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6 episodes with Evan Thompson
6 episodes with Evan Thompson
7 episodes with Evan Thompson
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2 episodes with Evan Thompson
2 episodes with Evan Thompson
2 episodes with Evan Thompson
How do astronomers detect the conditions for life and techno-signatures on exoplanets many lightyears away? What conditions on earth give us clues to how life might have formed elsewhere? How do intelligent civilisations evolve to technomaturity before they destroy themselves?So in this episode we have the mysterious arising of life and eventually intelligent life on our planet to try and explain, to then apply that to our search for other intelligent life in the cosmos. So to explain that we're going to be getting into the co-evolution of the geosphere and the biosphere on earth and their corresponding feedback loops; the possibility of planetary level intelligence; the difficulty of laying a technosphere on top of the geo and biosphere, and the risk of civilisations wiping themselves out before learning how to harmonise the technosphere with the biosphere; We'll be looking at the changes in the field of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Terrestrial Intelligence), since we can now identify potentially life sustaining exo-planets in nearer parts of the galaxy; we're going to get into the newly funded search for techno signatures from advanced civilisations, and potential space junk from the many civilisations that presumably didn't make it; lastly we're going to discuss recent claims of ancient and alleged present visitations to earth by extra terrestrial intelligence.Fortunately to face these tough and complex issues, our guest is a world specialist in astrobiology, with a talent for making these topics fun and imaginative, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, Professor Adam Frank. He's the author of over 200 scientific papers and 6 books for the general public including, “The Blind Spot: why science cannot ignore human experience” and “The Little book of Aliens” which we'll be focussing on today. He's also an award winning science communicator, on a mission to raise public awareness about existential risk and science in general.What we discussed:00:00 Intro.05:20 The importance of experience.07:00 The limits between the expressible and the inexpressible.09:10 Semantic Information: life as self organising, autonomous agents.15:00 There's stuff you can't talk about - there's only the silence16:20 The Basian probability of other life in the universe.20:00 The ingredients for life on this earth.22:30 The codependence between Geo and Biosphere.22:60 Gaian feedback loops. 27:00 The earth is not conscious but it is an agent.29:45 Mind is a process, it's not just in the head.33:25 The fluidity of individuality.34:30 Distributed Cognition - bacteria, fungal networks etc.38:30 A fundamental reimagining of what we mean by ‘Nature'.39:30 There is no disembodied perspective.41:00 Geosphere to Biosphere to technosphere maturity.47:30 The biosphere offers a model for what planetary intelligence looks like.48:00 The history of search for extra terrestrial Intelligence, SETI49:00 The Drake equation - 7 requirements for intelligence life.53:45 We've never looked - a tiny amount of the sky has been studied.54:00 Exoplanets: searching for biosgnatures and techno signatures.56:00 Technospheres: Kardeshev scale and Dyson Spheres.59:00 Techno junk from dead civilisations.01:02:30 UFO's need more data to be taken seriously.01:08:20 UFO's could be surveilling their spy tech.01:10:00 Pros and Cons of solar system settlement.References:Adam Frank, Evan Thompson, Marcelo Gleiser, “The Blind Spot: Why science cannot ignore human experience”.Adam Frank, “The Little Book of Aliens”Adam Frank, David Grinspoon, Sarah Walker - Intelligence as a planetary scale process.Lynn Margulis - Evolutionary Biologist.David Krakauer et al, An information theory view of individuality Frank Drake - Project OzmaJason Wright - SETI meta-analysisExoplantets.orgAdam Frank - New York Times ‘I'm a Physicist Who Searches for Aliens. U.F.O.s Don't Impress Me' article"The Expanse", Apple TV series
This trialogue continues a series of discussion exploring the latest interdisciplinary research into tantric completion stage practices such as yogas of dream, sleep, and death. Dr Tawni Tidwell is a biocultural anthropologist and doctor of traditional Tibetan medicine. Dr Michael Sheehy is the Director of Research at the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia. Dr Julian Schott is an Indologist, Tibetologist, and assistant professor at the University of Vienna. Dr Tidwell leads a deep-dive into the mysterious death practices of tantric yoga, the post-mortem state of suspended animation called tukdam, and the history of scientific investigation into these phenomena. Dr Sheehy explores the implications of tantric death practices on current scientific models of the body, Dr Schott reflects on Buddhist vs Cartesian notions of consciousness, and Dr Tidwell explains the cultural sensitivities of working with Himalayan gurus. The panel also discuss the importance of osel - clear light awareness - in completion stage practices, the relationship between nonduality and transformation, and consider new research directions on the cutting edge of contemplative neuroscience. … Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … 01:37 - Recap previously discussed themes 02:30 - Research in tukdam and yogic dying 05:17 - Researching dying spiritual masters 09:27 - Recruiting Tibetan monastics 10:33 - Cultural dynamics around studying tukdam 12:32 - Early phases & baseline measures 13:23 - Collaboration with the Russian Academy of Science 14:39 - What could tukdam contribute to science? 15:52 - American mortician shocked 18:40 - Biological aspects of tukdam 20:53 - Funding and reliance on Russian equipment 22:14 - What happens to the body after death 23:25 - Tukdam documentary 25:39 - Future direction for the project 27:15 - Skepticism about the project and growing body of evidence 30:45 - Siloed scientific disciples 31:22 - Catholic saints and attained mystics from other traditions 32:16 - Fundraising 33:05 - New learnings about the body and reflections on the Self 34:17 - The death process as a series of dissolutions 37:22 - Tracking heat, oxygenation, fluid movement, and visual imagery 44:27 - Buddhist vs Cartesian notions of consciousness 46:56 - Different tukdam methods across lineages 49:18 - Evan Thompson's theories of consciousness 51:24 - We can die in different ways 54:56 - Methodologically rich ways to attain wisdom 57:41 - The soteriological essence of Buddhism 01:01:35 - Human transformation and experiences of the edge 01:04:02 - Exaltation 01:05:03 - How do tantric techniques lead to tukdam? 01:09:04 - Tummo & vajra recitation to control subtle energies 01:10:41 - Dream, orgasm, and death 01:13:26 - Tukdam is counter-rational and challenges scientific reductionism 01:17:28 - The personal impact of witnessing tukdam 01:19:38 - Tantra is radical 01:20:38 - Julian quotes the Hevajra Tantra 01:22:40 - Can tukdam candidates be studied before death? 01:25:40 - Aggregate or sudden? 01:27:25 - Understanding osel, nondual awareness, and NDE 01:30:08 - Clear light sleep 01:33:04 - Challenging reductionistic paradigms 01:35:11 - The importance of nondual awareness 01:37:53 - Sentience and yeshe 01:41:44 - Exalted form in co-creation with consciousness 01:43:31 - Steve comments on scientific reductionist materialism 01:44:19 - What measurements has the project recorded? 01:47:04 - Julian's closing remarks 01:47:31 - Tawni's closing remarks 01:48:57 - Michael's closing remarks Previous panel discussion: - https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep305-neuroscience-of-dream-yoga-dr-michael-sheehy-dr-tawni-tidwell-dr-julian-schott For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - https://www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James
Jonathan Pageau ( @JonathanPageau ) & John Vervaeke ( @johnvervaeke ) have a conversation about the nature of Spirit and the importance of fellowship. We mention Paul Vanderklay ( @PaulVanderKlay ), Elizabeth Oldfield ( @thesacredpodcast ), Kale Zelden, Rod Dreer, James Filler, William Desmond, Iamblichus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Johannes Hoffken, Greg Enriqueus, Eric Hull, Dan Chappie, Mike Levin, Jordan Peterson, Jacques Derrida, Hilary Putnam, Willard Van Orman Quine, Catherine Pickstock, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schelling, Owen Barfield, Alfred North Whitehead, Edwin Hutchins, Tanya Luhrmann, L.J. Savage, Parmenides, G.W.F. Hegel, Evan Thompson, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Aristotle, Martin Heidegger, Pavel Florensky, Alex O'Connor, Jesus Christ, Ezekiel, Moses, Muhammad, Michael Jordan, Sebastian Melmoth and more. Midwestuary Conference - https://www.midwestuary.com/What is Spirit Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMjEY3BOPPI&t=909sWhat is Spirit Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiTAI_r31Ts00:00:00 - Introduction & Midwestuary Conference Announcement00:01:50 - What is Spirit? The Central Question00:03:30 - John's Opening: Relational Ontology & Com-unity00:09:15 - Jonathan's Opening: Synergy, St. Maximus, & the One and the Many00:14:50 - Spiritual Dualism vs. Monism: Deconstructing Modern Dichotomies00:22:30 - Jonathan on Traditional Views of Spirit & Angels00:29:08 - John: Non-Psychological Descriptors of Spirit (Mike Levin's work)00:30:50 - Jonathan: Spirit Animates All Things (St. Maximus)00:34:15 - Where is Self-Consciousness? Persons, Cities, and God-Man00:40:50 - Is Spirit Dependent on Humans? Perception vs. Projection00:44:50 - Going Back & Going Forward: Post-Kantian Neoplatonism00:50:20 - Exaptation, Incarnation, and Levels of Understanding00:53:40 - Barfield, Post-Contian Neoplatonism, and Integrating Science & Myth01:03:30 - Spirit and Fellowship: Superorganisms & Hyperobjects01:09:49 - Liturgy as Theurgy: Making Receptive to Theophany01:15:08 - Prophecy: Channeling the Group or Transcendent Knowledge?01:25:07 - Fellowship in the Digital Age: Breath, Fiber Optics, and AI01:30:00 - John: The Virtual Coming Alive & The Future of Theology (Claude AI)01:40:55 - Final Thoughts: Prioritizing Embodied Fellowship
You've probably come across the "free energy principle." It's become one of the most influential ideas in the broader cognitive sciences. Since the neuroscientist Karl Friston first introduced it in 2005, the theory has been fleshed out, extended, generalized, criticized, and cited thousands and thousands of times. But what is this idea, exactly? What does it say about the nature of brains and minds? What does it say about the phenomenon of life itself? And is anything that it says really that new? My guest today is Dr. Kate Nave. Kate is a philosopher at the University of Edinburgh and the author of the new book, A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life. In the book, Kate offers an extended critical analysis of the free energy principle and situates it in a broader landscape of ideas about the nature of life and mind. In this conversation, Kate and I talk about how the free energy principle has changed over time, from its beginnings as a theory of cortical responses in the brain to its eventual status as a theory of... well, a lot. We discuss why this theory has had such an enormous influence, and we talk about how many of the key ideas behind it actually have a long history. We consider some kindred spirits of the free energy framework— approaches like cybernetics, enactivism, predictive processing, and autopoiesis. We walk through a series of questions that all these approaches have long grappled with. Questions like: What does it mean to be alive? What is the relationship between being alive and being cognitive? What are the roles of prediction and representation in cognition? And we ask how—if it all—the free energy principle gives us new answers to these old questions. Along the way, Kate and I touch on: surprisal, visual phenomenology, vitalism, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, Maturana and Varela, pendulums and bacteria, computation and models, primordial purposiveness, pancakes, and whether we'll ever be able to create artificial life. As you might be able to tell from the description I just gave, this conversation goes pretty deep—and it does get a bit technical. It dives down into the history and philosophy around some of the most foundational questions we can ask about minds. If that sounds like your cup of tea, enjoy. Alright friends, on to my conversation with Dr. Kate Nave! A transcript of this episode will be posted soon. Notes and links 5:00 – The 2005 paper in which Karl Friston proposed the principle of free energy minimization. Friston later generalized the ideas here and here. 14:00 – For influential philosophical work on action in perception, see Alva Nöe's book, Action in Perception. 17:00 – One of the classic works in the “enactivist” tradition is Evan Thompson's book, Mind in Life. 18:00 – The actual quip, credited to Carl Sagan, is about “apple pie” not pancakes: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” 20:00 – The notion of “autopoiesis” (or “self-creation”) was introduced by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela in their book, Autopoiesis and Cognition. 24:00 – A classic paper of cybernetics from 1943, ‘Behavior, purpose, and teleology.' 37:00 – For more on the idea of “predictive processing,” see our earlier episode with Dr. Mark Miller. 43:00 – For a discussion of the idea of “representation” in the philosophy of cognitive science, see here. For a discussion of “anti-representationalism,” see here. Recommendations ‘Organisms, Machines, and Thunderstorms: A History of Self-Organization,' (part 1) (part 2), Evelyn Fox Keller The Mechanization of the Mind, Jean-Pierre Dupuy ‘The Reflex Machine and the Cybernetic Brain,' Mazvita Chirimuuta Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter (@ManyMindsPod) or Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).
« Notre cerveau à tous les niveaux. Du Big Bang à la conscience sociale »1ère rencontre : Le « connais-toi toi-même » de Socrate à l'heure des sciences cognitives ***première partie seulement***Au coeur même du projet des sciences cognitives, il y a le cerveau humain qui tente de se comprendre lui-même ! Pour apprivoiser cette vertigineuse circularité, la méthode scientifique peut nous aider. Mais ce qu'est réellement la science et comment elle fonctionne est malheureusement encore trop mal compris dans la population en général. L'activité scientifique comporte en effet différents aspects qui amènent différentes façons possibles de la définir. Pour aborder ces questions épistémologiques, on prendra l'exemple de l'histoire des sciences cognitives au XXe siècle.Je résumerai aussi succinctement l'idée centrale du livre « The Blind Spot. Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience” (2024), de Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser et Evan Thompson sur l'expérience direct souvent perdue dans les disciplines scientifiques contemporaines au profit d'une abstraction de plus en plus formelle et mathématique que l'on vient à considérer comme la réalité.PrésentationEn octobre 2024 paraissait mon livre « Notre cerveau à tous les niveaux. Du Big Bang à la conscience sociale » (Écosociété), fruit de quatre années de travail inspirées de mes billets de blogue hebdomadaires sur les sciences cognitives et de mon site web sur le fonctionnement de base du cerveau humain. Mais malgré la forme dialoguée du livre et tous mes efforts de vulgarisation scientifique, les thématiques abordées, vastes et complexes, font que ce bouquin n'est pas tout à fait ce qu'on pourrait appeler une « petite lecture d'été pour la plage », comme me l'ont fait remarquer certaines personnes…Par ailleurs, de nouvelles lectures faites depuis la parution du livre me font voir des liens entre celles-ci et du contenu de l'ouvrage comme autant de bonifications dont j'aimerais déjà tester la pertinence. Voilà donc ce qui m'a donné l'idée de créer une sorte de « club de lecture » de mon propre livre ! Fidèle à l'organisation générale du livre en différentes « rencontres » entre les deux protagonistes, je propose pour ce club de lecture de faire autant de séances qu'il y a de rencontres dans le bouquin, c'est-à-dire une douzaine. Durant la première demi-heure de chacune de ces séances, j'en résumerai les concepts clés ainsi que de nouvelles idées issues de mes lectures récentes. Ce sera ensuite l'occasion de poser des questions sur les aspects plus difficiles de cette rencontre (exposés par exemple dans certains encadrés). Après la pause habituelle des cours de l'UPop, nous approfondirons un thème lié à cette rencontre, idéalement toujours avec un.e invité.e qui nous parlera de son domaine de recherche relié à celui du thème de la rencontre. Et à nouveau, les gens pourront intervenir et faire comme Yvon dans le livre en questionnant les implications concrètes de tout ça dans notre vie de tous les jours.Deux derniers points. D'abord sur les lieux de nos séances qui seront autant de clins d'oeil au livre : chacune de celles-ci se déroulera autant que possible à l'endroit même des rencontres du livre ou, si ce n'est pas possible, pas trop loin ou dans un lieu semblable. Et finalement, les séances du club de lecture auront lieu une fois par mois, autour du 20 – 25 de chaque mois. Il s'agit donc d'un cours qui va s'échelonner sur un an, y compris l'été où l'on ne compte pas faire relâche mais plutôt profiter de la belle saison pour se rencontrer à l'extérieur, comme le sont les 4e, 5e et 6e rencontres dans le livre !Professeur-e(s)Bruno DubucBlogueur et rédacteur scientifique du site web "Le cerveau à tous les niveaux" (www.lecerveau.mcgill.ca). Auteur du livre "Notre cerveau à tous les niveaux. Du Big Bang à la conscience sociale" paru chez Écosociété à l'automne 2024 (https://livre.blog-lecerveau.org ).La séance à été enregistré au Café les Oubliettes le 25 mars 2025
What is the relationship between our cognition and our bodies in the natural environment? How do we reconcile the presence of mind in life without splitting them into a dualism? What are the similarities between cognitive science and the buddhist view of the mind? How can we resist the bifurcation of nature into subjective and objective?In this episode we have the important topic of embodied cognition to raise our awareness about, that is the importance of our biologically lived experience to our perspective of world. So we get into the biologist and neuroscientist Francisco Varela's concept of Autopoiesis, literally ‘self creation' from the Greek, which describes the extraordinary tenacity of self-organising living systems to create and sustain themselves; we discuss the meeting point of buddhism, meditation, asian philosophy and modern cognitive science which may have become overstated in recent decades; and we get into the deep continuity between body and mind, and the importance of the artificial separation of the objective and subjective in the history of science, that has led us to the dominant position of reductionist materialism.To face these diverse topics, we have as our guest the hugely influential philosopher, cognitive scientist and Asian philosophy scholar Evan Thompson. Evan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology (Cognitive Science Group). He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of many books, collected works, and papers, including “The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience”, “Mind in Life”, “Why I'm not a buddhist” and “The Blind Spot, why science cannot ignore human experience”.What we discuss:00:00 Intro.06:30 Francisco Varela and the “Embodied Mind” book.11:00 Embodied experience, embedded in the environment.13:15 Chalmers and Clarke: Extended mind.15:30 Autopoiesis - Self-creation. Maturana.21.25 Autonomy and enactive self-organising systems.24:30 Neither Inside out, nor outside in, rather relational.26:00 The Enactive relationship between organism and environment.29:00 Mind is a distributed systemic process in connection with the environment.34:00 Neurophenomenology - you need an investigation from within.38:40 Mind in life & Deep Continuity.40.00 Sense making and cognition are proto-mind.41:30 Whitehead and the bifurcation of nature into subjective and objective.44:45 Bottom up/ parts VS top down/ wholes.47:00 Reductionism: the surreptitious substitution.53:45 Buddhism & The Mind and Life Institute.01:03:30 Buddhist exceptionalism.01:05:00 Neuroscience & Buddhism on self.01:09:45 The commercialisation of meditation - spiritual narcissism.01:12:15 The benefits of mindfulness to treat mental heath.01:13:30 De-individualisation of spiritual practices - social practice for social problems.01:15:45 Ritualisation of practice for positive transformation.01:18:30 Dependent Origination and the Self.01:26:15 Dying: Our ultimate transformation. References:Evan Thompson, “The Blind Spot”Evan Thompson,“Mind In Life”Evan Thompson,“Why I'm not a buddhist”Evan Thompson, “Waking, Dreaming, Being”Alfred Lord Whitehead - The Bifurcation of nature articleDavid Bohm - “Wholeness and the Implicate Order”Evan Thompson quote from the episode:“Mind is a systemic property or process. It's not in the head”
How ancient artifacts emerge from melting iceAs Earth's glaciers and ice sheets melt due to global warming, they are revealing rare archaeological treasures released from a frozen time capsule. These objects are often made of organic material – human and animal remains and wooden tools that only survive in ice. In her book, The Age of Melt: What glaciers, ice mummies, and ancient artifacts teach us about climate, culture, and a future without ice, Lisa Baril tells the story of the archaeologists searching for these valuable artifacts, and what they're finding. Baril is an ecologist and science communicator based out of Yellowstone National Park.Easily influenced: Why and how the human mind is built to be suggestibleAs a teenager, Amir Raz began to perform as an amateur magician and mentalist, and learned the power of stage hypnosis. It ultimately led him to a career as a neuroscientist studying the science of psychological suggestibility, and how powerful the power of suggestion can be. He explores this science in his new book The Suggestible Brain: The Science and Magic of How We Make Up Our Minds. Dr Raz taught and practiced for many years at McGill University and is the Founding Director of the Brain Institute at Chapman University in Orange, California.What alien life will really look likeWe're just beginning to have the ability to look for signs of life elsewhere in our solar system or around other stars. But even so, Arizona State University physicist Sara Walker thinks we might be doing it wrong — imagining that life elsewhere will look like life on Earth. She's advocating a broader perspective to imagine how we'd recognize life as a reflection of different versions of chemical complexity. Her new book about this is Life As No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence. Dan Falk, science writer and co-host of the Booklab podcast reviews: The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age by Steven MithenPlaying Possum: How Animals Understand Death by Susana MonsóThe Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience by Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser and Evan Thompson
In this episode, I am joined for a fascinating conversation with philosopher Evan Thompson as we delve into his thought-provoking book The Blind Spot. We discuss this collaboration with scientists Marcelo Gleiser and Adam Frank, his insights on reconciling the “scientific image” and the “manifest image” of the world, and the interplay between subjective experience and objective inquiry. Thompson explains what he means by the "blind spot" of scientific materialism—challenging assumptions about objectivity, reductionism, and the relationship between lived experience, forms of life and scientific knowledge. Thompson offers a compelling critique of reductionist views, proposing instead a vision of science grounded in human experience. We also discuss the cultural and ethical stakes of scientific inquiry in an age of scepticism and misinformation, with a thought-provoking look at climate change, subjectivity, and the unity of life itself. Other thinkers like Wilfred Sellers, Henri Bergson, G.W.F. Hegel and A.N. Whitehead all crop up. Evan is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. You can view his website and profile here. The Blind Spot is available at all the usual outlets. Evan is also available on Bluesky: @evanthompson.bsky.social. If you would like to study with me you can find more information about our online education MAs in Philosophy here at Staffordshire University. You can find out more information on our MA in Continental Philosophy via this link. Or, join our MA in Philosophy of Nature, Information and Technology via this link. Find out more about me here. September intakes F/T or January intakes P/T. You can listen to more free back content from the Thales' Well podcast on TuneIn Radio, Player Fm, Stitcher and Pod Bean. You can also download their apps to your smart phone and listen via there. You can also subscribe for free on iTunes. Please leave a nice review.
