Bold Conjectures with Paras Chopra

What can we learn about the brain if we map it at a nanometer resolution?

This is what I discuss with Jeff Lichtman, who is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.

The holy grail of brain science is to understand the human brain and towards that Jeff Litchman and his collaborators recently finished a project where they mapped 1 mm cubed of human brain tissue using an electron microscope at a nanometer resolution. The project revealed a goldmine of 1.6 petabytes worth of data, which is sufficient to fill more than 3000 laptop hard drives. And, mind you, it’s just 1 mm3 of the human brain which is 0.0001% of the entire brain. The human brain is truly staggering in its richness and complexity.

== What we talk about ==
0:00 - Introduction
2:42 - What motivated you to study the mapping of the human brain?
7:07 - Why does evolution have a different strategy for humans in comparison to other species?
11:02 - The connections within our brain and their pruning
15:24 - What makes the cortex special? Is the human cortex different from other species?
19:45 - Why aren't the species, which have bigger brains than humans, as intelligent and adaptive?
23:28 - What are glial cells and what's their function?
28:04 - Do the glial cells play any role in the comparatively higher intelligence in humans?
31:11 - Our neurons are selfish
33:49 - The structure of the human cortex
40:38 - What can the AI-enthusiasts learn from our cortex?
44:27 - More about your study on mapping the brain and the reason you chose to do it
51:27 - Highlights from your study
1:01:43 - How do neurons know which other neurons to communicate with?
1:07:00 - Why do we study rodent’s brains even when they are nowhere close to the human brain?
1:10:39 - How soon will we be able to finish mapping the entire brain?

Does our subconscious exist?

Today, I’m with Nick Chater, who is the author of the popular book “The Mind is Flat. In the book, he talks about how our mind is an imaginative storyteller making up things as it goes along in life. What we perceive as deep thoughts or emotions are not views into our deep self but rather a shallow, surface-level interpretation of whatever situation we find ourselves in.

Nick is a Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School and works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. He has over 200 publications, has won four national awards for psychological research, and has served as Associate Editor for the journals Cognitive Science, Psychological Review, and Psychological Science.

== What we talk about ==
0:00 - Introduction
1:17 - What motivated you to study the mind and write a book on it?
10:47 - The ‘Self’ does not exist 20:54 - Most of what we do or say might be just confabulation
32:59 - Our past experiences influence our future actions
39:26 - We are all like coral reefs
42:10 - Why does evolution make us feel like we have mental depth?
47:41 - We are creating ourselves as we are going along
49:43 - The brain architecture
1:01:53 - The exceptional cases when your brain can ‘multitask'
1:05:54 - How to become a better thinker?
1:09:35 - What are your views on free will?

Is there a limit to how much we can know?

I talk to Dr. Chris Fields who is an information scientist interested in physics, developmental biology and cognitive neuroscience. He is a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Colorado. Currently, he’s an independent scientist. His recent publications include work in the foundations of quantum theory, morphology, and information systems.

His research spans fields that aren’t traditionally overlapping which allows him to come up with unique and bold insights. Earlier in the podcast, I interviewed Dr Michael Levin and Dr Donald Hoffman and Chris has collaborated with both of them, so I’m excited to continue in the journey to understand how much we can know about the mysteries of reality and consciousness.

== What we talk about ==
0:00 - Introduction
1:16 - How did you get interested in studying quantum mechanics professionally?
3:37 - What made you explore so many different fields to study?
5:59 - The difference between quantum and classical mechanics
14:59 - What intuitions do you apply to understand the quantum theory?
16:39 - Deep diving into the quantum theory: systems and information
30:14 - What is a system?
44:58 - The reality is probably unknowable
50:10 - Why do you say that ‘double-slit experiment’ is a feature of our world?
1:04:09 - How does this all connect to panpsychism?
1:08:22 - Have you seen any changes in your beliefs or the way you live because of the conclusions in panpsychism?

== Useful links ==
Chris Fields homepage: https://chrisfieldsresearch.com/ 

Over the course of history, we've expanded our moral circle to arrive at equal rights for all humans in most countries in the world.

Can we go beyond it and expand to include animals and other sentient beings?

== What we talk about ==
0:00 - Introduction
1:38 - How did you get interested in effective altruism (EA) and what made you focus on animal advocacy?
10:27 - The concept of replaceability, its connection with the EA community, and importance of scale of impact
20:08 - Why do you prioritize animal advocacy against helping the suffering humans?
31:05 - Do you see the number of users of animal products decreasing very slowly as demoralizing?
39:06 - Why is the transition from supporting animal advocacy to actually making an impact on people's food habits difficult?
41:15 - How would you guide someone who wants to pursue their career in animal advocacy?
44:25 - What are some things animal advocates do which accidentally harm animals rather than benefitting them?
54:24 - Being vegetarian and supporting pro-animal welfare are not the same thing
57:26 - Some effective altruists say helping humans is better than helping animals. Your take on that?
1:01:03 - Animals can’t protest for their rights and welfare / Animals can’t protest for their rights and welfare, Humans can
1:07:02 - Artificial sentience in animal advocacy and welfare
1:15:01 - What metrics do you use to keep a track of the impact you are making?

