Closer To Truth

Confronting Consciousness

CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is what mental activity feels like, the private inner experience of sensation, thought, and emotion. Consciousness is like nothing else.Featuring David Eagleman, Warren Brown, Keith Ward, Christof Koch, and Tim Bayne.

What Things Really Exist?

COSMOS - When you ask "what things really exist", and you think deeply about this universal probe, you see the whole world anew. It's such a simple question; how does it inspire such profound insight?Featuring Roger Penrose, Peter van Inwagen, John Searle, William Lane Craig, and John Leslie.

How Can God Not be Free?

MEANING - Does God have real choices? Or is God bound tightly by God’s own nature? Can God do absolutely everything? Can God be ‘brave’? Can God ‘improve’? For God to be God, how can God be constrained all?
Featuring Michael Almeida, Hugh McCann, Matthews Grant, and David Hunt.

How Are Brains Structured?

CONSCIOUSNESS - As far as we know, brains are the most highly organized matter in the universe. How they make their magic is just astonishing.
Featuring Arnold B. Scheibel, Carmine D. Clemente, John D. Schlag, Christof Koch, Mike Merzenich, and Rodolfo R. Llinas.

How Vast is the Cosmos?

COSMOS - Everyone knows that the universe is huge, but no one could have imagined how staggeringly immense the universe, or multiple universes, may actually be. It stops your breath.Featuring Martin Rees, Max Tegmark, Alan H. Guth, Andrei Linde, and Paul Davies.

Arguing God From First Cause

MEANING - Does everything need a cause? Everything in the universe surely does. But what about the universe as a whole? And what about God—assuming God exists—does God need a cause?
Featuring William Lane Craig, Quentin Smith, Alister McGrath, David Shatz, Charles L. Harper Jr., and Peter van Inwagen.

What is Truth?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Everyone wants to know ‘Truth’. But what is Truth? People argue about Truth; people fight about Truth—consider politics and religion. But what is the basic meaning of Truth itself?
Featuring Simon Blackburn, Raymond Tallis, John Hawthorne, John Hick, and Michael Shermer.

Can the Brain Explain Art?

CONSCIOUSNESS — What is happening in our brains when we perceive and appreciate the arts? What are the neural substrates of artistic sensations, feelings, and emotions? How do diverse arts affect the brain?

Why Anything at All? (Part 2)

COSMOS — It’s the ultimate puzzle. It’s the haunting question. Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? It seems impenetrable, uncrackable, unfathomable. But are there ways?

Can Art Clarify the Mind-Body Problem?

CONSCIOUSNESS — Can art inform the classic mind-body problem? While the relationship between mental activity and physical brain continues to baffle (especially consciousness), can the existence and process of art provide insight?