The Big Think Interview

Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine, argues that the deepest mystery of life’s origin is how chemistry came to write its own code.

Davies traces the question from Aristotle and Schrödinger’s “aperiodic crystal” to Maxwell’s demon, Michael Levin’s two-headed flatworms, and the possibility of a shadow biosphere hiding on Earth.

Narcissistic people are often charming at the dinner party and cruel in the car ride home, which tells you they can control it. Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, author of It’s Not You, has studied narcissism since long before it became a buzzword, and she argues that most of what circulates online gets it wrong.

In 1936, a shipyard worker in Hamburg kept his arms folded while hundreds of men around him raised theirs for Hitler. Luke Burgis, author of Wanting and The One in the 99, wants to know what it takes to become that person, and he traces the answer back to the family. Drawing on psychiatrist Murray Bowen’s distinction between the solid self and the pseudo self, Burgis shows how anxiety and opinion pass through groups by contagion, and how our screens have multiplied the crowds we have to stand within.

For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. Philosopher Jack Symes was convinced by it, and was 50,000 words into a book defending atheism when he noticed that the exercise kept tipping toward goodness. He threw out the manuscript and started over.

From von Neumann's blueprint, which predated the discovery of DNA, to viral genes that now help form our memories and placentas, Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does, and that AI belongs in the same story. He explains why he thinks AGI is already here, and gives a blueprint for using AI without sacrificing your own mind.

Jonathan Rauch, author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, dives into the philosophy of liberalism, how it has created and transformed our institutions, and the state of truth in a world rife with misinformation.

Most of us can recite the benefits of exercise, gratitude, and patience while doing none of it. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the Knowing-Doing gap, and our typical interventions, like retreats and month-long overhauls keep it open.

Two-time debate champion Bo Seo breaks down why arguments fail: the 4 bad-faith personas that hijack conversations, a four-question framework for picking fights worth having, and the surprising Cold War standoff between Nixon and Khrushchev that shows what staying composed under pressure actually looks like.

OBGYN Jen Gunter unpacks the science, history, and mythology of menstruation and menopause, and offers a guidebook to navigate the modern healthcare landscape.

Talent isn’t a gift we're born with – it’s a signal we’ve been reading completely wrong. Author Daniel Coyle breaks down the common traits shared by successful people, and why environment, not innate ability, is the variable that ties them all together.