MeaningofLife.tv

Nov 29 2021 31 ep. 60 mins 8.4k
MeaningofLife.tv Podcast artwork

Conversations about philosophy, science, religion and spirituality

  Society & Culture  Religion & Spirituality
RSS feed Share
Copy RSS


Subscribe on Podcast Addict


Kant Stop Critiquin' (Aryeh Cohen-Wade & David Ottlinger)

Nov 29 2021 60 mins  
A bizarre Washington Post column about critical theory and Immanuel Kant ... Why has Kant become a bogeyman? ... How contingent is the history of philosophy? ... Relativism vs. rationalism ... What Kant meant by the "Critique of Pure Reason" ... Steven Pinker and the problem with rationalists ... David explains what Kant actually believed ...

The Dharma of Bob 8: A Cosmic View of Our Situation (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)

Nov 23 2021 60 mins  
What part of secular-guru space (if any) does Bob occupy? ... On the origin of Bob’s theses (by means of natural selection) ... The mind-boggling mystery of consciousness ... Could evolution have a larger purpose? ... The “global brain” as the flowering of natural selection’s seed ... Saving our species by transcending some species-typical tendencies ... The algorithm of ev

The Dharma of Bob 7: Cognitive Bias and Conflict (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)

Sep 21 2021 60 mins  
Remembering Michael Brooks ... The existential stakes of enlightenment ... Overcoming the affective dimension of cognitive bias ... Bringing broader awareness to the concept of cognitive bias ... Cognitive bias and the roots of war ... The folly of feedback loops ... Quelling our primitive retributive impulses ... Taking a mulligan in your meditation practice ... Focusing on the hi

Saving Anti-Wokeness from Itself (David Ottlinger & Cathy Young)

Sep 15 2021 60 mins  
A plea to the weary to return to the Woke Wars ... Who is James Lindsay? ... Lindsay's book, Cynical Theories ... Lindsay's other critiques of wokeness ... The religion of wokeness, the religion of anti-wokeness ... Lindsay jumps on the Trump train (starts shoveling coal) ... The anti-semitism thing ... David: In a way, Lindsay is on the side of BLM ...

Contesting Determinism (Robert Wright & Oliver Burkeman)

Sep 14 2021 60 mins  
Oliver's new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Oliver outlines “compatibilism,” the idea that free will and determinism can coexist ... Bob: Everyone should be a free will agnostic ... The occasionally dramatic consequences of arguments against free will ... Would determinism require us to reform our approach to criminal justice? ... A (possible) quantu

The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics (Robert Wright & John Horgan)

Sep 07 2021 60 mins  
John's recent bout of fever-induced hallucinations ... Does math actually help you understand QM? ... What experiments in QM have and have not verified ... John: All interpretations of QM are bad ... What do we want from science? ... "An operating system for reality" ...

Debating the Sexual Psychology of Men and Women (Robert Wright & Agustín Fuentes)

Aug 24 2021 60 mins  
Disavowing the naturalistic fallacy ... Why “sex” may not mean what you think it means ... Did evolution make women “choosier” about sex partners than men? ... Haggling over the price of sperm and eggs ... Agustín: Empirical studies complicate evolutionary psychology’s theoretical models ... The evolutionary significance of non-reproductive sex ... Why are males bigger t

Consolations of Physics (John Horgan & Sabine Hossenfelder)

Aug 05 2021 60 mins  
Sabine inspires John's quantum experiment ... Sabine previews her book-in-progress ... Isn't quantum mechanics non-deterministic? ... Is consciousness conserved? ... John and Sabine tangle over free will ... Physics creationism ... Will quantum mechanics be replaced? ...

Time Management for Mortals (Robert Wright & Oliver Burkeman)

Aug 03 2021 60 mins  
Oliver’s new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ... Why is it so hard to accept the limits of our productivity? ... Prioritizing mindfully ... Heideggerian time management ... Finding value in even "meaningless" work ... Reducing the lure of distractions ... Ten tools for embracing your finitude ... Five (pretty intense) questions for reflection ...

The Dharma of Bob 6: The Explain/Excuse Conflation (Robert Wright & Josh Summers)

Jul 06 2021 60 mins  
Josh's aversion to the term "guru" ... Explaining the explain/excuse conflation ... The (possible) evolutionary origins of (biased) arguing ... Are humans mismatched to their modern environment? ... Building strengths vs. addressing deficiencies ... Defusing attribution error ... Making cognitive empathy cool ... Using meditation to strengthen cognitive empathy ... The mythical sid