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Big Think
By bigthinkEducation
Big Think episodes
- How to debunk deceptive emotions | Kristen Lindquist
Your emotions do not reflect an irrefutable truth. Psychologist Kristen Lindquist explains how important that is for connecting across cultures.
When it comes to obtaining an objective understanding of the world around us, emotions may not be as reliable as we think, explains Kristen Lindquist, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Lindquist explores the concept of "affective realism," a term that describes how our feelings shape our reality, both of which are influenced by cultural nuances. She unravels the connections between emotions, culture, and the brain, challenging the notion that our emotional experiences always mirror objective truths.We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Kristen Lindquist:Kristen Lindquist, PhD. Is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Her research seeks to understand the psychological and neural basis of emotions, moods, and feelings. Her on-going work uses tools from social cognition, physiology, neuroscience, and big data methods to examine how emotions emerge from the confluence of the body, brain, and culture.----------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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10 min - The “heroic dose” of psychedelics, according to Johns Hopkins | Dr. Matthew Johnson
How a ‘heroic dose’ of psychedelics can be therapeutic, explained by a Johns Hopkins professor.
Psychedelic research is enjoying a renaissance. Recent studies have shown that psychedelic drugs like LSD and psilocybin seem to be a safe and effective method for treating conditions like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.And unlike common antidepressants, some people report long-lasting improvements in their mental health conditions after taking just one dose of psychedelics.What makes these substances so unique and powerful? That’s one of the driving questions behind the research of Matthew W. Johnson, who has conducted numerous studies on the nature of addiction, psychedelics, and other psychoactive substances.Chapters:
0:00 Effing up the ineffable
1:56 Pioneers of psychedelic therapy2:35 Psychedelics go underground3:26 The psychedelic renaissance4:50 Taking a ‘heroic dose’ at Johns Hopkins8:44 The challenges of psychedelic therapy9:46 The mental health revolution----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Matthew Johnson:Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., is The Susan Hill Ward Endowed Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins. Working with psychedelics since 2004, he is one of the world’s most widely published experts on psychedelics. He has published research on psychedelics and mystical experience, personality change, tobacco smoking cessation, cancer distress treatment, and depression treatment. In 2021 he received as principal investigator the first grant in 50 years from the US government for a treatment study with a classic psychedelic, specifically psilocybin in treatment of tobacco addiction. He is also known for his expertise in behavioral economics, addiction, sexual risk behavior, and research with a wide variety of drug classes. He’s been Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, Fox News, Fox Business News, BBC and in Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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17 min - Should you bring a kid into this world? | Ari Wallach
Climate change. War. Civil unrest. Is it responsible to have kids today? Futurist Ari Wallach explains.
If you pay too much attention to negative stories in the media, you might get the impression that the world is all doom and gloom — that humanity is headed for catastrophe. After all, things like climate change, wealth inequality, and political polarization are real problems that demand big solutions.To some people, the state of our world is so bleak that they wonder whether it’s ethical to have children. But that’s a short-sighted worldview, according to Ari Wallach, author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs.Wallach notes that even though our modern world has plenty of flaws, our lives are far better today than they would have been 100 or 1,000 years ago. And that’s thanks to achievements in all fields of human endeavor — from science to philosophy — that people work toward every day.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Ari WallachAri Wallach is an applied futurist and Executive Director of Longpath Labs. He is the author of Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs by HarperCollins and the creator and host of the forthcoming series on PBS A Brief History of the Future, which is being executive produced by Kathryn Murdoch and Drake. He has been a strategy and foresight advisor to Fortune 100 companies, the US Department of State, the Ford Foundation, the UN Refugee Agency, the RacialEquity 2030 Challenge and Politico’s Long Game Forum. As adjunct associate professor at Columbia University he lectured on innovation, AI, and the future of public policy. Wallach's TED talk on Longpath has been viewed 2.6 million times and translated into 21 languages. Ari was the co-creator of 2008's pro-Obama The Great Schlep with Sarah Silverman. He has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, CNBC, Vox, and more. He lives in the lower Hudson Valley with his wife, three children and wonderdog Ozzie. More at Longpath.org and @ariw.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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7 min - Everything about humanity is changing—except our bodies | Sean B. Carroll on evolution
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
**🌍 From Survival to Supremacy: How We Took Charge of Nature**
Drop someone from the 1800s into today’s world and they’d probably think they’d landed on another planet 🚀.
