Till the bottom

In this episode we go to the root of it all. We sat down with Dr. James Saenz, who leads a research group investigating biological membranes, to talk about the very origin of life. Not long ago, to ponder about life's first steps was an almost esoteric task; this was a problem that Darwin himself thought best to be left entirely for future thinkers to solve. Today, the scientific community has amassed an impressive amount of knowledge and clues about how life arose from absolutely inert matter. The acquisition of this knowledge must be among the most exciting quests that humanity has ever or could ever embark on, surprisingly, it is also one of the most unsung epic stories we can think of. The status quo needs to change and this is our effort to do that. In this episode, we try pin down a list of the features a structure needs to have in order to be worthy of the title "living organism". We also try to be concrete about the environmental conditions that were most likely to be present at the nest of life. Primordial soup? Black smokers? Alkaline hydrothermal vents? Where did all begin? One way or another, "simple" bacteria entered the stage, but, how did we get complex Eukaryote leviathans from these humble beginnings? Yes, we talk about this puzzle too. We close the episode pondering about another "trivial" unsolved problem: is this planet the only one in the universe teeming with life? We hope you enjoy this one and until the next time! Find us in: Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

On the 18th Episode of Till The Bottom we discuss the politics and ethics of all things National. We invited Mohammed Radi for this conversation, a PhD candidate with a strong personal stance on Nationalism, National guilt and National pride who has experience engaging audiences on these topics in the city of Dresden. We do not see eye-to-eye on every issue in the agenda and thanks to that the conversation turned lively and interesting. We tried to build a steelman out of arguments in favor of cultivating a strong national identity, an ideology none of us is particularly fond of but that had some important historical merits. We talked about the Nation-state as a stepping stone towards an all-encompassing circle of empathy. We also touched upon the guilt-ridden young German generations carrying the moral burden of the actions perpetrated by some of their ancestors during the XX century. Along the same lines, we discuss Colonialism and the feelings of guilt harbored in modern minds of some of the inhabitants of former colonial powers. All of that and more on the Episode 18 of Till The Bottom. We really enjoyed this one and we hope you do as well! Find us in: Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

First of all, find out more about our gifted guest at: http://www.irinanaumovska.com/ In Episode 17 of Till The Bottom, Dr. Irina Naumovska joins us to take us on a tour along the path towards becoming a professional pianist. Dr. Naumovska tells us how a musical education, of the serious kind, starts almost right after stepping out of the cradle. The fisrt half of the Episode is all about her story. How her unwavering passion for the piano spared her from going through the all-too-common career choosing crisis. She talked to us about the early wanderings imposed on the life of an aspiring professional musician. Dr. Naumovska explains to us how a musical performance is evaluated and which are the salient elements of music that are rated during an evaluation. The discussion about rating music takes us to a broader conversation about judging art in general. The second half of the Episode is all about how subjective artistic judgement is and, to our taste, how subjective it should be. We speak about the transition from romanticism to modernism and the avuenues that this evolution opened for artistic experimentation... as well as for an explosion of subjectivity. We talk about kitsch, the faking of authentic emotion. We speculate about where is the value in art, the object? the concept? the subject?... all of that and more in Episode 17 of Till The Bottom, enjoy! Erratum: The author (composer???) of "4′33″" is John Cage and not Charles Ives. Thanks to Dr. Naumovska for quickly pointing this out! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this (audio exclusive) episode of Till The Bottom we have Dr. Swati Krishnan to discuss a variety of topics that deservedly have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. The landscape in which men and women interact keeps on shifting ever more dynamically, so much that it seems that finding ways to sail through it as smooth as possible is a project in permanent construction. We begin by wondering how much progress towards gender equality has been made since the days when Simone de Beauvoir wrote "The second sex". Swiftly we move to discuss the extent to which sexual education in more traditional societies is hampered by taboos. Also, with drawing from recent "high profile" cases such as the Aziz Ansari affair, we explore the intricacies of what "consent" means in modern, casual and considerably chaotic sexual encounters. Finally, we discuss whether professional inequalities of outcome among the sexes are better explained from the "top down", as being the consequences of conditioning or even oppression, or, from the "bottom up", as being better explained through gender typical preferences and biological factors. Was a middle ground found? Listen to find out! (By the way, this episode was recorded last December, so "this August" means August 2018)   Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

