Closer To Truth

Nicholas Humphrey on Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness

Neuropsychologist Nicholas Humphrey discusses his new book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness. He tackles the hard problem, Phenomenal Consciousness vs. Cognitive Consciousness, and Identity Theory, while providing insight into his theory of consciousness and the experiments conducted throughout his career. He also shares his thoughts on if AI will ever be conscious and if consciousness could have evolved somewhere else in the universe.
 
Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the London School of Economics, studies the evolution of intelligence and consciousness. He was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" in monkeys, and he has also studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, proposed the celebrated theory of the "social function of intellect," and investigated the evolutionary background of religion, art, healing, death-awareness and suicide. His new book, Sentience: The Invention of Consciousness, is available for purchase now.
 
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Is Time Travel Possible?

Some scientists take time travel seriously. Should you? What does time travel reveal about the nature of space and time and the laws of physics under extreme conditions?
This episode features interviews with Michio Kaku, J. Gott, Kip Thorne, Fred Wolf, and Seth Lloyd.
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Jill Tarter on Alien Intelligences, Extraterrestrial Technology, and SETI

Jill Tarter, former Director of the Center for SETI Research, talks to host Robert Lawrence Kuhn about the search for alien life, alien technology and technosignatures, the Fermi Paradox, risks from encountering alien civilizations, and the future of SETI and mankind.
Jill Tarter is the former Director of the Center for SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) Research at the SETI Institute. She earned her Bachelor of Engineering Physics Degree with Distinction from Cornell University and a MS and a PhD in Astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley.
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What are Scientific Breakthroughs in Physics?

Science explores how the world works. Breakthroughs drive science, challenging conventional wisdom, changing ways of thinking. Physics is foundational. What are Breakthroughs in Physics? What characterizes Breakthroughs in Physics?
Featuring interviews with Robbert Dijkgraaf, Edward Witten, Karen Uhlenbeck, and Sabine Hossenfelder.
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Sean Carroll on the Biggest Ideas in the Universe

Sean Carroll talks about about his terrific new book, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion. He also dives into the importance of equations in popular science writing, conservation, Noether’s Theorem, the mechanics of space, the nature of time, black holes, gravity, and many other topics.
After many years at Caltech, Sean is now at Johns Hopkins University - the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy - a joint appointment between physics and philosophy. His research focused on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, quantum mechanics (origin of probability, emergence of space and time), and statistical mechanics (entropy and the arrow of time, complexity, emergence and causation). He is host of the popular Mindscape podcast.
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Is Death Final?

Is there life after death? Death is the ultimate defeat. No matter our successes, we are all doomed to suffer the final failure. But some claim that death is not final. Can the defeat be defeated?
In this episode, Robert Lawrence Kuhn speaks with Gregory A. Boyd, John Hick, Deepak Chopra, Warren Brown, and Eric Steinhart.
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Donald Hoffman on Reality, Consciousness, and Conscious Agents

Donald Hoffman discusses the nature of reality, what is real, his theory of consciousness, and how this theory affects everything from artificial intelligence to alien life and the Fermi Paradox.
Donald D. Hoffman is Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences at the University of California, Irvine and author of Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See and coauthor of Observer Mechanics: A Formal Theory Of Perception.
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What are Scientific Breakthroughs in Biology?

What is the world fundamentally, deeply made of? What is life? We are always searching for Scientific Breakthroughs: those leaps in knowledge and jumps in understanding that change how we see the world. Now, we focus on Biology.
Featuring interviews with Geoffrey West, Stuart Kauffman, V.S. Ramachandran, Antonio Damasio, and Michio Kaku.
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Sabine Hossenfelder on Physics and the Big Questions

Sabine Hossenfelder talks about if the past exists, how the universe began and how it will end, information, math as reality, time, and consciousness. She also discusses her new book, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.
Order Sabine's new book now from our Bookshop.org shop.
Sabine Hossenfelder is an author and theoretical physicist who researches quantum gravity. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group.
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How the Subconscious Affects Us

How does the subconscious affect us? There is more to our mental lives than the current content of our awareness. Our subconscious affects what we sense, think, feel and do. How does the subconscious work its magic? Featuring interviews with David Eagleman, Elizabeth Loftus, Nicholas Humphrey, Patrick McNamara, and Julia Mossbridge.
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