OLD MoLtv

Father Michael's 22 years as a Carthusian Monk ... The contemplative tradition in Christianity ... How Zen captivated Father Michael ... Do Buddhist and Hindu mystics experience the same thing? ... Zen's influence on Father Michael’s theology ... God, creation, and evolution ... What insights does Christianity add to Buddhism? ... Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's influence on Father Michael ...

What distinguishes “action” from simple motor movement? ... Can animals take deliberate action? ... Why narrative has a place in science and physics ... Biology, evolution, and the emergence of action ... Why does Massimo want a beer? ... Dan: The “free will problem” is ill-formed ... How the evolution of language brought meaning to human behavior ... Massimo and Dan's latest projects ...

Sabine's new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray ... Sabine: There’s no reason to think the four fundamental forces can be unified ... What "beauty" means to a physicist ... The weirdness of the Higgs Boson ... Must there be an explanation for the fundamental forces? ... Sabine: Multiverse theory isn't science ... What Sabine wants physicists to be doing instead of chasing beauty ...

A social theory based on natural selection ... "This whole gender thing that’s blown up in the last 10 years..." ... Women, men, and intelligence ... Could evolutionary psychology explain honor killings? ... “The older I get, the more I turn to prayer and meditation” ... Robert’s recurring problem with spite ...

The prescience of theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ... Teilhard's synthesizing of the "above" and the "ahead" ... John: The creation of humans is not the universe's climax ... John: God is "not yet" ... Science and faith as different layers of explanation ... Searching for God in a scientific age ... Why John rejects perennialism ... Questions from the live audience ...

Explaining “compatibilism,” the view that there’s no conflict between free will and determinism ... Without free will, what happens to moral responsibility? ... Eddy tells Bob he errs in saying determinism means events are "inevitable" ... Free will is hard to imagine, but not nonsensical ... Why most philosophers today are compatibilists ... Bob: Compatibilists are just playing word games ... Were prisoners destined from birth to wind up in prison? ... Waiting for the "Einstein of consciousness" ...

Rebecca's path from the Ivy League to an animal shelter ... The science of animal training ... The many reasons why you shouldn't try to be your dog's "alpha" ... What we know about animal personality ... What goes on inside an animal shelter? ... Is there such a thing as a "bad dog"? ... What's actually happening when your pet looks ashamed ... Aryeh and Rebecca debate whether their dog loves them ...

Tanya’s “local theory of mind” ... Harry Potter, prayer, and other “cultural invitations” ... Psychotherapy in the US and witchcraft in Ghana ... American individualism and Asian interdependence ... The differences between hearing God in Ghana and the US ... The Internet as externalized imagination: Pepe and Kek ... A “hyper-real God”: having coffee with Jesus ... Thoughts, perceptions, the world, and the self ...

Rebecca’s childhood: poor, religious, and patriarchal ... How Bertrand Russell helped Rebecca lose her faith ... The problem of beauty ... When Rebecca shared a transcendent moment with a troop of baboons ... From physics to philosophy ... From philosophy to fiction ... Does art better address the mind-body problem than philosophy does? ... Reasons to feel optimistic about the world ...

Daniel's book, How Soon Is Now? ... An example of a modern myth: the GDP ... Can society be reborn into new myths? ... Daniel: We need to devote most of our efforts to sustaining the health of the planet ... Why Daniel calls his beliefs "post-New Age" ... What is "neo-Shamanism"? ...