.com/the-well/how-the-universe-unfolded-from-randomness

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About Lee Cronin:

Leroy Cronin has one of the largest multidisciplinary, chemistry-based research teams in the world. He has given over 300 international talks and has authored over 350 peer-reviewed papers with recent work published in Nature, Science, and PNAS. He and his team are trying to make artificial life forms, find alien life, explore the digitization of chemistry, understand how information can be encoded into chemicals, and construct chemical computers.

He went to the University of York where he completed both a degree and PhD in chemistry and then went on to do postdocs in Edinburgh and Germany before becoming a lecturer at the Universities of Birmingham, and then Glasgow where he has been since 2002, working up the ranks to become the Regius Professor of Chemistry in 2013 at age 39.

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About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

Together, let's learn from them.

Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

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About the video: Biological evolution in humans has slowed. Can AI, culture wars, and modern tech explain why?

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Up next, What are the chances of YOU existing? A biologist explains ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC2qoeWYr4w

In modern times, our lives have changed tremendously by gaining control over nature. The advent of vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, and better sanitation has dramatically reduced our physiological challenges. In the present day, we enjoy a much more secure food supply than we did a hundred years ago.

We live at a time where cultural evolution can be very, very, very rapid, but our biological evolution seems relatively stunted. Why is this? Why is everything about our civilization changing constantly, except our bodies?

Biologist and author Sean B. Carroll unveils why biology isn’t evolving as rapidly as culture.

Timestamps:

0:00 - Human life in modern times

0:25 - Gaining control over nature

1:58 - The productivity of agriculture

2:45 - Is our species evolving?

4:28 - Slow biological evolution

Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/sean-b-carroll-evolution/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description

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About Sean B. Carroll:

Sean B. Carroll is an award-winning scientist, author, educator, and film producer. He is Distinguished University Professor and the Andrew and Mary Balo and NIcholas and Susan Simon Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was formerly Head of HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, and led the Department of Science Education from 2010-2023. He is also Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin.