David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays “On the Sufferings of the World” and “The Vanity of Existence,” their strikingly modern perspectives on human life and behavior and the influences Schopenhauer took from Eastern thought. Plus, David has Tamler do a blind ranking of movie directors. 

Arthur Schopenhauer [plato.stanford.edu]

Arther Schopenhauer [iep.utm.edu]

The Essays of Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism [full-text from gutenberg.org]

David and Tamler go long on McDonagh’s 2008 masterpiece "In Bruges." We talk about the terrific performances and all the weighty themes - sin, guilt, redemption, honor, language, and very inappropriate jokes. Plus philosophers talk about “sex within the discipline” and Tamler can’t handle it.

To Philosophers of Easy Virtue by Alex Rails [dailynous.com]

In Bruges (2008) [wikipedia.org]

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) “A New Refutation of Time.” What does it mean to be a time skeptic or a time realist for that matter? If you’re a Berkeleyan idealist and Humean skeptic about the self, do you have to deny succession and simultaneity? The world, unfortunately, is real; and we, unfortunately, are Very Bad Wizards. 

Plus for centuries philosophers insisted that you couldn’t measure qualia, but then scientists just went ahead and… measured it!

Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time-It Was Thought To Be Impossible [youtube.com]

Kawakita, G., Zeleznikow-Johnston, A., Takeda, K., Tsuchiya, N., & Oizumi, M. (2025). Is my “red” your “red”?: Evaluating structural correspondences between color similarity judgments using unsupervised alignment. iScience, 28(3).

A New Refutation of Time [wikipedia.org]

A New Refutation of Time by Jorge Luis Borges [pdf from gwern.net] 

David and Tamler return to David Hume’s somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Plus speaking of things to be skeptical about, we dive into a recent paper called “Your Brain on ChatGPT” – does neuroscience show that LLM users incur a “cognitive debt”?

MIT study shows ChatGPT reshapes student brain function and reduces creativity when used from the start [edtechinnovationhub.com]

Your brain on ChatGPT [arxiv.org]

People are suffering... [linkedin.com]

David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Hunan Understanding" [wikipedia.org]

Hume's Enquiry Section 12: Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy [davidhume.org] 

David and Tamler screw their courage to the sticking place and talk about their first Shakespeare play – The Tragedy of Macbeth. Plus we select 16 topics for our first VBW topic tournament suggested and voted by our beloved Patreon patrons.

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the predictive processing theory of the mind and brain function and talk about a paper that applies the framework to meditation practices. But first a new Psychological Science article expresses skepticism about the existence of people who have no inner voice. So is David a new kind of human or is he just making up this condition to get attention?

Assistant Editor’s note: When Tamler says he doesn’t talk to his dog “weirdly often,” he is lying.  

Lind, A. (2024). Are There Really People With No Inner Voice? Commentary on Nedergaard and Lupyan (2024). Psychological Science, 09567976251335583.

Laukkonen, R. E., & Slagter, H. A. (2021). From many to (n) one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 128, 199-217.

David and Tamler heed the call to journey into the realm of Joseph Campbell. What are the unifying elements shared by myths and religions across time and culture? Does myth give us a portal into the hidden cosmic forces of the universe? Can it take us into depths of our unconscious and the nature of our own being? What is the legacy of Campbell’s thought today? Plus, three brave scholars of fascism at Yale flee the country to form in a center of resistance at…The University of Toronto.

We’re Experts in Fascism. We’re Leaving the U.S. | NYT Opinion [youtube.com]

Joseph Campbell [wikipedia.org]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces [wikipedia.org]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell [amazon.com affiliate link]

We kick off our Bonus "Noir Summer" series with Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" (1956). While the rest of the bonus series will be for Patreon subscribers only, the first is free to all. 

David and Tamler return to their happy place and talk about two pieces by JL Borges – the story “Shakespeare’s Memory” and the [essay/story/poem/literary sketch??] “Everything and Nothing.”  What would it mean to have the memory of a supreme artist like Shakespeare? Would it help us understand his work, or how he was able to produce masterpiece after masterpiece What does it mean to have our own memories? How does all this connect to our sense of self?

Plus cancel culture comes to Cornell, but don’t worry it’s about that one thing it's fine to cancel people over.

Cornell President's NYT Op-Ed March 31, 2025  "Universities like the one I run aren't afraid to let people argue"

Kehlani speaks out after Cornell cancels her Slope Day appearance over 'hateful views' [cnycentral.com]

Cornell Musicians Oppose Kehlani’s Cancellation [cornellsun.com]

Shakespeare's Memory by Jorge Luis Borges [wikipedia.org]

Everything and Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges [dilipsimeon.blogspot.com]

David and Tamler talk about two famous puzzles that for different reasons have bedeviled the rationalist community – The Monty Hall Problem and Newcomb’s “paradox.” Why is it so hard for people to see that a 66% chance of winning a car is better than a 33% chance? Why do famous mathematicians struggle with this problem? And David and Tamler split on the Newcomb case – can you guess which one of us is the one boxer?

Plus since we’re basically a TV recap podcast now, some thoughts on White Lotus Season 3. 

The White Lotus [imdb.com]

Monty Hall Problem [wikipedia.org]

Numberphile on the Monty Hall Problem [youtube.com]

Newcomb's "Paradox" [wikipedia.org]

Nozick, R. (1969). Newcomb’s problem and two principles of choice. In Essays in honor of carl g. hempel: A tribute on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (pp. 114-146). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.