== About the guest == 
Jamie Harris is the co-founder of and researcher at the non-profit Animal Advocacy Careers, a non-profit that seeks to identify and remove bottlenecks in the animal advocacy movement, with a special focus on farmed animal advocacy. 

Jamie is also a researcher at the Sentience Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching how we can expand humanity’s moral circle to include other non-human sentient beings like animals and, in the future, AI systems. 

Jamie’s career is inspired by the effective altruism ideology which aims to figure out how we can do the most good in the world. It’s about being rational about figuring out which of our actions have the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to improving the world. As you can imagine from Jamie’s focus, he believes that alleviating suffering for farmed animals is a high-priority goal. 

So, today I want to talk to him about why he believes that (v/s say helping poor or unhealthy humans), where is today’s animal advocacy focused, and what can we learn from previous social movements for achieving a world where animals are removing from the food supply chain (a cause that I very much believe in myself). 

Winning feels great. But kindness feels even better.

Visakan Veerasamy is the Internet's child. I call him that because he jokes that The Internet is his mum. In 2018, he quit his job in software marketing to write full-time. Today, he writes and tweets extensively on a variety of topics, which all converge on recurring themes around friendships, life, love, ambition, and nerdiness.

Having interacted with Visakan before on Twitter, I reached out to him for a conversation after someone responded to my tweet where I asked which two people will enjoy being friends. That person said Visa and I will likely enjoy talking to each other, so here we are.

Visa (as he's known) has a unique take on life and I try to capture all of it in our hour-long conversation.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:27 - What does ‘Friendly Ambitious Nerd’ mean?
5:05 - EVERYONE should write their own book
9:57 - Do you think about the words you want to use while writing?
13:38 - Who is your audience? Who are you writing for?
17:45 - The value of friendships
22:58 - How do you maintain the friendships you have or build new ones?
27:58 - How have your friendships helped you personally?
35:04 - Do you nurture your friendships in a specific way or is it a natural process?
46:46 - Being authentic is the best compounding game you want to play
55:25 - Can being friendly and being ambitious go together?
1:01:27 - The feedback loop in friendships
1:10:21 - How do you define taste?
1:17:33 - Have you seen anyone completely changing from being a negative person to a positive one?

== Useful links ==
Visa's book (Friendly Ambitious Nerd): https://visakanv.gumroad.com/l/friendlynerdbook
Visa's homepage: http://visakanv.com/

DeFi is all rage these days, but have you heard of DeBi?

DeBi stands for decentralized bio. In this podcast, I talk to Ethan Perlstein who is the founder and CEO of Perlara, a biotech startup that runs in a completely decentralized fashion.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:27 - Who is an indie-scientist?
2:59 - How did you go from being in academia to being an indie-scientist?
7:03 - While moving away from academia, what concerns did you have?
8:30 - As an indie-scientist, did you miss the academia’s collaborative science and affordable resources like labs?
11:39 - What is decentralized bio? And the three pillars of decentralized bio
28:46 - What does Perlara do? And the idea behind it.
33:04 - Since the scientists working on problems have different skillsets and expertise, how do you form teams and strategies?
40:08 - With the unpredictable nature of progress in science, how do you devise a step-wise roadmap?
44:08 - What is decentralized finance?
50:39 - Have you explored non-traditional ways of financing at Perlara?
52:16 - Why did you set Perlara up as a public benefit company?

== About the guest ==
Ethan is an aspiring orphan drug discoverer, evolutionary pharmacologist, and indie scientist. He has a PhD in molecular and cell biology from Harvard University, and was a Lewis-Sigler Fellow at Princeton University. He is the founder and CEO of Perlara.

Why do dreams feel so real?

It's because the same mechanisms that generate are waking reality also generate our dreams. However, unlike the awake state, during dreams, we're disconnected from sensory input and locomotor actions. This isolation from the real world makes dreams a perfect model system for investigating the nature of consciousness.

I talk to Antti Revonsuo who is a philosopher and a scientist investigating dreams and their relationship with consciousness.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:54 - Why are you interested in consciousness? What aspect of it intrigued you to be interested in it?
4:55 - Is the mystery of consciousness a subject worth deep-diving into or is it a dead-end?
13:13 - The dreaming phenomenon
16:58 - We are dreaming all the time!
23:23 - All experiences are built inside our brains
28:30 - If it can be perceived, it is not consciousness
36:54 - Is consciousness a biological phenomenon?
43:50 - Psychophysical mapping of experiences
56:50 - Can we use your Dreamcatcher experiment in other species?
1:05:20 - The multiple levels of structures in our brain - and what makes them experienceable
1:18:00 - Views on panpsychism

== About the guest == 
Antti Revonsuo is a cognitive neuroscientist who’s interested in understanding consciousness as a purely biological phenomenon. He believes we shouldn’t invoke unnecessary metaphysics until we’ve given a good shot at understanding consciousness fully in biological terms. 