One thing led to another until things got quite kinky in the 15th Episode of Till The Bottom. It was to be expected. In which other direction could a conversation head when your starting point is "sexual selection"? Following up from Episode 14, we got deeper into trying to find a naturalistic angle to approach some spicy aspects of human sexuality and anatomy. We talked quite a bit about penises, human and otherwise, what they are for in general and in particular. We talked about the widespread appeal for "rough sex" in human males as well as in females. We ran over a handful of some rather queer human paraphilia (turned on by sneezing? you are not alone). And then, we touched upon a topic that rightly sits among the most controversial and delicate themes one can think of: rape and one of its uncomfortable derivatives "rape fantasies". We hope that you enjoy and do not get too triggered with this scandalous conversation! One correction. A woman, Erika Eiffel, did indeed marry the Eiffel Tower. However, she did not seek a divorce to wed the Golden Gate. She simply went ahead and made love to it. Actually, just a small chunk of it. Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we sit down to discuss the very origins of beauty. Are the rather maligned "standards of beauty" imposed upon us by cultural means? Do we absorb them by being constantly bombarded by publicity and movies? As we argue, beauty is a much deeper and universal concept with a long evolutionary history. Beauty transcends human whims, it pervades the animal kingdom. Aesthetics is not the exclusive dominion of our species, in birds, it has generated an explosion of physical exhuberance and fascinating behavior. We humans have not lagged behind in the business of shaping the body and the mind of the opposite sex. From Darwin to Zahavi, from humans to birds, to chimpanzees and back to humans, here we explore what are the mechanisms through which, as Richard O. Prum asserts, "beauty happens".Enjoy! Erratum: It is Alfred Wallace, not Arthur Wallace... sorry! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

Dr. Uddipta Biswas joins us in this episode to add another chapter to the perennial Nature vs Nurture debate. This time, however, rather than trying to proclaim a definitive winner we expound on what might constitute the ultimate bridge between both: the relatively novel science of epigenetics. As we hope it becomes clear, Nature and Nurture are not opposite sides in an irreconcilable dichotomy. They feed onto each other through intricately orchestrated biochemical mechanisms, some of which have been elucidated thanks to large scale real life tragedies such as the "Dutch hunger winter" or the seasonal Overkalix famines. Oversimplifying a little, nature predisposes and Nurture enhances (or frustrates). So, can we all become Einsteins, Eulers, Gausses given the right nurturing? It is not that simple... Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

To open the second season of Till The Bottom we bring you Jiaying Lin, a Chinese PhD candidate researching urban planning in TU Dresden. Jiaying joined us to talk about a personal topic with huge resonance potential. For an innumerable amount of immigrants the so-called "cultural shock" associated with settling in a new home is an external as well as an internal struggle. The internal upheaval unfolding as one adapts to a new environment can amount to no less than an "identity crisis", or more positively, an "identity revolution". Jiaying has gone through a bit of both. In this episode we explore Jiaying's own identity revolution as she weighs the merits and drawbacks of the "Eastern" way of life on the one hand and the "Western" lifestyle on the other. We talk about stereotypes, collectivism vs individualism, cultural templates of success and even the curious quirks of the dating scene in some Eastern cultures. Hope you enjoy! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

Dr. Matthaus Mittasch joins us to close the first season of Till The Bottom on a truly high note. Matthaus starts by re-telling some of the unsavory discriminatory incidents that he faced growing up in East Germany. Sooner than later the conversation became a hybrid between a thought exercise and a debate about the socio-political future of Germany and the rest of Europe. It is a fact that Europe is turning "right", but, how far will the continent sleepwalk into increasingly extreme forms of right wing politics? Just how commonplace is racism in (some parts) of modern day Europe? Our intuitions do not quite converge and that was all for the good, it made for an intense but always civil debate which literally ended on a couple of friendly handshakes. If only every disagreement could end like this! Oh, and important and slightly distressing note. We recorded this episode when Trump's wall looked like a rather distant and implausible mirage... now it is plausible that our predictive abilities might let us down on that one!   Thank you for sticking with us through our first season. We certainly enjoyed the ride and we hope you did too!  The second season is coming soon and we are more than eager to welcome you for one more chatty ride! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom    

In this episode Dr. Till Korten returns to talk about possible dystopian scenarios where a superintelligent Artificial Intelligence (AI) is suddenly unleashed upon this world. We argue that, although it is surely not a very pleasant thought, if the AI happens to be conscious then it would not be an absolute tragedy. But in order to get there we argue back and forth on what consciousness might be while trying to get rid of our anthropocentric biases. Easier said than done! Oh, and apologies to Dr. Murray Shanahan for re-christening him as "Michael Shanahan"! Thanks to Dr. Till Korten for joining us, we hope to get you back one of these days! To Dr. Shanahan's essay: https://aeon.co/essays/beyond-humans-what-other-kinds-of-minds-might-be-out-there To Thomas Nagel's landmark paper: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183914?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