Why is our subjective experiences and cultural context inseparable from our scientific theories and attempts to be objective? Why is it that the more we know, the more we know we don't know? What does reductionist materialism miss out from the scientific picture and what does a post-reductionist science look like? How can understanding some of materialism's incompleteness help us face humanity's greatest problems? In this episode we have the blind spots of enlightenment science to assess; we're going to be investigating the common belief that science can provide a universal, objective, God-like perspective of the truth of things, independent from our human experience. We're also going to look at the implications of the consensus in science that all phenomena can be reduced to solely material causes, and what that may be missing out. To assess this we're going to be looking at data from cosmology, biology, cognitive science and quantum physics and thinking about the assumptions that are so baked in to our western scientific approaches, that we may have forgotten they're assumptions at all. In order to do this we're going to be speaking to Brazilian professor of theoretical physics at Dartmouth College, Marcelo Gleiser. Marcelo works on a range of topics from Cosmology and information theory, to the history and philosophy of science, and how science and culture interact. He's also the author of many popular science books including most recently, “the Dawn of Mindful Universe: A manifesto for humanities future” and his new 2024 book which we'll be focusing on today, “The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience”, Co-authored with astronomer Adam Frank and philosopher Evan Thompson, who will be not he show in the next series. Gleiser's also the first South American recipient of the prestigious Templeton Science prize for his standpoint that science, philosophy and spirituality are complementary expressions of humanities deep need to explore the unknown. I have wanted to speak to Marcelo about the limits of science and a post-reductionist approach to science since he was recommended by my previous guest psychiatrist and brain-hemisphere researcher Dr. Iain McGilchrist in the series one episode “Navigating beyond Materialism”, and I'm extremely glad I followed him up on it. What we discuss: 00:00 Intro 06:14 Asymmetry is also beautiful. 11:40 The more you know, the more you know you don't know. 18:00 ‘Interbeing' - buddhism and the philosophy of science. 22:00 Bacteria are our ancestors. 23:00 Sacred ancestral knowledge - belonging & gratitude for nature. 30:00 Extremely unlikely chemical steps and extinction events required for life to develop. 35:00 The chances of intelligent technological life on other planets. 37:00 Fine-tuned for life VS the anthropic principle. 50:30 Post-enlightenment sacredness. 52:00 The rise of reductionism. 01:03:30 Newton was troubled by his theory. 01:08:37 Strongly and weakly emergent phenomena. 01:12:00 Downward or upward causation? Dualism or monism? 01:17:50 Scientific concepts are stories, and stories are simplifications too. 01:21:20 “The Blind Spot: Why science cannot ignore human experience”. 01:26:31 “Sureptitious substitution” of concepts for experiences. 01:28:45 Is consciousness fundamental? 01:42:45 Blindspots in the hard sciences - jumps that are too big. 01:53:30 Marcelo''s new “The Island of Knowledge' centre in Tuscany. Quote: “Gravity must be caused by an agent, acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left to the consideration of my readers.” — Sir Isaac Newton (Third letter to Bentley, 25 Feb 1693) References: Marcelo Gleiser, “The Blind Spot: How science must take include human experience”. Marcelo Glesier, “The Dawn of a Mindful Universe” Aristarchus of Samos - The greek Copernicus ‘The Island of Knowledge' Centre in Tuscany, Italy
John Vervaeke and Evan Thompson continue the exploration of life, cognition, and consciousness, drawing from interdisciplinary collaboration and philosophical discourse. The discussion challenges reductionist perspectives in biology, examines organisms as autonomous agents, and questions the adequacy of current models to explain life's complexities. Consciousness is explored through presence and embodiment, while also debating the roles of large language models like ChatGPT in understanding cognitive processes. By integrating philosophical and phenomenological perspectives, the episode addresses the interconnectedness of consciousness, cognition, and life, transcending traditional mind-matter dichotomies and emphasizing the significance of embodiment in cognitive functions. Evan Thompson is a philosopher and author, specializing in the integration of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and Asian philosophical traditions. Based at the University of British Columbia, his work, including his recent book 'The Blind Spot', examines the intersections of consciousness, experience, and reality through a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach. Immerse yourself in the groundbreaking insights of Evan Thompson's thought-provoking book, "The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience” Notes: (0:00) Introduction: Welcome to the Lectern (0:15) Evan Thompson's Background and the Book 'The Blind Spot' (2:10) The Blind Spot in Perception: Cognitive Science, Asian Philosophy, and Mystical Insight (2:30) Revolution in Biology: Life, Cognition, and Consciousness (5:00) Autonomous Agents vs. Machines (11:30) Challenges to Newtonian Mechanics and Reductionist Ontology (22:00) Life as Self-Enabling, Not law-Entailing (32:00) Historical and Nomological Explanations in Biology (39:00) Epiphenomenalism (43:00) Debunking Computational Functionalism (45:00) Exploring Cognition and Relevance Realization (49:00) Limits of AI (51:00) The Energy and Social Costs of AI (1:00:00) Structures of Consciousness (1:08:00) The Primacy of Awareness and Embodiment (1:22:00) Concluding Thoughts and Future Discussions --- Connect with a community dedicated to self-discovery and purpose, and gain deeper insights by joining our Patreon. The Vervaeke Foundation is committed to advancing the scientific pursuit of wisdom and creating a significant impact on the world. Become a part of our mission. Join Awaken to Meaning to explore practices that enhance your virtues and foster deeper connections with reality and relationships. John Vervaeke: Website | Twitter | YouTube | Patreon Evan Thompson: Website | Twitter | Facebook Ideas, People, and Works Mentioned in this Episode The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience - book co-authored by Evan Thompson, Adam Frank, and Marcelo Gleiser Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy - book by Evan Thompson Why I Am Not a Buddhist - book by Evan Thompson The Nature of Selection: Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus by Elliott Sober The Watchmen (comic series) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons The Relevance Realization (paper) by John Vervaeke and colleagues Chalmers' work on consciousness works by David Chalmers The Visible and the Invisible by Maurice Merleau-Ponty Neoplatonism Hegelian Philosophy Immanuel Kant Alfred North Whitehead Douglas Harding Marcelo Gleiser Quotes: “Organisms are autonomous agents, not machines.” -Evan Thompson (4:00) “Consciousness has the order of priority in terms of intelligibility or meaning.” -Evan Thompson (1:04:00)
Since the Enlightenment, humanity has turned to science to answer profound questions about who we are, where we come from, and where we're headed. However, we've become stuck in the belief that we can fully understand the universe by viewing it from a detached, external perspective. In focusing solely on external physical realities, imagined from this objective standpoint, we overlook the vital role of our own lived experience. This is the "Blind Spot" that astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson discuss in their book “The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience”. They identify this “Blind Spot” as the root of many modern scientific challenges —whether it's in understanding time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, the nature of life, artificial intelligence, consciousness, or Earth's function as a planetary system. In this episode of Bridging the Gaps, I speak with astrophysicist Adam Frank. Adam Frank is a renowned astrophysicist and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Rochester. He is a leading expert on the final stages of stellar evolution, particularly for stars like the sun. At the University of Rochester, his computational research group has developed cutting-edge supercomputer tools to study the formation and death of stars. A passionate advocate for science, Frank describes himself as an “evangelist of science,” dedicated not only to uncovering the mysteries of the cosmos but also to sharing the beauty and power of science with the public. He is equally committed to exploring science's broader role within culture, emphasising its relevance and context in our understanding of the world. His contributions to the field have earned him prestigious recognition, including the Carl Sagan Medal. In this discussion we delve into why it is crucial to recognize this “Blind Spot” and the profound implications it has for how we approach science and knowledge. By focusing solely on external, objective facts, we miss a deeper understanding of reality—one that includes our subjective experience as an integral part of the equation. This Blind Spot has led to significant challenges in fields like quantum physics, cosmology, and the study of consciousness, where the limitations of purely objective observation become evident. We also explore an alternative vision for science: that scientific knowledge should not be viewed as a fixed, immutable set of facts, but rather as a dynamic, evolving narrative. This narrative emerges from the constant interplay between the external world and our lived experience of it. In this view, science becomes a process of continuous self-correction, where both the observer and the observed are part of an evolving relationship. Frank stresses that recognizing this interplay allows us to break free from the illusion of absolute knowledge and opens up a more holistic, adaptive, and integrated way of understanding the universe. This shift in perspective has the potential to reshape how we approach not only scientific inquiry but also our relationship with reality itself. This has been an incredibly enlightening and deeply informative discussion, offering valuable insights and fresh perspective. Complement this discussion with ““The Joy of Science” with Professor Jim Al-Khalili” available at: https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/2022/05/the-joy-of-science-with-professor-jim-al-khalili/ And then listen to ““Sharing Our Science: How to Write and Speak STEM” with Professor Brandon Brown” available at: https://www.bridgingthegaps.ie/2024/02/sharing-our-science-how-to-write-and-speak-stem-with-professor-brandon-brown/
Evan Thompson joins the podcast to talk about qualifying for the U.S. Amateur and launching his company Dual Sport, built to help athletes who play more than one sport. Amateur Golf Links:AmateurGolf.comSubscribeInstagramTwitterFacebookYouTube