Currently, he is a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Skövde in Sweden and of psychology at the University of Turku in Finland. His work focuses on altered states of consciousness in general and dreaming in particular. He is best known for his Threat Simulation Theory, which states that dreams serve the biological function of rehearsing possibly threatening situations in order to aid survival. 

Antti Revonsuo is an advocate of the dreaming brain as a model of consciousness and he’s written a book on the same, which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

What if everything continuously gets cheaper?

Common sense suggests that is what paradise looks like. It's a world where everyone is able to afford more and more using less and less money. But why isn't our world like that? I talk to Jeff Booth, author of the popular book "The Price of Tomorrow", how to create a deflationary world.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:21 - As a tech entrepreneur, how did you get interested in economics?
4:33 - The game of inflation and deflation
14:47 - Why inflation is a theft
20:21 - If we can reset the debt to zero, will it be easier for governments to pursue deflation?
23:04 - The inflation and climate change connection
26:42 - Money as a unit of information
28:46 - Is the government’s ability to print money beneficial for the poor?
37:52 - Is the free market a better system?
49:23 - How do we create a better world?
1:00:39 - How does the new deflationary system solve the problems of the world?

== About the guest == 
Jeff Booth is the author of the popular book: “The Price of Tomorrow” where he analyzes the effects of technology-led deflation and monetary-policy-led inflation. He is also the founder of BuildDirect, a technology company that aimed to simplify the building industry, for nearly two decades through the dot-com meltdown, the 2008 financial crisis, and many waves of technological disruption. 

For his thoughts on technology, economy and recently bitcoin, Jeff has been featured in many publications including Forbes, TechCrunch, and The Wall Street Journal.

Can there be a single solution to all of the following problems: malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and animal suffering?

Varun Deshpande thinks so. In this podcast, he makes a compelling case that alternative proteins (such as those derived from plants, fungi, or those that are cultivated in labs) can fix all these problems in one go.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:29 - Journey of starting Good Food Institute (GFI) India
6:01 - Decision of making a leveraged impact by starting GFI India
11:00 - What are alternative proteins?
16:55 - If we keep eating meat, can we get to a zero-emissions world that's required to keep the climate crisis from worsening?
19:31 - Categories of alternative proteins
25:17 - Cultivating alternative food and the connection of food we eat with status and prestige
28:49 - How much should developing nations like India be responsible for emissions reduction?
34:10 - What has been the progress like and what are the barriers you foresee in the uptake of alternative proteins?
39:54 - Are you optimistic that consumers will make this switch to alternative food/proteins willingly?
45:19 - How do you measure the progress you are making?
48:07 - What advice will you give to someone who wants to enter this space?

== About the guest ==
Varun Deshpande is the managing director of Good Food Institute India. The Good Food Institute is an international network of non-profits that promote plant-based meat, dairy, and eggs as well as cultivated meat as alternatives to conventional animal products.

Varun started GFI India in 2017 with an aim to answer one question: how can we feed 10 billion people by 2050 - a sixth of whom will be Indian - through systems that do not negatively impact climate, biodiversity, and scarce natural resources?

According to research, close to 80 percent of Indians are protein deficient. Traditional answers to fixing this nutrition gap is more animal proteins - i.e. more eggs, milk, and meat. However, livestock is a disaster when it comes to environmental impact and causes needless animal suffering. Can we do better?

Varun thinks so. Good Food Institute India is laser-focused on enabling an ecosystem in India for alternatives to animal proteins and in the process of doing so, fixing many of the world’s urgent problems such as public health, malnutrition, food security, climate change, and animal welfare.

== Useful links ==
GFI India: https://gfi.org.in/

The tastiest food hasn't yet been invented.

With the diversity of ingredients available to us for making dishes, the number of possible recipes is gigantic. Human chefs have only explored a fraction of this food-space. Perhaps computers can step in here. I talk to Ganesh Bagler who's pioneering a new field called computational gastronomy that aims to utilize machine learning techniques to understand food and create new recipes that don't yet exist.

== What we talk about ==
0:04 - Introduction
1:55 - What is computational gastronomy?
3:42 - You have been a researcher on computational biology, how did you end up getting interested in computational gastronomy?
8:04 - What is food and how do you model it in data?
11:07 - The data-centric approach in your research and recipe & flavor databases
17:34 - What have been some of the most surprising insights from the data you have?
22:25 - The evolution of cuisines across the world
28:39 - What is personalized food? And what can we expect to discover in the research you are doing?
36:26 - Food is personal - have you faced any objections to the work you are doing?
41:40 - What are the biggest unanswered questions about food that you want to answer?
46:32 - Your personal experience with food after you started this research

== About the guest == 
Dr. Ganesh Bagler is a professor at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology in Delhi, India. He is pioneering a new field called Computational Gastronomy, which combines machine learning, data and food. He holds a PhD in computational biology from Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India. 

Food traditionally evolved via hit-and-trial methods. Someone thousands of years ago left wheat flour outside and when it tasted good, we got bread. The food we eat was culturally selected for many different reasons - nutritional, microbial, taste, digestion and so on. Ganesh Bagler is trying to use modern ML techniques to unravel the mysteries of food that we eat and then create intelligent algorithms that design totally new types of foods and recipes.