How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery—what it "feels like" inside—will likely remain.
This episode features interviews with Charles Tart, Roger Walsh, Raymond Kurzweil, Hubert Dreyfus, Alva Noë, Henry Stapp, and George Lakoff.
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Why is Consciousness Baffling?

Closer To Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions in Cosmos, Life, Consciousness, and Meaning. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Seek your own answers.

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In honor of NASA's Black Hole Week (May 6-10, 2024), we're re-running our episode from Season 2 of Closer To Truth.
 
They warp space and time, squeeze matter to a vanishing point, and trap light so that it cannot escape. How can black holes perform such stupendous tricks, and what can we learn from them?
Featuring interviews with Robert Laughlin, Peter Atkins, Francisco Ayala, and Philip Clayton.

Why are Black Holes so Astonishing?

Professor Anna Abraham discusses her book, The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths, and provides a science-based understanding of the creative mind that dispels the pervasive myths we hold about the human brain—but also uncovers the truth at their cores. Drawing on cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Abraham offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain.
 
Abraham's book, The Creative Brain, is available for purchase now.
Anna Abraham is the E. Paul Torrance Professor and Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development at the University of Georgia. She is the author of "The Neuroscience of Creativity" and the editor of the multidisciplinary volume "The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination".
 
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Anna Abraham on the Neuroscience of the Creative Brain

Creative thinker and media visionary Robert Wright discusses a fascinating variety of topics including social media's effect on society, sexual psychology and monogamy, the concept of non-zero, biological and cultural evolution, and more.
 
Robert Wright is an author and journalist known for his wide-ranging interests in philosophy, society, science (especially evolutionary psychology), history, politics, international relations, and religion. He has published five books and is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Bloggingheads.tv, the founder and editor-in-chief of Meaningoflife.tv, the founder and chief correspondent of the Nonzero Newsletter and Nonzero Podcast, and the creator of the Nonzero Foundation.
 
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Robert Wright on Evolution and the Future of Humanity

How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, Hinduism and Shintoism addresscausality, consciousness, energies, God, ultimate reality? What is non-dualism? How is the world interconnected? How are metaphysics andmorality related?
 
Featuring interviews with Venerable Dr. Yifa, Jay Garfield, Yujin Nagasawa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Franklin Perkins, and Helen De Cruz.
 
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Eastern Traditions: What is World? What is Reality?

Philosopher Nick Bostrom discusses his new book, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World, where he asks: In the face of incredible technological advances, what is the point of human existence? Will AI make our life and labor obsolete? In a "solved world," where would we find meaning and purpose?
 
Bostrom's book, Deep Utopia, is available for purchase now.
 
Nick Bostrom is a Professor at Oxford University, where he is the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He is the world's most cited philosopher aged 50 or under.

Why is Consciousness Baffling?

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