Would a utopia be possible? Or does our innate tribalism and jealousy make perfect societies difficult to achieve? Do we secretly love hierarchies? Why are primate brains such excellent detectors of unfairness? Why do things become more desirable when we’re told we can’t have them? Did the church’s disavowal of first-cousin marriage lead to better politics? This week Eagleman talks with psychologist Paul Bloom about the (im)possibility of achieving societal utopias.

Would a utopia be possible? Or does our innate tribalism and jealousy make perfect societies difficult to achieve? Do we secretly love hierarchies? Why are primate brains such excellent detectors of unfairness? Why do things become more desirable when we&rsquo;re told we can&rsquo;t have them? Did the church&rsquo;s disavowal of first-cousin marriage lead to better politics? This week Eagleman talks with psychologist Paul Bloom about the (im)possibility of achieving societal utopias.

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.

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.

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

Ep129 "Is utopia possible or do human brains preclude it?" with Paul Bloom

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/035856e0-dd79-48e0-a966-b3910044d7a7/transcript

Is your personality written into the circuitry of your brain? With brain disease, can someone lose who they are without realizing it? What happens when the person changing is the only one who can't see it? What does it mean to love someone whose personality has become unrecognizable? If you carried a genetic mutation that would alter your brain in the near future, would you want to know? Join Eagleman with bestselling author Robert Kolker to discuss these questions in the context of his new book about frontotemporal dementia, The Vanishing Family.

Is your personality written into the circuitry of your brain? With brain disease, can someone lose who they are without realizing it? What happens when the person changing is the only one who can't see it? What does it mean to love someone whose personality has become unrecognizable? If you carried a genetic mutation that would alter your brain in the near future, would you want to know? Join Eagleman with bestselling author Robert Kolker to discuss these questions in the context of his new book about frontotemporal dementia, The Vanishing Family.

Ep175 Who Are You When Your Brain Changes? with Robert Kolker

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/6fc9fd86-2dfd-4b52-928c-b4e7018ab05e/transcript

How do you get trillions of cells to collaborate as the single organism that we call you? Does that kind of cooperation create opportunities for hijacking -- for example, is cancer a form of "cellular cheating"? Can we take the lessons learned from biology and apply them to understanding politics? And what do models of cooperation tell us about building and living with AI? Join Eagleman with evolutionary biologist and cooperation theorist Athena Aktipis to understand cooperation and competition from cells to societies to our technological future.

How do you get trillions of cells to collaborate as the single organism that we call you? Does that kind of cooperation create opportunities for hijacking -- for example, is cancer a form of "cellular cheating"?&nbsp;Can we take the lessons learned from biology and apply them to understanding politics? And what do models of cooperation tell us about building and living with AI? Join Eagleman&nbsp;with evolutionary biologist and cooperation theorist Athena Aktipis to understand cooperation and competition from cells to societies to our technological future.

Ep174 "Can Evolution Teach AI?" with Athena Aktipis

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/9d90fd4f-3dab-4e33-8180-b4e10058e1af/transcript

This week we reach into the archive for one of the most popular episodes of Inner Cosmos.

Why do brains dream, and why are dreams so bizarre? Why doesn't your clock work in your dreams? And even though you spend much of your working day looking at your cell phone and computer – why do they almost never make appearances in your dream content? Is dream content the same across cultures and across time? Are dreams experienced in black & white, or in color? Are dreams the strange love child of brain plasticity and the rotation of the planet? What is the relationship between schizophrenia and dreaming? In the future, will we be able to read out the content of somebody's dream? Join Eagleman this week to learn why and how we spend a fraction of our sleep time locked in different realities, swimming in plots which aren't real but which compel us entirely nonetheless.

This week we reach into the archive for one of the most popular episodes of Inner Cosmos.
Why do brains dream, and why are dreams so bizarre? Why doesn't your clock work in your dreams? And even though you spend much of your working day looking at your cell phone and computer &ndash; why do they almost never make appearances in your dream content? Is dream content the same across cultures and across time? Are dreams experienced in black &amp; white, or in color? Are dreams the strange love child of brain plasticity and the rotation of the planet? What is the relationship between schizophrenia and dreaming? In the future, will we be able to read out the content of somebody's dream? Join Eagleman this week to learn why and how we spend a fraction of our sleep time locked in different realities, swimming in plots which aren't real but which compel us entirely nonetheless.

Re-Release  "Why Do Brains Dream"

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/13361241-d471-42da-9eb4-b4da0043718d/transcript

Ep129 "Is utopia possible or do human brains preclude it?" with Paul Bloom

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