Ep113 "What's special about inventors?" (with Pablos Holman)
Why do some people jump into entirely new categories of possibility? And what does this have to do with self-driving ships, solar panels in space, shooting mosquitoes with lasers, skateboarding tricks, silent drones, and our future as a species? Join Eagleman with guest Pablos Holman, a venture capitalist, author, and connoisseur of invention.
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Ep112 "How is computer code like magic?" (with Sam Arbesman)
What is code, and can it be thought of like a magic spell? Are we building a world so complex that we will lose the ability to understand its operations -- and has that already happened? What does any of this have to do with SimCity, or knowledge that already exists but no one has put together, or how coding will evolve in the near future? Join Eagleman with scientist Sam Arbesman, who has just written a book asking the question: what is code, really?
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Ep111 "Might we be surrounded with undetected minds?" (with Michael Levin)
What is intelligence? If we look hard, can we find it in unexpected places: not just in brains but in all kinds of structures? How should we recognize it? And what does any of this have to do with a bipedal dog born without front legs, or making small new organisms out of single cells, or how Wikipedia might be like an axolotl, or why we are so blind to the vast variety of minds that might surround us? Join Eagleman with guest Michael Levin, professor at Tufts, about how we might discover intelligence all around us in ways we don't typically intuit.
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Ep110 "Is consciousness related to quantum physics?" (with Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff)
Can we explain consciousness as emerging from classical neuroscience, or do we require deeper principles? Could quantum physics have something to do with it? Is it possible that consciousness predates biology, and biology evolved to take advantage of it? What are the right ways to build new theories in neuroscience when we don’t know the answers? Join Eagleman with Nobel laureate Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff to explore the controversial idea that there could be, even possibly, any connection between quantum theory and our awareness of the world.
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Ep85 rebroadcast - "What is a Thought?"
Brains bear thoughts like a peach tree bears peaches. Even for meditators it's almost impossible to stop the firehose of words and images and ideas. But what in the world is a thought, physically? How can you hear a voice in your head when there's no one speaking in the outside world? And what does any of this have to do with a small marine animal who eats its own brain? Join Eagleman for this week's deep dive into our inner life.
Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman discusses how our brain interprets the world and what that means for us. Through storytelling, research, interviews, and experiments, David Eagleman tackles wild questions that illuminate new facets of our lives and our realities.
New Zealand