Ralston College Humanities MA Dr John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist and philosopher who explores the intersections of Neoplatonism, cognitive science, and the meaning crisis, focusing on wisdom practices, relevance realization, and personal transformation. Ralston College presents a lecture titled “Levels of Intelligibility, Levels of the Self: Realizing the Dialectic,” delivered by Dr John Vervaeke, an award-winning associate professor of cognitive science at the University of Toronto and creator of the acclaimed 50-episode “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” series. In this lecture, Dr Vervaeke identifies our cultural moment as one of profound disconnection and resulting meaninglessness. Drawing on his own cutting-edge research as a cognitive scientist and philosopher, Vervaeke presents a way out of the meaning crisis through what he terms “third-wave Neoplatonism.” He reveals how this Neoplatonic framework, drawn in part from Plato's conception of the tripartite human soul, corresponds to the modern understanding of human cognition and, ultimately, to the levels of reality itself. He argues that a synoptic integration across these levels is not only possible but imperative. — 00:00 Levels of Intelligibility: Integrating Neoplatonism and Cognitive Science 12:50 Stage One: Neoplatonic Psycho-ontology and the Path to Spirituality 41:02 Aristotelian Science: Knowing as Conformity and Transformation 46:36 Stoic Tradition: Agency, Identity, and the Flow of Nature 01:00:10 Stage Two: Cognitive Science and the Integration of Self and Reality 01:04:45 The Frame Problem and Relevance Realization 01:08:45 Relevance Realization and the Power of Human Cognition 01:20:15 Transjective Reality: Affordances and Participatory Fittedness 01:23:55 The Role of Relevance Realization: Self-Organizing Processes 01:31:30 Predictive Processing and Adaptivity 01:44:35 Critiquing Kant: The Case for Participatory Realism 01:53:35 Stage Three: Neoplatonism and the Meaning Crisis 02:00:15 Q&A Session 02:01:45 Q: What is the Ecology of Practices for Cultivating Wisdom? 02:11:50 Q: How Has the Cultural Curriculum Evolved Over Time? 02:26:30 Q: Does the World Have Infinite Intelligibility? 02:33:50 Q: Most Meaningful Visual Art? 02:34:15 Q: Social Media's Impact on Mental Health and Information? 02:39:45 Q: What is Transjective Reality? 02:46:35 Q: How Can Education Address the Meaning Crisis? 02:51:50 Q: Advice for Building a College Community? 02:55:30 Closing Remarks — Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Antisthenes Aristotle Brett Anderson Byung-Chul Han Charles Darwin Daniel Dennett D. C. Schindler Friedrich Nietzsche Galileo Galilei Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Heraclitus Henry Corbin Immanuel Kant Iris Murdoch Isaac Newton Igor Grossmann Johannes Kepler John Locke John Searle John Spencer Karl Friston Karl Marx Mark Miller Maurice Merleau-Ponty Nelson Goodman Paul Ricoeur Pierre Hadot Plato Pythagoras Rainer Maria Rilke René Descartes Sigmund Freud W. Norris Clarke anagoge (ἀναγωγή) Distributed cognition eidos (εἶδος) eros (ἔρως) Evan Thompson's deep continuity hypothesis Generative grammar logos (λόγος) Sensorimotor loop Stoicism thymos (θυμός) Bayes' theorem Wason Selection Task The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber The Ennead by Plotinus Explorations in Metaphysics by W. Norris Clarke Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics, and Ultimate Reality by John Spencer — Additional Resources John Vervaeke https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Dr Stephen Blackwood Ralston College (including newsletter) Support a New Beginning — Thank you for listening!
Beacon resident compiles local stories A family road trip through 22 states exposed Cassie Corrigan Drymala to climate change's effect on weather in different parts of the U.S. Drymala, a Beacon resident, said her family was unprepared for some of the events they experienced during the trip. In New Orleans, "there would be a forecast for rain and then, all of a sudden, there are cars floating through the streets," she said. "That trip was very eye-opening," said Drymala. "It felt like we were experiencing things much more frequently than I could remember even within the past five years." Since October 2023, she has been documenting other people's experiences with climate change via New Yorkers Weather Storms (@newyorkersweatherstorms), an Instagram page where she collects portraits of local residents and their views on climate change and how it has affected them. Drymala, who does not have a professional background in either photography or writing, conducts all of the interviews and shoots all the portraits. Most people want to talk and share their stories, she said, especially if they've had a hardship from a climate change-related event such as flooding, which is becoming more frequent in the Highlands. In a January post, Evan Thompson, the park manager for the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, discusses a rainstorm in which "forecasters said we might get 1 to 2 inches of rain but we got 8 inches of rain in 12 hours." In October, Karen Kapoor, director of Foundry Montessori in Cold Spring, described flooding at the school's building and her home following rainstorms in July 2023. Those storms triggered widespread flooding in the Highlands and a federal disaster declaration. They also forced employees at Bear Mountain State Park to seek refuge in the darkened bath house of the park's swimming pool until a stream behind the building began rising to window level, according to the post of park manager Jen Sylvestri. "There was literally no way in or out," said Sylvestri. "I had 26 or 27 employees that couldn't get home that night." Because of the politics, Drymala said she avoids using the words "climate change" on the page, but believes that readers will relate to the personal accounts. "I just want to talk about the weather, and I feel like if enough people share stories of what's been happening to them, people will connect the dots for themselves and try to change," she said. A love of self-taught photography spurred Drymala, 46, to launch the account during the pandemic, when she had to take off from work to care for her children but continued taking pictures. She drew inspiration from Humans of New York, the well-known photoblog that has been imitated in Beacon and other cities. Like Humans of New York, Drymala wanted to let people speak in their own voices. "It's just such a compelling way to share people's individual stories and connect with one another," she said. A former associate in wine sales, she has also met with farmers, winemakers and restaurant owners over their run-ins with extreme weather, and with park rangers about how weather affects working conditions and visitation. In the lower Hudson Valley, a climate-change assessment released in March by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority predicts that the weather will continue to become hotter and wetter, with an increase in rain-laden storms. "These events are more and more frequent and intense and I was hoping to demonstrate a pattern and just make it more common and comfortable for people to share their experiences," said Drymala. Speaking with those directly affected has changed Drymala's personal view on the climate crisis. She is "more hopeful and optimistic about climate change because of what I have learned from so many others and the things that are being done to try and help the issue."
The Highlands doesn't have the terrain or conditions for the type of disaster that killed 101 people last year on the island of Maui in Hawaii. But that doesn't mean there are no risks, especially if simultaneous fires forced a mass exodus. Native Americans used sophisticated tools and strategies to shape the landscape. One of the most important was fire. Indigenous peoples set fires to open land for planting and to clear crinkly underbrush that alerted game to a hunter's presence. Burning the land returned nutrients to the soil and encouraged growth that deer, turkey and quail depended on for food. Archaeologist Lucianne Lavin has uncovered evidence of controlled burns near Albany around the year 1000 A.D. They were almost certainly used in the Highlands, as well. "Such a fire is a spectacular sight when one sails on the rivers at night while the forest is ablaze on both banks," wrote Adriaen van der Donck, an important leader in New Netherlands in the 1640s. In the past few decades, controlled burns, or prescribed fires, have become a common part of preventing wildfires such as a 1988 blaze that consumed nearly 800,000 acres in Yellowstone National Park. The argument is now widely accepted that more than a century of rigorous fire suppression has created the conditions for even worse fires to break out and spread. Erica Smithwick, director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State University, who specializes in eastern U.S. wildfires, has studied the issue of controlled burns and worked with land managers, hunters and conservationists to put intentional fire back on the radar in Pennsylvania. While the practice faced some resistance, she notes that managers in the Pine Barrens region of New Jersey have been conducting controlled burns for years. As part of her pitch, she points out that controlled burns reduce tick populations. There are two problems with controlled burns, however. The first is capacity, because it takes training. New York State does some training at the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, in Minnewaska State Park and on Long Island, but not enough for fire agencies around the state to adopt the practice. Evan Thompson, the manager of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, believes it would be difficult to introduce controlled burns in the park's rugged landscape, which spans some 25,000 acres on both sides of Route 9. "You can't burn everything from Garrison to Fahnestock," he says. Still, Joseph Pries, the state Department of Environmental Conservation fire ranger for Dutchess and Putnam counties, says the agency is ready to draw up plans for controlled burns for any agency or manager who wants them. The second limitation is public acceptance. Many people, thoroughly indoctrinated by decades of Smokey Bear commercials, remain skeptical of the idea that starting a fire can stop a fire. Liability is key: If a controlled burn gets out of control and destroys property (which has happened), who pays the bill? Anticipating this, in 2009, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law protecting public agencies and non-governmental organizations that employ trained burned bosses from lawsuits over damage. Because there are so many homes along the perimeter of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, Thompson worries about a controlled burn that escapes its handlers. "It could have disastrous consequences," he says. The same thing that could make a wildfire in the Highlands so destructive - the encroachment of homes into the woods - is what makes using controlled burns to mitigate the risk so difficult. According to Smithwick, many places lack a forest management plan to sort through the intricate web of entangled species and conflicting demands that make up forest ecology. Lauren Martin, a park steward at the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, agrees. "Forest management is a constant give-and-take," she says. Dead trees can fuel intense fires but also shelter wildlife and would be expensive to re...
