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.

David and Tamler welcome Barry Lam back to the show. In the first segment we violate one of our own rules by talking about his new book "Fewer Rules, Better People", a full frontal attack on David’s strict Kantian worldview. Then we dive DEEP into David Lynch’s first movie, "Eraserhead," and eventually arrive at a few coherent interpretations of Lynch’s “most spiritual film."

Barry Lam [ucr.edu]

Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion by Barry Lam [amazon.com affiliate link]

Eraserhead [wikipedia.org]

David Lynch BAFTA interview (Origin of "Eraserhead is my most spiritual film" quote) [youtube.com]

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to break down the Severance season finale and season 2 in general. We all agree that it’s a much-needed return to form and debate some of the choices and questions the episode raises. Plus, an evolutionary account of the ‘ick’  and the adaptive trait of graceful ping-pong ball chasing. 

Collisson, B., Saunders, E., & Yin, C. (2025). The ick: Disgust sensitivity, narcissism, and perfectionism in mate choice thresholds. Personality and Individual Differences, 238, 113086.

Very Bad Wizards Episode 236: Your Outie is Skilled at Lovemaking (with Paul Bloom)

Paul's Substack Newsletter "Small Potatoes"

What has four thumbs and can effortlessly glide from the a priori to the a posteriori in a single episode? These guys. In the first segment we tackle a brand new paper called “Being Exalted: an A Priori Argument for the Trinity.” That’s right, the Holy Trinity arrived at through reason alone. Then in the main segment we talk about Richard Feynman’s classic 1974 Caltech commencement address “Cargo Cult Science.” Does Feynman’s metaphor suggest that whole paradigms might be systematically misguided? Or is he just admonishing social scientists to maintain their integrity and use more rigorous methods? As you might imagine, a fight almost breaks out in this one. 

Moore, H. J. (2025). Being Exalted: An A Priori Argument for the Trinity. Sophia, 1-23. [link.springer.com]

Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman [caltech.edu]

Interrogating the “cargo cult science” metaphor by Andrew Gelman and Megan Higgs [columbia.edu]

Everyone knows Tamler hates numbers but he’s not the only one who worries about them. We talk about the philosopher C. Thi Nguyen’s excellent paper “Value Capture” which examines how the ever-increasing presence of metrics, data, indicators, rankings, and other forms quantification shape our values as individuals and institutions. Plus, VBW Does Conceptual Analysis – we’re on to the ‘S’ words now: smug. 

Nguyen, C. T. (2024). Value capture. J. Ethics & Soc. Phil., 27, 469.