Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.

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:

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.

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

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.

Make a tax-deductible donation of any amount to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq

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.

Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls.

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.

Contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.

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.

Consider supporting Closer To Truth in our quest to explore life's deepest questions by making a donation of any amount.

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.