Science and mindfulness meditation ... Dave: "Self" and "other" are societal constructs ... Teaching cognitive neuroscience to Tibetan monks ... Understanding the self as "500 milliseconds of selfing" ... Are mindfulness and creativity in conflict? ... New technology to facilitate meditation ...

Finding meaning in faith and family ... How to be political yet non-tribal ... Friendship as a source of corruption ... What Donald Trump gets wrong about the value of money ... Our special connection with dogs ... On confronting the inevitability of death ...

Oliver's book on happiness and negativity, The Antidote ... What's the worst that could happen? Imagine it! ... Similarities between Stoicism and Buddhism ... What our fear of death is really about ... What's the connection between money and happiness? ... Why you should "hang out" in negative situations ...

The theory of mirror neurons… ... …and why Greg believes this theory is wrong ... How the mirror neuron theory became so popular ... Explaining "embodied cognition" ... Quantum physics and our perception of reality ... Is consciousness a fundamental property of the universe? ...

Jeff reviews Jerry Coyne's book, Faith vs. Fact ... How likely was the evolution of intelligent life? ... A contradiction in Coyne’s case against divine purpose ... Bob argues for a materialist teleology ... Are there true moral facts, or just rules that work? ... Is moral judgment an evolutionary "spandrel"? ...

What guides our moral decision-making? ... Dealing with conflicting moral obligations ... Distinguishing feelings from beliefs ... What makes an expert? ... What a moral theory does ... Why “effective altruism” isn’t compelling ...

Yes, you can be a "spiritual atheist" ... Intuitive beliefs about the body and the soul ... Julien: The soul (most likely) doesn't exist ... How believing in the soul makes you more punitive ... Crime, moral responsibility, and a suffering boulder ... Julien: We don't need God to provide us with meaning ...

Commonalities between Hindu and Buddhist meditation ... What a Buddhist calls "non-self," a Hindu might call "oneness" ... Dena decries the commercialization of meditation ... The work of the Global Peace Initiative of Women ... An alliance of contemplative practitioners ... Could meditation help solve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict? ...

Parallels between Christianity and Africa’s Diola religion ... Essential Diola ritual practices ... How economics caused the French Imperial powers to suppress the Diola tradition ... The land as a "living being" ... Aliou’s path to Christianity via Diola and Sufi traditions ... Reading Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians from a Diola perspective ...

Abby's research on children with psychopathic traits ... Why psychopaths are good manipulators ... Are psychopaths born or made? ... Inside the brain of a psychopath ... "Anti-psychopaths"—people with very high empathy ... The link between empathy and recognizing fear ...