This is Evan's part of the two lectures given by Evan Thompson and Kristin Andrews delve into the concept of life as sensemaking and its implications for artificial intelligence (AI) and consciousness. The speakers […]
This is Kristin's part of the two lectures given by Evan Thompson and Kristin Andrews delve into the concept of life as sensemaking and its implications for artificial intelligence (AI) and consciousness. The speakers […]
The Highlands doesn't have the terrain or conditions for the type of disaster that killed 101 people last year on the island of Maui in Hawaii. But that doesn't mean flames fed by 30-foot kindling couldn't spread out of control. Some residents would see the smoke and assume it was morning mist. Others would smell it and wonder if they had missed an air-quality alert. Many would hear the sirens and spot the helicopter buzzing between river and woods, water sloshing over the sides of a 200-gallon bucket. A few people would not realize anything was amiss until they received an automated text urging them to evacuate - assuming fire wasn't blocking their escape. Given last year's soggy summer, the threat of a deadly wildfire may seem remote. New York doesn't have the same risks as the bone-dry scrublands of California and Colorado or the boreal forests in Alberta and Quebec. But there are risks, especially with global warming rapidly changing conditions on the ground. That's because the Highlands is a perfect example of a "wildland-urban interface," which the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) defines as a boundary or zone at which human development meets "vegetative fuels." Think of the unpaved backroads of Garrison, the homes tucked deep in the Nelsonville woods and the forest-bound neighborhood of Beacon Hills. Precisely what makes living in the Highlands so special - its proximity to expanses of protected nature - is also what could make a wildfire so dangerous. The August wildfire on the island of Maui was the third-deadliest in U.S. history, with 101 deaths in Lahaina, a seaside town about the size of Beacon. Over the course of a few horrific hours, a brushfire started by a downed power line ripped through the town, fed by 70-mph winds. Temperatures in Lahaina rose to 1,000 degrees - hotter than the surface of Venus - vaporizing victims. More than 7,000 residents abandoned their homes and 2,200 structures were destroyed or severely damaged. Four thousand vehicles were incinerated, leaving streaks of molten aluminum trickling down streets. Firefighters could not draw water from hydrants because the water system collapsed. The Lahaina fire fed on changes in the landscape that took place over decades, both natural and manmade, such as agricultural irrigation systems that dried out the land. When plantations closed, the terrain was colonized by non-native, highly flammable grasses. Years of warnings about the risk of a devastating wildfire went ignored. These types of changes have no analog in the Highlands. Our deciduous hardwoods are far less fire-prone than the grasses and conifers that cause so much trouble in Hawaii, Australia, Greece and Canada. While droughts seem to be getting more frequent and more intense, even the worst dry spells here pale in comparison to the desertification of much of the West. Nevertheless, local emergency responders and forest rangers have concerns. Thousands of oak and ash trees, killed by invasive pests such as the emerald ash borer and the hemlock woolly adelgid, have become 30-foot-tall, 3-foot-thick kindling. In September 2019, Hank Osborn of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, who grew up in Garrison, was crossing the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge when he spotted smoke rising above Sugarloaf Mountain. Evan Thompson, the manager of the Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, saw it around the same time as he drove south from Dennings Point in Beacon. Thompson and others went up the mountain, but they didn't have the right tools. They came back the next day, along with rangers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which is responsible for fighting wildland fires. The blaze, which likely started at an illegal campfire, had grown substantially overnight. State parks employees, DEC rangers and volunteers used heavy rakes, pickaxes, hoes and shovels to clear a 10-foot-wide firebreak around the base of Sugarloaf - a standard method meant to deprive the fire of fuel. But a...
Evan Thompson is a philosopher and author, specializing in the integration of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and Asian philosophical traditions. Based at the University of British Columbia, his work, including his recent book 'The Blind Spot', examines the intersections of consciousness, experience, and reality through a comprehensive interdisciplinary approach. Can cognitive science, philosophy, and mysticism hold the keys to resolving our modern meaning crisis? Join John Vervaeke and Evan Thompson in a captivating exploration of how these disciplines converge to address this pressing issue. The conversation showcases Thompson's interdisciplinary approach, drawing from his work on 'The Blind Spot' and his extensive background in Asian philosophy and phenomenology. Gain fresh perspectives on the essence of lived experience, the power of relevance realization, and the nature of reality as the discussion unfolds. Prepare for an intellectual journey that promises to deepen our understanding of truth, goodness, and beauty and bridge the gaps between diverse intellectual traditions. Support John's groundbreaking work and gain exclusive access to live Q&A sessions, early video releases, and more by joining our Patreon community! https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Immerse yourself in the groundbreaking insights of Evan Thompson's thought-provoking book, "The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience.” https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spot-Science-Cannot-Experience/dp/0262048809 — “"The blind spot is the inability to see, or to recognize, or to acknowledge that lived experience is the source of science. And so if you undercut the source of science by occluding lived experience, you're actually damaging science." - Evan Thompson [00:19:34] "The process of formalization of translating things into a formal system is always an ill-defined problem that requires relevance realization." - John Vervaeke [00:30:52] — 00:00 Introduction to Evan Thompson and 'The Blind Spot' 01:05 Evan Thompson's Background and Philosophical Journey 02:10 Diving Into 'The Blind Spot': A Book on the Meaning Crisis 09:30 Exploring Core Ideas and Arguments of 'The Blind Spot' 18:15 Addressing the Meaning Crisis: Science, Experience, and Reality 18:55 Navigating Between Science Triumphalism and Denial 21:30 The Role of Experience in Understanding Reality 31:25 Challenging the Bifurcation of Nature and the 'View from Nowhere' 38:45 Sacredness, Reality, and the Meaning Crisis 40:30 Exploring the Sacred Beyond Science 41:55 Exploring the Depths of the Sacred and Ultimate Concern: Secular vs. Transcendental Perspectives 47:45 The Axial Revolution and Its Impact on Modern Consciousness 56:45 Challenges and Opportunities in Bridging Science and Mysticism 59:54 Philosophical Reflections on Truth, Beauty, and the Good 01:11:10 Concluding Thoughts and Future Dialogues — Join the Vervaeke Foundation in our mission to advance the scientifically rigorous pursuit of wisdom and make a meaningful impact in the world. https://vervaekefoundation.org/ Discover practices that deepen your virtues and help you connect more deeply with reality and relationships by joining Awaken to Meaning today. https://awakentomeaning.com/ — Idea, Authors, and Works Mentioned in this Episode The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience - book co-authored by Evan Thompson, Adam Frank, and Marcelo Gleiser Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy - book by Evan Thompson Why I Am Not a Buddhist - book by Evan Thompson Contact with Reality - book by Esther Lightcap Meek The Nothingness Beyond God - book by Robert Edgar Carter Maurice Merleau-Ponty Edmund Husserl Martin Heidegger William James Galileo Galilei Nishida Kitaro Alfred North Whitehead Nancy Cartwright René Descartes Robert Kreese Paul Tillich Michael Polanyi Michael Schellenberger Susan Wolf Ursula Goodenough Immanuel Kant — Follow John Vervaeke: https://johnvervaeke.com/ https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke Follow Evan Thompson: https://evanthompson.me/ http://twitter.com/evantthompson https://www.facebook.com/evan.timothy.thompson — Thank you for watching!
I first visited the Beacon Monument atop Mount Beacon in 2007, soon after I moved to the city. A lifetime resident showed me the way. The second time was last week, 17 years later. In my defense, I've been busy. In the meantime, I talked about the monument a lot. Often someone will point to its stubby black outline and ask, "What is that? Why haven't I seen it when I'm on the mountain?" And then I tell them what I'll tell you now. The Beacon Monument, built by the Daughters of the American Revolution, will celebrate its 125th year in 2025. It was dedicated on July 4, 1900. It was built to commemorate the northernmost spot in a chain of 23 signal fires that stretched down to New Jersey during the Revolutionary War; there were also signal fires at Storm King, Bear Mountain and the site that is now Boscobel. The signal fire atop Mount Beacon - North Mountain in those days - was important to the war effort because it guided Gen. George Washington, who was camped in Newburgh. "He would have been watching to know if the British had come back," says Denise Doring VanBuren, the former national DAR president who is now president of the Beacon Historical Society. After the monument was built, it quickly became a tourist attraction, especially for visitors to a nearby casino on the mountain. VanBuren says the monument was more visible because farmers had cut down nearby trees. It also had a massive flagpole until 1934, when it attracted a lightning bolt that destroyed half the monument. It was rebuilt without the flagpole. The monument has been attacked by graffiti vandals, souvenir hunters who chipped pieces away and hunters who used it for target practice. While it may be hard to believe that anyone would hike up the mountain to shoot at an obelisk (Loyalists?), a sign at the nearby Beacon reservoir recently had to be replaced because it had so many bullet holes. On July 4, 2000, the DAR hosted a daylong celebration at the summit. More than 600 people visited. "Most told me some variation of 'I've lived here all my life but I've never been up here to see the monument,' " VanBuren said. The location of the monument is hardly a secret, but it's not easy to reach. The trail leading to it is unblazed, unmarked and unofficial. You could walk by the trailhead a hundred times without noticing it. Evan Thompson, the park manager for Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve, says the state might put up a sign. Those who love the monument are cautious about promoting it, given the abuse the city's most visible landmark has suffered.
The Diamondbacks started their season off strong, taking 3 of 4 against the Colorado Rockies in their opening series. Former D-backs, now Rockies, beat writer Evan Thompson compares the Rockies current path to the one taken by Arizona just a few seasons ago. Then Michael McDermott and Wes Baier preview the upcoming series against the New York Yankees.
