Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

37:58

Ep116 " What is Color? Part 2: Why royals wear purple"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/08/11

Are there new colors you could see? And why are they impossible to imagine before you've seen them?Can you lose your color vision? And what does any of this have to do with linguisticcolor terms, why the military likes colorblind people for a particular task, and why Eagleman suggests that the cultural history of Thailand was influenced by one single, unknown neurodivergent?

en-US

37:36

Ep115 "What is color? Part 1: Why hunters wear orange"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/08/04

Why do birds and bees choose different flowers? Why do mammals' eyes seem to be optimized formoving around at night, and what does that have to do with hairless humans getting angry? What does any of this have to do with road signs, camouflage, mantis shrimp, the sun, the dress that broke the internet, and women who can see more colors than you can?

en-US

36:19

Ep114 "Would you eat a self burger?"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/07/28

Would you eat a burger grown from a human muscle cell? Would you rather use your own cell or someone else's? What does the future of lab-grown meat illuminate about neuroscience, our calculations of morality, and whether your grandchildren will have a different answer? What does any of this have to do with endangered species, the sacred versus the profane, brain plasticity, moral positioning, social belonging, stepping on the boundary between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of

en-US

57:19

Ep113 "What's special about inventors?" (with Pablos...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/07/21

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 guestPablos Holman, a venture capitalist, author, and connoisseur of invention.

en-US

42:44

Ep112 "How is computer code like magic?" (with Sam...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/07/14

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?

en-US

51:33

Ep111 "Might we be surrounded with undetected minds?"...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/07/07

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

en-US

47:42

Ep110 "Is consciousness related to quantum physics?"...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/06/30

Can we explain consciousness as emerging from classical neuroscience, or do we require deeper principles? Could quantum physics have something to do withit? 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

en-US

36:47

Ep85 rebroadcast - "What is a Thought?"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/06/23

Brains bear thoughts like apeach 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.

en-US

42:39

Ep109 "Are you one mind or many drives?" with Jordan...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/06/16

Is your brain a one-person show or an ensemble cast of rivaling neural networks? How do we manage the conflict between different drives, and what does this have to do with literature, deities, maturation, and what Nietzsche meant when he said “every drive wants to be master, and it attempts to philosophize in that spirit”? Join Eagleman this week with Jordan Peterson as we examine the way lives are built on conflicting wants.

en-US

39:03

Ep108 "Can brains increase their happiness?" (with...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/06/09

Is it possible to become happier? How much of yourhappiness has to do with genetics, social connection, comparison to other people, your balance of optimism vs pessimism, and whether it would be useful to keep a journal of your life? Join Eagleman this week with Bruce Hood, experimental psychologist and author of “The Science of Happiness”.

en-US

49:23

Ep107 "Why do brains love stories?" (with Joshua Landy)

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/06/02

How do brains slip so easily from the real world into made up worlds? What do authors of great literature have in common with stage magicians and comedians? What does any of this have to do with cognitive shortcuts, prediction machines, Marcel Proust, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, or why jokes are always structured in threes? Join Eagleman this week for a conversation with his Stanford colleague Joshua Landy as they discuss brains on story.

en-US

48:09

Ep106 "What happens when brains watch movies?" (with...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/05/26

Why do movies work so well? What does film reveal about the way the brain processes reality?What does any of this have to do with omniscience, simulation, jumping around in time, or why dogs don’t do story? Join Eagleman with guest Jeffrey Zacks, cognitive scientist at Wash U, as we dive into thepeculiar magic that happens when the lights go down, the screen glows to life, and we find ourselves pulled into the world of a film.

en-US

70:09

Ep105 "What if AI is not actually intelligent?" (with...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/05/19

Is AI an intelligent agent, or is there a different way we should be thinking about it? Is it more like a piece of cultural technology? What in the world is a piece of cultural technology -- and how would re-thinking this change our next steps? What does any of this have to do with the myth of the Golem, printing presses, Socrates, Martin Luther, or the story of stone soup? Join Eagleman this week with cognitive scientist Alison Gopnik for a new take on a new tech.

en-US

42:29

Ep104 "What is your internal world really like?"...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/05/12

If you had to give a detailed description of what flits through your mind, how good would you be at it? Might you be surprised at how many of your thoughtsdon't involve language? Are your thoughts changed by paying attention to them? What does this have to do with getting surprised by a random beep and immediately writing down what you’re thinking? Join Eagleman this week in conversation with Russell Hurlburt, a clinical psychologist who developed a new method to probe inner life.

en-US

39:21

Ep103 "Could you ever know what it’s like to be...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/05/05

What would it take to get inside someone else's head, and could new braintechnologies ever help us get there? Will there be dream celebrities, in which uploads go viral? What does consciousness feel like from the inside, and why do movies always get this wrong? Why don't you see your own blinks? What would it be like if exactly 1/2 of your brain was numbed to sleep? And what would it be like to become a horse?

en-US

35:49

Ep102 "Could you ever know what it’s like to be...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/04/28

What does it mean to stand in another’s shoes—and when are the gaps between us too wide to cross? This week, Eagleman explores bats, kicked robots, Helen Keller, empathy, storytelling, and the phrase “I know exactly how you feel.” We'll weave through neuroscience, philosophy, literature, and technology to ask: Can we ever truly understand another’s inner world?

en-US

59:55

Ep101 "Why do people walk away from bad events with...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/04/21

What enables some people to keep going when everything falls apart? We all know someone who’s been through hell and comes out standing. This episode is about resilience. Join Eagleman with guest Dr. Jonathan Downar to discover what happens in the brain when we face adversity. Is resilience something you’re born with, or is it something your brain can develop? What does any of this have to do with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, using magnetic fields to zap the brain, the less famous

en-US

43:52

Ep100 "Why do brains love slow motion video?"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/04/14

What doesThe Matrix tell us about the brain and time perception? And what does that have to do with champion bicyclists, hidden data, elementary particles, secret murderers, or time machines? Today’s episode is about slow motion: what’s going on in the brain, and why we are so mesmerized by it. Whether watching a sword battle, basketball dunk, or sprinters, we're pulled to slow motion like moths to flame... but have you ever wondered from a neuroscience perspective what that’s all

en-US

40:40

Ep99 "Why do brains sometimes make things up?"

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/04/07

Your brain occasionallycooks up falsehoods that you believe entirely, but why does this confabulation happen,and how frequently? What does this tell us about memory, truth-telling, and your life as a story that drifts? And what does this have to do with a paralyzed Supreme Court judge, a blind person who insists she can see, whether Nelson Mandela did or did not die in the 1980s, or whether Curious George had a tail?

en-US

48:39

EP98 "What's the future of AI relationships?" (with...

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman ·

2025/03/31

How many people are having relationships with artificial neural networks? Should we think of AI lovers as traps, mirrors, or sandboxes? Is there a clear line between relationship bots and therapist bots? And what does this have to do with Eliza Doolittle, a doll cabinet in your head, loneliness epidemics, or suicide mitigation? Join Eagleman with guest researcher Bethanie Maples to discover where we are and where we're going.

en-US

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