From food to medicine, transport to tech, life has transformed at warp speed — all thanks to one major shift: **we’ve gained control over nature** 🧠⚙️🌿.
Once vulnerable to famine, disease, wild beasts, and drought…
We’ve now **erased smallpox**, tamed TB, and made rubella a forgotten word 💉.
Our understanding of biology has turned **invisible killers** into manageable annoyances.
We even grow more food than ever — with just **2% of the population farming** 👨🌾 — feeding not just nations but the world.
But here’s the twist:
**Cultural evolution is sprinting**, while **biological evolution is crawling** 🐌💨.
Our bodies are still wired for scarcity — craving fat, sugar, and salt like ancient hunter-gatherers —
while modern life gives us an **endless buffet** 🍩🥤🍟.
That mismatch? It’s causing modern syndromes our ancestors never dreamed of.
Now imagine if humanity had stayed scattered — isolated like species on separate islands.
We might have evolved into wildly different beings 🧬🌎.
But instead, thanks to travel and tech, we’re **sharing genes and culture at lightning speed** 🌐 — stalling deep biological change, but accelerating cultural shifts.
We’re now a **hyperconnected species** — blending traditions, ideas, even immune systems —
but still stuck with bodies that were built for a different world.
**✨ So what’s next?**
We’ve mastered nature.
But can we master ourselves?
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.
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12 min - The surprising reason secrets destroy us | Michael Slepian
Pressure bursts pipes. Keeping a secret can do the same to your mind, explains Michael Slepian.
Holding secrets can negatively impact your well-being. But how, exactly? For decades, psychological research suggested that people experience significant stress while hiding secrets from others during social interactions.But this explanation often doesn’t feel right to people, notes Michael Slepian, an associate professor at Columbia Business School who has spent years studying the nature of secrets. Surveys suggest that it’s actually pretty rare for people to find themselves in social situations where they have to actively conceal a secret they’ve never told anyone about. So, how are secrets harming us?In other words, the average experience of concealing a secret turns out to be an easy one.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About Michael Slepian:Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. He previously was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, and received his Ph.D. From Tufts University. He is an elected fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, has received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, and received the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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6 min - The physics of entropy and the origin of life | Sean Carroll
How did complex systems emerge from chaos? Physicist Sean Carroll explains.
How did life on Earth originate? Scientists still aren’t sure, and this remains one of the world’s most fascinating and mind-boggling mysteries.One way of approaching the question is to think generally about how complex systems emerge from chaos. Since the 1800s, scientists have known that entropy is always increasing, with everything in our Universe trending toward disorder over time.A more nuanced understanding of entropy is helping today's scientists make progress on the question of the origin of life, as Sean Carroll explains in this Big Think video.Chapters for easier navigation:
0:00 Entropy: The 2nd law of thermodynamics
1:56 The two axes: Chaos & complexity2:40 How did life emerge?----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Sean Carroll:Dr. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy — in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy — at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Most of his career has been spent doing research on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, looking at topics such as dark matter and dark energy, modified gravity, topological defects, extra dimensions, and violations of fundamental symmetries. These days, his focus has shifted to more foundational questions, both in quantum mechanics (origin of probability, emergence of space and time) and statistical mechanics (entropy and the arrow of time, emergence and causation, dynamics of complexity), bringing a more philosophical dimension to his work.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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10 min - Why you’ll never “get on top of everything” | Oliver Burkeman for Big Think+
"There will always be too much to do. You're never going to feel completely ready. You're never going to be able to feel confident about what's coming in the future."