This is the last part of a series of conversations with Nakul Gote and we could rightly say that some of the best topics were saved for last. The conversation starts pretty much where the last one ended, that is, with Islam and the prospects of its reformation. Nevertheless it quickly became a much broader discussion about free speech and the all too prescient issue of "free exchange of ideas". We played the role of devil's advocates to try to highlight the possible pitfalls into which free societies might fall if left totally to their own devices, that is, if they were constructed totally from the "bottom-up" and without intervention from the "top". In the end, we agreed that free speech is undoubtedly one of the cornerstones upon which any society which considers itself "free" must be built upon. Thanks to Nakul Gote for this round of conversations! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this second episode with Nakul Gote we could not catch a break. The argument starts right off the bat and simply refused to subside. We thought that starting by attempting to define "Culture" would be a rather terse beginning. How naive and wrong we were. From then, things kept on ramping up. We talked about the challenges and downsides of cultural mixing when immigration occurs at an unusually high rate. This is an incredibly relevant issue since it has shaped the politics and social landscape of Europe (particularly of Germany) in recent years due to the spike in immigration coming from the Middle East and North Africa. Then, because apparently we love to walk the tightrope, we delved into one of the most controversial debates of our times: Does Islam need a reformation? Is it even plausible? Do the histories of Christianity and Judaism offer hopes or do they rather emphasize the differences that could make Islam's reformation an exceptionally tougher project? If you are up for some triggering, then you are in the right place. Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we invited Nakul Gote to prove to everybody that there is an unlikely but nevertheless very real link between immigration and the sacredness of cows. Yes, that was totally the plan. We started by telling some stories about our personal experiences as immigrants in Germany. We discuss issues regarding integration, within the host culture but especially adapting to the multicultural ambient of academia in our new host country. That naturally took us to talk about the so-called "beef ban" imposed in some regions of India. Things got slightly controversial when tried to dig into the "true reasons" of why cows are regarded as sacred in Hinduism. Oh well, we suppose that controversy is encoded in the very DNA of sacred items. Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we invited Dr. Till Korten to talk about what is perhaps the single capability that elicits the most pride and frustration in humans: Intelligence. We explored the topic from multiple angles. We tried to establish what lies at the core of intelligent behavior. We talked about intelligence displayed in various types of biological systems and eventually got to discuss the likelihood of making machines possessing general intelligence and, at some point, a level of intelligence that far surpasses that of the most brilliant human: Superintelligence. Once we found ourselves in the middle of the topic of artificial intelligence, of course we explored the implications that its imminent explosion mean to society at large. Oh, and by the way, apologies to Dr. Nick Bostrom for placing him with "the competition". He works in Oxford, not in Cambridge! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

This episode is almost entirely inspired by Dan Sperber's seminal paper "The Guru effect", which can be thought as a sort of cognitive bug that often makes us judge deep what we have simply failed to grasp. We talk about the many ways in which complicated ways of expression fool us into thinking that we are in the presence of something transcendentally intelligent... if we could only understand it.The end of our path takes us to no other than to the Canadian Psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, who sometimes operates according to the Guru mechanic although seemingly unintentionally. Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we hosted the "Architect turned Sociologist" Sara Al-Nassir to talk about the refugee crisis triggered by the Syrian civil war. The conversation centers around Zaatari, the Syrian refugee camp established in Jordan back in 2012. We talk about its structural and social transformation through the years of the military conflict and we also look at several aspects of the crisis from the European angle. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did and we would like to thank Sara for coming over! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this second episode with Santiago Cañon we try to get to some solid ground where to shore up the concept of what a mind is. Any kind of mind but especially the nature of a human mind. We then explore various ideas of what consciousness might be and wonder if it is a property that all types of minds have. We hope you enjoy this abstract but fascinating journey and would like to thank Santiago for accompanying us! We hope to get you back soon! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we got a hold of friend and fellow scientist Santiago Cañon to bounce between philosophical currents, thought experiments like the “simulation argument”, the weirdness of quantum mechanics and even out-of-body experiences in order to get a grip on what constitutes Reality… in case such a thing actually exists. Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

In this episode we explore many (but not nearly all) of the paths that can take you on a one-way trip away from superstitious belief. We talk about the distrust for institutionalized religion, evolution, the longing for spirituality, morality and other topics that have the potential to either cement or undermine the foundations of the religious mindset. Spoiler: in our case all these issues opened doors away from religiosity. Oh! And sorry for the squeaky chairs, we are riding the learning curve! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom

We are taking things very personal in this first episode of Till The Bottom. Here we sketch the paths that we followed to leave our respective religious traditions behind. This was a first and crucial step that unavoidably, and at times almost reluctantly, took us to acquire a "skeptical mindset" which we ultimately came to embrace and cherish. We decided to tell you this story as anecdotally as possible because we think that this would be the best way to begin to establish a more personal connection with you, our audience. We are thrilled to finally get to launch Till The Bottom and we hope that you bear with us through this project! Find us in: Our website: https://tillthebottom.com/home/ Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMXM2Vc0d21wjDt5chP26sQ?view_as=subscriber Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Tillthebottom/ Or follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tillthebottom