In this episode I interview Dr. Jonas Kaplan, cognitive neuroscientist and co-director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. We discuss his early career and inspirations, his favorite studies, and the neural underpinnings of belief and consciousness.

Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2cTprF6_u8 

Timestamps:  0:00 - Introduction 0:40 - How Jonas first became interested in neuroscience 2:00 - Jonas describes an experience in college which changed his views on consciousness 3:40 - Jonas describes his college studies and research 5:57 - Jonas describes his graduate school experience 11:10 - Left brain/right brain hemispheric specialization 14:53 - Back to graduate school and the rise of neuroimaging technology 17:03 - The timeline of MRI technology and how it works 22:22 - Post-graduate school and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) 29:34 - Moving to USC & working with Antonio Damasio 33:38 - Predicting visual stimuli on the basis of activity in auditory cortices 38:19 - Working with Sam Harris to study the neural correlates of religious belief 39:55 - The role of belief being tied to identity 44:22 - Free will and the deterministic universe 47:05 - Challenges to belief and trait openness  49:45 - The impact of environment on belief 51:21 - Evolutionary selection for different patterns of belief 53:20 - Why we believe in free will 1:01:49 - Panpsychism and the origins of consciousness 1:07:20 - Conclusion and future work

Papers discussed: 

Meyer, K., Kaplan, J. T., Essex, R., Webber, C., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. (2010). Predicting visual stimuli on the basis of activity in auditory cortices. Nature Neuroscience, 13(6), 667.

Kaplan, J. T., Gimbel, S. I., & Harris, S. (2016). Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 1-11.