In the fifth episode of the Philosophy of Meditation series, hosts John Vervaeke and Rick Repetti engage with Evan Thompson, a renowned cognitive scientist and philosopher, to explore the symbiosis of meditation, cognitive science, and philosophy. The episode highlights how Evan's early meditation practice shaped his philosophical outlook, emphasizing the experiential depth revealed by meditative states about consciousness. Discussions cover the transformative social aspects of meditation and philosophical views on death, underscoring Evan's perspective that meditation enriches, but should not solely define, philosophy. This insightful conversation traverses the transformative potential of meditation beyond calming the mind, delving into its role in personal development and intellectual growth. By merging philosophical rigor with meditation's lived experience, this conversation offers a nuanced understanding of meditation's role in enhancing human cognition and self-awareness, presenting a compelling case for its profound impact on philosophical thought. Evan Thompson is a renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist, recognized for his significant contributions to the field of 4E cognitive science, which emphasizes embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended aspects of cognition. His work intricately bridges Western philosophy with Eastern contemplative practices, particularly Buddhism, exploring the intersections of consciousness, meditation, and the human experience. Thompson's influential writings include discussions on the philosophy of mind, meditation, and the nature of self, making him a respected figure in both academic and contemplative circles. Glossary of Terms 4E Cognitive Science: A framework in cognitive science emphasizing four key factors: embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition. Contemplative Perspectives: Approaches to understanding and experiencing reality that involve introspection and focused attention, often used in the context of meditation and mindfulness. John Vervaeke: Website: https://johnvervaeke.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke X: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VervaekeJohn/ Rick Repetti: Website: https://www.rickrepetti.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickrepetti/ X: https://twitter.com/rickrepetti Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophicalpractitioner/ Evan Thompson: Website: https://evanthompson.me/ X: http://twitter.com/evantthompson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/evan.timothy.thompson Join our new Patreon https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke The Vervaeke Foundation - https://vervaekefoundation.org/ Awaken to Meaning - https://awakentomeaning.com/ John Vervaeke YouTube Awakening from the Meaning Crisis https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ Books, Articles, and Publications Routledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation - Rick Repetti https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Handbook-Philosophy-Meditation-Repetti/dp/036764746X Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind - Evan Thompson https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Life-Biology-Phenomenology-Sciences/dp/0674057511/ Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy - Evan Thompson https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Dreaming-Being-Consciousness-Neuroscience/dp/0231136951/ Why I Am Not a Buddhist - Evan Thompson https://www.amazon.com/Why-I-Am-Not-Buddhist-ebook/dp/B082P4FFRG/ Trying Not to Try: Ancient China, Modern Science, and the Power of Spontaneity - Edward Slingerland https://www.amazon.com/Trying-Not-Try-Ancient-Spontaneity/dp/077043763X/ The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience - Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, Evan Thompson https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Spot-Science-Cannot-Experience/dp/0262048809/ Quotes "I think of myself as first and foremost a philosopher of mind who works very much on cognitive science and in collaboration with cognitive scientists." - Evan Thompson [00:04:31] Chapters [00:00:00] - Series Introduction and Evan Thompson's Cognitive Science Expertise [00:02:13] - Integrating Western Philosophy with Buddhist Concepts in Cognitive Science [00:04:09] - Philosophical and Meditative Perspectives on Dying and Death [00:07:44] - Cognitive Flexibility and Death Reflection in Meditation Practice [00:16:15] - Mindfulness Practices Across Various Traditions and Philosophical Inquiry [00:36:01] - Transformational Aspects of Meditation, Rituals, and Self-Cultivation [00:50:29] - The Role of Mindfulness in Modern Culture and Science [00:57:56] - Meditation as a Conduit Between Diverse Philosophical and Cultural Contexts [01:00:43] - Enhancing Consciousness and Attention Through Mindfulness Practices [01:14:00] - Concluding Dialogue
Sam Harris is the subject today and a man who needs no introduction. Although he's come up and he's come on, we've never actually (technically) decoded him. There is no Gurometer score! A glaring omission and one that needs correcting. It would have been easy for us to cherry-pick Sam being extremely good on conspiracy theories, or extremely controversial on politics, but we felt that neither would be fair. So we opted for a general and broad-ranging recent interview he did with Chris Williamson. Love him or loathe him, it's a representative piece of Sam Harris content, and therefore good material for us.Sam talks about leaving Twitter, and how transformative that was for his life, then gets into his favourite topic: Buddhism, consciousness, and living in the moment. That's the kind of spiritual kumbaya topics that Sam reports causing him little pain online but Chris and Matt- the soulless physicalists and p-zombies that they are- seek to destroy even that refuge. On the other hand, they find themselves determined by the very forces of the universe to nod their meat puppet heads in furious agreement as Sam discusses the problems with free speech absolutism and reactionary conspiracism. That's just a taste of what's to come in this extra-ordinarily long episode to finish off the year. What's the DTG take? You'll have to listen to find out all the details, but we do think there is some selective interpretation of religions at hand and some gut reactions to wokeness that leads to some significant blindspots. So is Sam Harris an enlightened genius, a neo-conservative warmonger, a manipulative secular guru? Or is he, in the immortal words of Gag Halfrunt, Zaphod Beeblebrox's head specialist, "just zis guy, you know?".Sam was DTG's white whale of 2023, but we'll let you be the judge as to whether or not we harpooned him, or whether he's swimming off contentedly, unscathed, into the open ocean.LinksSam Harris - Take Back Control Of Your Mind (4K) | Modern Wisdom 661DTG Special Episode: Sam Harris & Meditation is all you needDTG Special: Interview with Sam Harris on Gurus, Tribalism & the Culture WarDTG Special Episode: Interview with Evan Thompson on Buddhist ExceptionalismDTG Interview with Worobey, Andersen & Holmes: The Lab LeakMaking Sense 311: Did SARS-CoV-2 Escape from a Lab? A Conversation with Matt Ridley and Alina Chan
How has the evolution of cognition led to homo-sapiens being such effective collaborators and how is the collective knowledge and wisdom of the society distributed and passed on to later generations? How can we apply the amplified wisdom of distributed cognition to solve some of humanities biggest problems? Today we have the important fields of Collective Intelligence and how we can use it to solve our problems as a society, to try and get our heads around. We'll be discussing the relevance of difficulties arising from cognitive science and physics research that for some put into question the consensus story that embodied feelings were fundamental in the development of reasoning and consciousness; We also discuss the relevance of the work of Carl Jung on the Collective Unconscious; of Neuroscientist Anil Seth's Controlled Hallucination and Don Hoffman's User interface theory; of Iain McGilchrist's split brain research and of Michael Levin's take on cellular cognition. There is of course only one polymath who can hold that many topics in a single conversation and that's the Cognitive scientist, and philosopher John Vervaeke. Vervaeke is the director of UToronto's Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory and its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches an Introduction to Cognitive Science and The Cognitive Science of Consciousness. He has been a leading intellectual observer of the modern meaning crisis: the loss of a spiritual worldview in the West, and the decline of wisdom traditions that help individuals find meaning in their lives. His online lectures and practices integrate teachings from many different disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, religion, and cutting edge cognitive science. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” and his brand new series, "After Socrates." What we discuss: 00:00 Intro. 05:35 Losing faith without losing a taste for the transcendent. 15:30 The difference between intelligence and living cognition. 18:40 Relevance realisation: What to attend to in the sea of info available. 21:00 Cognition “cares” because its life is on the line: Salience landscapes. 24:15 Humans VS persons. 30:05 Distributed Cognition explained. 30:30 ‘Reason is monological' framework. 33:15 The rise of individualism. 34:30 Distributed computation and problem solving via the internet. 36:30 ‘Reason is dialogical' framework. 38:00 Your best self-correction ability is with other people. 42:30 Life builds collective intelligence without language. 45:50 Issues from neuroscience and quantum physics. 50:30 Predictive processing to identify salience. 52:30 The imaginary VS the imaginal. 53:40 Imaginally augmented perception. 58:00 Causality is not the same as causal relevance: Acausal phenomena. 01:00:30 Determinism VS fractal probability. 01:03:50 A hierarchy of cognitive selves: Michael Levin. 01:06:50 There isn't just bottom up emergence but top down emanation. 01:07:20 Deep continuity - Evan Thompson. 01:09:30 Hierarchies of selves: Michael Levin. 01:15:30 Could we be part of single selves greater than our individual organisms? 01:17:30 Cognition is a continuum but differences of degree eventually make differences of kind. 01:19:30 Solving collective problems via distributed cognition and practices of connectedness. 01:25:20 Left/right hemisphere considerations for distributed cognition: Iain McGilchrist. 01:32:30 Adaptivity: Self-transcendence VS self-delusion. 01:35:15 Narrative bias and the Left Brain interpreter: Mike Gazzaniga. 01:37:00 Extended naturalism 01:40:24 The Collective Unconscious - Carl Jung. 01:46:25 A lot of the unconscious contents are not narrative like or persona like. References: “After Socrates” You Tube series “The meaning Crisis” You Tube series Michael Levin - Cellular cognition episode Evan Thompson - Deep continuity hypothesis “Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind”
We explore connections between FEP and enactivism, including tensions raised in a paper critiquing FEP from an enactivist perspective. Dr. Maxwell Ramstead provides background on enactivism emerging from autopoiesis, with a focus on embodied cognition and rejecting information processing/computational views of mind. Chris shares his journey from robotics into FEP, starting as a skeptic but becoming convinced it's the right framework. He notes there are both "high road" and "low road" versions, ranging from embodied to more radically anti-representational stances. He doesn't see a definitive fork between dynamical systems and information theory as the source of conflict. Rather, the notion of operational closure in enactivism seems to be the main sticking point. The group explores definitional issues around structure/organization, boundaries, and operational closure. Maxwell argues the generative model in FEP captures organizational dependencies akin to operational closure. The Markov blanket formalism models structural interfaces. We discuss the concept of goals in cognitive systems - Chris advocates an intentional stance perspective - using notions of goals/intentions if they help explain system dynamics. Goals emerge from beliefs about dynamical trajectories. Prof Friston provides an elegant explanation of how goal-directed behavior naturally falls out of the FEP mathematics in a particular "goldilocks" regime of system scale/dynamics. The conversation explores the idea that many systems simply act "as if" they have goals or models, without necessarily possessing explicit representations. This helps resolve tensions between enactivist and computational perspectives. Throughout the dialogue, Maxwell presses philosophical points about the FEP abolishing what he perceives as false dichotomies in cognitive science such as internalism/externalism. He is critical of enactivists' commitment to bright line divides between subject areas. Prof. Karl Friston - Inventor of the free energy principle https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q_4u0aoAAAAJ Prof. Chris Buckley - Professor of Neural Computation at Sussex University https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=nWuZ0XcAAAAJ&hl=en Dr. Maxwell Ramstead - Director of Research at VERSES https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=ILpGOMkAAAAJ&hl=fr We address critique in this paper: Laying down a forking path: Tensions between enaction and the free energy principle (Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Evan Thompson, Randall D. Beere) https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/download/9187/8975 Other refs: Multiscale integration: beyond internalism and externalism (Maxwell J D Ramstead) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33627890/ MLST panel: Dr. Tim Scarfe and Dr. Keith Duggar TOC (auto generated): 0:00 - Introduction 0:41 - Defining enactivism and its variants 6:58 - The source of the conflict between dynamical systems and information theory 8:56 - Operational closure in enactivism 10:03 - Goals and intentions 12:35 - The link between dynamical systems and information theory 15:02 - Path integrals and non-equilibrium dynamics 18:38 - Operational closure defined 21:52 - Structure vs. organization in enactivism 24:24 - Markov blankets as interfaces 28:48 - Operational closure in FEP 30:28 - Structure and organization again 31:08 - Dynamics vs. information theory 33:55 - Goals and intentions emerge in the FEP mathematics 36:58 - The Good Regulator Theorem 49:30 - enactivism and its relation to ecological psychology 52:00 - Goals, intentions and beliefs 55:21 - Boundaries and meaning 58:55 - Enactivism's rejection of information theory 1:02:08 - Beliefs vs goals 1:05:06 - Ecological psychology and FEP 1:08:41 - The Good Regulator Theorem 1:18:38 - How goal-directed behavior emerges 1:23:13 - Ontological vs metaphysical boundaries 1:25:20 - Boundaries as maps 1:31:08 - Connections to the maximum entropy principle 1:33:45 - Relations to quantum and relational physics
Welcome to this special episode of Kappa Kappa Psi Presents! Join Derrick Mills and the National Nominations Committee as they interview Evan Thompson about his platform for the role of National Board of Trustees member for 2023 - 2027.