Many of us wake up each morning with something Oliver Burkeman calls “productivity debt.” The bestselling author and journalist explains this term as “a sense that you've got to work really hard during the day to pay off this debt of getting things done. Otherwise, you won't quite feel like you're an adequate and acceptable human being.”It's becoming very obvious that this ever-accelerating treadmill of productivity isn't going to lead to a final, perfect destination. There will always be more to do. You're never going to feel completely ready. You're never going to be able to feel confident about what's coming in the future. If you set out on some big project of scheduling your time very, very, very strictly, not only will you probably fail and get very stressed, but even if you succeed, you'll fail in a way because there'll be some lack of spontaneity to that path, a sense of having to carry out these instructions that you've given yourself that is at odds with what we really value from being alive. And so that's why we need a way of understanding and thinking about work and productivity that does not treat getting on top of everything as the goal, explains Burkeman. Here, he lays out four guiding principles to lead a better, more fulfilling life.
In this episode, we explore the trap of perfectionism and the endless pursuit of productivity. The discussion challenges the idea that getting on top of everything will bring peace, revealing instead that true relief comes from accepting life's inherent limitations. Strategies like the 3-4 hour deep work rule, keeping a "done" list, and embracing spontaneity help shift the focus from control to meaningful progress. By letting go of the pressure to maximize every moment, we can create space for what truly matters.
About Oliver Burkeman:Oliver Burkeman is a bestselling author and journalist. He is best known for Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021), a self-help book on reframing productivity for happiness. He also publishes The Imperfectionist, an email on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.
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12 min - Not all gratitude is created equal. A psychologist explains
This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.
Gratitude connects us, but how we express it might matter more than we think.Baylor professor of psychology and neuroscience Sarah Schnitker explores how practicing gratitude can lead to stronger relationships and greater well-being. Her lab found that gratitude expressed through prayer may offer even more benefits than journaling or speaking it aloud, and that feeling connected to something larger may help combat today’s growing loneliness.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Sarah Schnitker:Dr. Sarah Schnitker, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University and Director of the BRIGHTS Center, researches virtue development in youth. Specializing in patience, self-control, and gratitude, she has 100+ publications, $10M in grants, and mentors doctoral students in science and virtue.------------------------------------------------06:30-17Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5 min - We doubled human lifespans in the last 200 years. Can we do it again? | Andrew Steele
“Over the last 10 or 15 years, scientists have really started to understand the fundamental underlying biology of the aging process. And they broke this down into 12 hallmarks of aging.”
We track age by the number of birthdays we’ve had, but scientists are arguing that our cells tell a different, more truthful story. Our biological age reveals how our bodies are actually aging, from our muscle strength to the condition of our DNA.The gap between these two numbers may hold the key to treating aging – which could help save 100,000 lives per day and win us $38 trillion dollars.00:00 Rethinking longevity01:27 Understanding aging02:58 Biological age and epigenetics04:29 New frontiers in longevity science08:04 Future possibilities and ethical questions10:24 The moral debate around living longer----------------------------------------------------------------------------------About Andrew Steele:Dr. Andrew Steele is a scientist, writer and campaigner based in Berlin, author of Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old, and Director and Co-Founder of The Longevity Initiative.-------------------------------------------------------06:30-17
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20 min - How reality TV stole my childhood | Jack Osbourne
**🌪️ From Chaos to Clarity: A Rockstar's Journey to Redemption 🎸🕊️**
Growing up on a tour bus with Ozzy Osbourne as your dad, "normal" was never in the cards. Fame hit hard when *The Osbournes* skyrocketed—and so did addiction. Jack Osbourne took his first drink at 14 and was snorting 400mg of Oxycontin with Jack Daniels not long after. The rush? Temporary. The loneliness? Crushing.
By 17, worn out, depressed, and on the brink, he entered rehab—not for a miracle, but for structure. Slowly, sobriety took hold. Chores, schedules, and reflection replaced the chaos. The turning point? Becoming a dad.
Now, Jack knows that version of himself still lives inside—but so does the strength to choose differently every day. 🌅
**“The Universe unfolds exactly as it should.”** And for Jack, that’s meant trading destruction for purpose—and loving every second of fatherhood. 💙
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9 min
About Big Think
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Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster.…
Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life.
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