Closer To Truth

Creative thinker and media visionary Robert Wright discusses a fascinating variety of topics including social media's effect on society, sexual psychology and monogamy, the concept of non-zero, biological and cultural evolution, and more.

Robert Wright is an author and journalist known for his wide-ranging interests in philosophy, society, science (especially evolutionary psychology), history, politics, international relations, and religion. He has published five books and is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloggingheads.tv, the founder and editor-in-chief of Meaningoflife.tv, the founder and chief correspondent of the Nonzero Newsletter and Nonzero Podcast, and the creator of the Nonzero Foundation.

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How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, Hinduism and Shintoism address

Featuring interviews with Venerable Dr. Yifa, Jay Garfield, Yujin Nagasawa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Franklin Perkins, and Helen De Cruz.

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Philosopher Nick Bostrom discusses his new book, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, where he asks: In the face of incredible technological advances, what is the point of human existence? Will AI make our life and labor obsolete? In a "solved world," where would we find meaning and purpose?

Bostrom's book, Deep Utopia, is available for purchase now.

Nick Bostrom is a Professor at Oxford University, where he is the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He is the world's most cited philosopher aged 50 or under.

How do animals and smart machines measure up to human intelligence? Can fish feel pain and do dogs get jealous? Paul Thagard—a philosopher and cognitive scientist—explores hotly debated issues about animal and artificial intelligence to conclude that current bots and beasts fall far short of human capabilities.

Thagard's book, Bots and Beasts: What Makes Machines, Animals, and People Smart?, is available for purchase now.

Paul Thagard is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of many books and writes a popular blog for Psychology Today.

Philosopher Helen De Cruz discusses her new book, Wonderstruck: How Wonder and Awe Shape the Way We Think. De Cruz explores the transformative role of wonder and awe in an uncertain world and reveals how they are catalysts that can help us reclaim what makes life worth living and preserve the things we find wonderful and valuable in our lives.

Helen De Cruz is a Belgian philosopher and Danforth Chair in the Humanities at Saint Louis University who specializes in philosophy of religion, experimental philosophy, and philosophy of cognitive science.

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Philosophy of biology has two sides: the process of science and the content of biology. We address key questions. What is the nature of life? How does evolution work and what are its challenges? How to consider race, sex/gender, cognition, culture, morality, healthcare, religion, alien life, and alien intelligences.

Featuring interviews with Michael Ruse, Elliot Sober, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, John Dupré, Paul Griffiths, Richard Dawkins, Josh Swamidass, Quayshawn Nigel Julian Spencer, Denis Noble, Alexander Rosenberg, Samir Okasha, Massimo Pigliucci, Alan Love, and Philip Kitcher.

Theoretical physicist and astronomer Marcelo Glesier offers compelling argument for including the human perspective within science, and for how human experience makes science possible. He discusses his new book, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, which urges us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.

The Blind Spot is available for purchase now: https://shorturl.at/ghu34

Marcelo Gleiser is the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy at Dartmouth, the 2019 Templeton Prize laureate, and author of seven widely translated books.

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Does consciousness require a radical explanation? What causes consciousness? Our inner sense of awareness is at once most mundane and most bizarre. No explanation makes sense. Here are three novel candidates for explaining consciousness.

Featuring interviews with Giulio Tononi, David Chalmers, Sean Carroll, Max Tegmark, David Wallace, Bernard Carr, and Paul Davies.

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The astonishing effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, especially in physics, borders on the mysterious—and there seems no rational explanation. Our bafflement stimulates novel thinking. How to assess the meaning of math’s “unreasonable effectiveness"?

Featuring interviews with Michio Kaku, David Wallace, Michael Hopkins, Stuart Kauffman, Jim Holt, and Paul Davies.

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Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli discusses his book, White Holes, which traces the ongoing adventure of his own cutting-edge research and outlines some of the most astounding ideas in astrophysics and cosmology. Rovelli investigates whether all black holes could eventually turn into white holes, equally compact objects in which the arrow of time is reversed.

Carlo Rovelli is a physicist and writer. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute and core member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of Western University.

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