5/13/2023ISLAND FEVER season 5Episode #37 SUMMARYDr. Evan Thompson was excited to immerse himself in his oceanographic research. Now comfortably situated on a secluded Island in the South Pacific, this lone, handsome scientist planned on embarking on his vital marine research in peace. The last thing this solitary young man expected was to find company on the remote deserted island he now called home. Who or … What was on the island with him, and was it friendly? The answer turned out that he and the mysterious stranger he'd encounter would end up being more than just friends!Steamy Stories Official Website: https://www.SteamyStoriesPodcast.comSteamy Stories podcast is a mm romance fiction podcast. Each episode is a sexy, short gay story told playfully. Steamy Stories is the podcast where bromance becomes bromosexual. A new story monthly!STEAMY STORIES is written by JC Calciano and narrated by Casey Alcoster.#podcast #lgbtq #gaystories #gayshorts #gaykiss #mmromance #mermaid #mermanBromantic Bliss - adult coloring books 1 and 2. Steamy Stories is excited to bring you two new adult coloring books with hunky illustrations and silly sexy captions. Each illustration has a story that's sure to put a smile on your face. Now on Amazon or the SteamyStoriesPodcast website. Sharing a podcast is the best way to show that you love it. Tell a friend, write a comment, or rate it on Apple Podcasts, and/or Spotify. A few stars mean a lot to not only the creators, but people like you who are wondering if the podcast is worth listening to. So, please. Share your thoughts!Support the show
In this episode I am once again joined by Dr Evan Thompson: Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr Thompson discusses his 2014 book ‘Waking, Dreaming, Being' and takes a deep dive into the self from the point of view of the world's contemplative traditions as well as neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Dr Thompson shares his life-long fasciation with the way in which consciousness and the sense of self change across different phases of the wake-sleep cycle, and challenges claims that insight into the self is a means to eliminate suffering and attain enlightenment. Dr Thompson reveals his own deep practice of meditation, lucid dreaming, Tai Chi and Chinese energy arts, and explains how he, as both a trained skeptical philosopher and as a dedicated practitioner, approaches the religious framing of practice and related concepts such as ‘chi' and ‘enlightenment'. Dr Thompson also answers Youtube comments about our previous interview, including a clarification of his critique of Buddhist exceptionalism and a response to Buddhists who feel his work threatens their religious affiliation. … Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep193-waking-dreaming-being-dr-evan-thompson Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … Topics include: 00:00 - Intro 01:30 - Answering Youtube comments 02:14 - ‘Why I Am Not A Buddhist' and Bertrand Russel 04:59 - What would Bertrand Russel target today? 06:18 - The non-aligned mystic 08:15 - Does Evan meditate? 10:13 - Evan's extensive daily qigong and tai chi practice 11:55 - Retreat practice and states of high concentration 13:00 - Why does Evan practice so diligently? 13:15 - How does Evan think about ‘chi'? 17:35 - Traps in understanding of chi 18:24 - Why does Evan still meditate if he is not a Buddhist? 20:11 - Evan's critiques of the doctrinal framing of practices 22:25 - Response to Buddhists who are threatened by Evan's work 25:43 - Waking, Dreaming, Being 27:28 - Fascination with how consciousness alters across the sleep-wake cycle 28:11 - Evan reflects on ‘Waking, Dreaming, Being' 29:58 - How Evan's views on practice have evolved 31:12 - The sense of self and the experience of consciousness 32:20 - Awareness, contents of awareness, and sense of self 34:21 - Self construction in imagination, memory, and lucid dreaming 37:03 - 1st person vs 3rd person memory 38:23 - View/field dreams vs outside dreams 39:11 - The self experience in lucid dreaming and OBE's 41:12 - Evan's lucid dreaming practice 42:38 - Meeting the Dalai Lama and beginning to lucid dream 44:50 - The curriculum of lucid dreaming in Tibetan Buddhism 46:09 - Meditating in the dream state and Alan Wallace's advice 48:37 - Walking through walls and transforming the dream 49:39 - Evan's powerful tai chi dreams 50:06 - Variation in lucid dreaming talent 51:07 - What constitutes the sense of self? 52:51 - How does the self complex arise? 54:56 - Metacognition 55:33 - Mindfulness rides on social cognitive capacities 56:40 - Self understanding and claims of liberation 59:10 - The value of the Buddhist view of self 01:01:54 - The claim that insight into self reduces suffering is naive 01:04:12 - How to make the world a better place 01:04:49 - Social is crucial 01:05:57 - Hermit is a social category 01:06:31 - Recognising the value of meditation in a social context 01:09:27 - Vasubandu vs Candrakirti and Metzinger vs Thompson 01:12:32 - Evan's upcoming projects 01:14:22 - Dying, our ultimate transformation … Previous episode with Evan Thompson: - www.guruviking.com/podcast/158-why-i-am-not-a-buddhist-evan-thompson … To find out more about Evan Thompson, visit: - https://evanthompson.me/ For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James
In Re/thinking Religion, a new Integral Stage series, John Vervaeke joins Bruce Alderman and Layman Pascal to explore possible points of contact and confluence between their respective approaches to religion and spirituality. For the tenth episode, Bruce, Layman, and John reflect on the groundbreaking work of 4E cognitive scientists, Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson, especially their perspectives on the role of the imaginal in perception, healing, self-transformation, and the development of wisdom; the five criteria for the wise use of the imaginal in education, therapy, and religious practice; the need to rehabilitate the 'place' of the imaginal in common understanding; and the potential risks of the exploitative commodification and commercialization of the fruits of the cognitive scientific study of religion and spirituality (along the lines of "McMindfulness"), and how that can be avoided with a fuller, more integral understanding and practice of cognitive science. John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist, a professor of psychology at Toronto University, and the creator of the popular YouTube series, "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis."
A re-release! Our conversation with Dr Evan Thompson has been attracting significant attention as we've crossed over into 2023, and we wanted to re-re-release it for new listeners. Enjoy one of our all-time favourite conversations. -- In 2023, Buddhism is perceived as 'spirituality for the rational', fully compatible with cutting‑edge science. But this view is actually a mistake that does both Buddhism and science a disservice, says Dr Evan Thompson. Exploring what he calls 'Buddhist exceptionalism', Evan breaks down why Buddhism is treated differently to other spiritual practices, and dives deep into both Western and Buddhist philosophy to explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Covering enlightenment, the ethics of knowledge and non-conceptual experiences, Dr Thompson reframes Buddhism and its role in our spiritual and scientific lives.
In this episode Dr. Nader and Dr. Evan Thompson discuss consciousness and the Self from different spiritual and scientific perspectives. How the sense of self is constructed and changes in different states of consciousness. What is the self in relation to consciousness and the nature of ultimate reality? Dr. Evan Thompson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an Associate Member of both the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and his work combines cognitive science, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, and cross-cultural philosophy, especially Asian philosophical traditions. His most recent books include “Why I Am Not A Buddhist” and “Waking, Dreaming, Being”. Evan Thompson | Website https://evanthompson.me Evan Thompson | Twitter https://twitter.com/evantthompson Dr Tony Nader | Instagram http://instagram.com/drtonynader Dr Tony Nader | Twitter http://twitter.com/drtonynader Dr Tony Nader | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/dr-tony-nader Dr Tony Nader | Facebook http://facebook.com/DrTonyNader
Stan Wong is producing a documentary called "The Real American," which tells the story of Evan Thompson III - who, for 45 years, would wave a large American flag at low flying military airplanes as they passed over his house in the desert outside Las Vegas. Alongside the story of Evan, the film also features vignettes of A-10 pilot Chris Beckman, WW2 Navy sailor Doris Miller, and F-16 pilot Heather Penney. The Real American will be released this summer. You can watch the trailer at TheRealAmericanFilm.com.Stan Wong made his first film "Lonely" in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the craft. He decided to dedicate more of his time to film, establishing his company, Infinite Fountain Productions llc., in 2014. Shooting commercials and short films for clients and other filmmakers, he learned everything he could about writing, directing and producing. Biding his time till he was confident that he could make a film that was compelling, interesting, paced well and with fully developed characters, "Departure" was written in 2014 with several rewrites and help from professional writers. It will be Stan's first feature film.***Follow the Greg Krino Show here...GregKrino.comYouTubeInstagramFacebookTwitterLinkedInIf you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a 5-star rating and friendly comment on your podcast app. It takes only a minute, and it really helps convince popular guests to join me.If you have comments or ideas for the show, please contact me at gregkrinoshow@gmail.com.
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone
This month's episode (BS 203) celebrates the 16th Anniversary of Brain Science with the annual review episode. This is a listener favorite providing highlights and key ideas from the episodes of Brain Science that were posted in 2022. Topics included hearing, grief, emotion, embodied cognition, consciousness and more. Note: This month's episode transcript is FREE. Please Visit Our Sponsors: MasterClass at masterclass.com/ginger TextExpander at textexpander.com/brain-science 2022 Episodes of Brain Science: BS 192 Nina Kraus, author of Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World BS 193 The Embodied Mind: exploring the implications of embodied cognition BS 194 Mary-Frances O'Connor, author of The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss BS 195 David J Anderson, author of The Nature of the Beast: How Emotions Guide Us BS 196 Hakwan Lau, author of In Consciousness we Trust: The Cognitive Neuroscience of Subjective Experience BS 197 Frank Amthor, author of Neuroscience for Dummies and Neurobiology for Dummies BS 198 Evan Thompson, author of Mind in Life: Biology. Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind BS 199 Batja Mesquita, author of Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions BS 200 Jennifer Fugate and Sheila Macrine, editors of Movement Matters: How Embodied Cognition Informs Teaching and Learning BS 201 Bill Harris, author of Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Built BS 202 Evan Thompson, on meditation and embodied cognition Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for more episodes. Connect on Social Media Twitter: @docartemis Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/brainsciencepodcast Contact Dr. Campbell: Email: brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone
The idea that meditation is a "mind science" is popular, but in this interview Canadian philosopher Evan Thompson argues that this claim does not stand up to either scientific or philosophical scrutiny. As one of the pioneers of the Embodied Cognition movement Thompson reminds us that the Mind is not restricted to the Brain and we must also consider how other recent discoveries in neuroscience fail to support the claim that meditation provides neutral scientific insight into how the Mind really works. Links and References: Evan Thompson's website Why I am not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan T. Thompson, Eleanor Rosch Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind by Evan Thompson discussed in BS 198 Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson discussed in BS 115 Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for additional references and episode transcripts. Please Visit Our Sponsors: TextExpander at textexpander.com/podcast BetterHelp at betterhelp.com/GINGER MasterClass at MasterClass.com/ginger Announcements: Please take a few minutes to complete this audience survey. Contact Dr. Campbell if you are interested a listener meet-up or sponsoring a talk by Dr. Campbell during her trip to Europe in April 2023. Get free gift "5 Things You Need to Know about YOUR Brain when you sign up for the free Brain ScienceNewsletter to get show notes automatically every month. You can also text brainscience to 55444 to sign up. Check out the Brain Science podcast channel on YouTube Support Brain Science by buying Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty by Virginia "Ginger" Campbell, MD. (Autographed copies are available) Check out the free Brain Science Mobile app for iOS, Android, and Windows. (It's a great way to get both new episodes and premium content.) Learn more ways to support Brain Science at http://brainsciencepodcast.com/donations Connect on Social Media: Twitter: @docartemis Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/brainsciencepodcast Contact Dr. Campbell: Email: brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com
How can we define meta-awareness? Today's episode is a deep dive into all things connected to non-dual awareness, led by cognitive expert Dr David Vago. We explore flow states, brain-body environment dynamics, concentration practice, meditation, depression, compassion… Packed with cognitive research, varying perspectives of ‘self' and references to the work of Benjamin Libet and previous guest Evan Thompson, David presents a fascinating insight into how to define the secondary interpretation of our experience.
At the end of the previous Varela 2022 talk, John Dunne asks the Varela faculty, namely those coming from an enactive perspective, the questions listed below. These questions are explored here, especially in their ethical implications. Listening first to Varela 2022 Part 7 is recommended. Varela faculty explore the following questions from John Dunne: What is the purpose of enaction as […]
“Living is sense-making in precarious conditions.” Professor Evan Thompson, co-author with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch of The Embodied Mind, offers thoughts on the origins of the enactive view as well as how he sees enaction moving forward. Evan focuses especially on the role that Buddhism played, namely the ideas of no-self, emptiness, and meditation, in […]
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone
This is a free transcript for BS 198 with Evan Thompson, author of "Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind." Since this is an encore episode the transcript if being provided for free to give a sample of the content available to Premium subscribers. Premium subscribers also get the entire back catalogue of audio content. You can sign up at: https://my.libsyn.com/auth/login/show_id/18369 Integration with Apple subscriptions is coming in the Fall!
Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone
This month's episode of Brain Science is a free encore playing of my interview with Evan Thompson about his book Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. We discuss how the enactive approach to embodied cognition offers potential clues to the mystery of how the brain can generate Consciousness. A free episode transcript is also available. This is the 2nd of two free encore episodes that are being shared to give listeners a taste of the diverse content available to Premium subscribers. Premium subscribers have access to over 100 additional episodes of Brain Science along with episode transcripts. The embodied cognition movement is an approach within cognitive neuroscience that includes philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists and computer scientists. The key idea is that cognition, which includes thinking and decision-making, is inseparable from embodiment. This is not just because it requires sensory inputs to the brain, but also because moving in the world is a key component. Thus embodied cognition does not see this as a passive input/output process, but as something that requires constant interaction with the world via the body. Links and References: Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind by Evan Thompson The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan T. Thompson, Eleanor Rosch Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy by Evan Thompson (follow-up interview BSP 115) Evan Thompson, PhD, University of British Columbia Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for additional references and episode transcripts. Please Visit Our Sponsors: TextExpander at textexpander.com/podcast Wren at wren.co/brainscience Announcements: Submit audio feedback to be part of BS 200! Please visit brainsciencepodcast.com and let me know what you think of the updated website. Get free gift "5 Things You Need to Know about YOUR Brain when you sign up for the free Brain Science Newsletter to get show notes automatically every month. You can also text brainscience to 55444 to sign up. Check out the Brain Science podcast channel on YouTube Support Brain Science by buying Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty by Virginia "Ginger" Campbell, MD. (Autographed copies are available) Check out the free Brain Science Mobile app for iOS, Android, and Windows. (It's a great way to get both new episodes and premium content.) Learn more ways to support Brain Science at http://brainsciencepodcast.com/donations Connect on Social Media: Twitter: @docartemis Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/brainsciencepodcast Contact Dr. Campbell: Email: brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com
The future looks bright for the Dbacks after the draft but what do they do at the trading deadline? AZFamily's Michael Raimondi and Evan Thompson from The Last Word on Baseball join The Extra Point podcast.
Dr Evan Thompson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Evan recounts his upbringing in his father's intentional community, the Lindisfarne Association, and shares stories of childhood encounters with teachers of Zen, Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Yoga, and more. Evan traces his intellectual and academic trajectories, and reflects on the problems of community dynamics and religious perennialism that his father's community faced. Evan then outlines his critique of what he calls ‘Buddhist Exceptionalism', as laid out in his book ‘Why I Am Not A Buddhist'. As part of this critique, Evan addresses subjects such as why Buddhism is not a science of the mind (or of anything else), why presentations of the historical Buddha used by figures such as Goenka are a useful fiction, the problems of borrowing the authority of science for the purposes of Buddhist evangelism, and the surprising influence of Protestantism on Buddhism's development in Asia. Evan also reflects on the future of Buddhism and explores the question, ‘what is enlightenment?'. … Video version: www.guruviking.com/podcast/158-why-i-am-not-a-buddhist-evan-thompson Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast'. … Topics include: 00:00 - Intro 01:23 - Evan's upbringing in his father's intentional community 06:38 - Exposure to Zen via Richard Baker Roshi 09:34 - Zen takeover of the Lindisfarne Association 11:13 - Childhood encounters with Buddhist, Sufi, Yoga, and Christian teachers 14:29 - Evan's distaste for Chogyam Trungpa's scene 16:48 - Fractious community dynamics and the Zen takeover 21:19 - Problems of perennialism 25:03 - An ecology of mysticism 26:32 - Religious superiority 28:18 - Evan's intellectual development and academic trajectory 35:36 - Buddhist exceptionalism and the Mind & Life Institute 41:20 - What is Buddhist modernism 44:065 - Evan's misgivings about Buddhist exceptionalism 47:37 - Evan summarises his critique 49:21 - Reactions from colleagues 54:44 - Why do elite academics engage in Buddhist apologetics? 56:58 - Goenka's useful fiction of the historical Buddha 01:01:09 - B Alan Wallace and religious vs academic register 01:04:19 - Exceptionalism as evangelism and exhortation 01:05:20 - The core philosophical engine of Buddhism 01:07:41 - Buddhism is not scientific 01:10:56 - Personal experience and ‘test and see' 01:15:59 - Is Buddhist philosophy uniquely rich? 01:21:12 - What is enlightenment? 01:25:00 - Awakening as a regulative ideal 01:27:20 - What counts as the experience of awakening? 01:32:28 - Protestant Christianity's surprising influence on Buddhism in Asia 01:40:23 - What would convert Evan to Buddhism 01:42:22 - Exceptionalism harms Buddhism and science … To find out more about Evan Thompson, visit: - https://evanthompson.me/ For more interviews, videos, and more visit: - www.guruviking.com Music ‘Deva Dasi' by Steve James
First Chad Kuhl tosses a complete game shutout against the Dodgers and then the Rockies knock around future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw. Is this what Colorado's season has needed all along? Who's leading the charge for this domination of NL West foes? Plus, Evan Thompson of Last Word On Sports discusses some unique statistics he created to better inform the public on the success of relief pitchers. Scoreless Outing Percentage and Goose Eggs, 2022 by Evan Thompson Available Now! A Complete History of the Major League Baseball Playoffs, Volume I — Pre-divisional Tiebreakers through 1976 by Evan Thompson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Evan Thompson is a philosopher and professor at the University of British Columbia. He specialises in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, as well as in cross-cultural philosophy, with a particular interest in Chinese and Indian philosophy and the dialogue between Buddhism and the Western philosophical tradition. He's the author of several books including Mind and Life, Why I'm not a Buddhist, The Embodied Mind, co-authored with Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, and Waking, Dreaming, Being. Today we discuss the idea that all life is conscious, known as biopsychism, and the issues it raises form a philosophical perspective.
Dust Safety Science: Improving Combustible Dust Safety in the Workplace
Evan Thompson, Applications Engineer at Nordfab Ducting, discusses common ducting challenges and their solutions.
In 2022, Buddhism is perceived as 'spirituality for the rational', fully compatible with cutting‑edge science. But this view is actually a mistake that does both Buddhism and science a disservice, says Dr Evan Thompson. Exploring what he calls 'Buddhist exceptionalism', Evan breaks down why Buddhism is treated differently to other spiritual practices, and dives deep into both Western and Buddhist philosophy to explain how the goals of science and religion are fundamentally different. Covering enlightenment, the ethics of knowledge and non-conceptual experiences, Dr Thompson reframes Buddhism and its role in our spiritual and scientific lives.
Evan Thompson is an author, baseball writer, and a diamondback press corps member. He is also the author of A Complete History of the Major League Baseball Playoffs. He is also the Treasurer of the Hemond Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR). Evan definately loves all things baseball because he is also the senior editor at Last Word on Baseball. Evan has been a Member of the Arizona Diamondbacks press corps since the year 2019. Evan says it's a dream to be working for the diamondbacks because they are his favorite team. In this episode I talk to Evan about his new book as well as the upcoming projects he is working on.You can follow Evan and learn more about all things baseball by going to www.thompsontalks.com or www.lastwordonbaseball.com
Bonnitta Roy returns to the podcast to discuss relations among science, Buddhism, and philosophy. In this conversation, Bonnitta responds to Evan Thompson's comments on Buddhist modernism from episode 25, offering a different image of the science and Buddhism dialogue grounded in notions of embodiment and complex dynamical systems. This Episode: Twitter: https://twitter.com/bonnittaroy Substack: https://bonnittaroy.substack.com/ Bonnitta's TSV essay: https://thesideview.co/journal/cognition-in-the-wild/ Buddhist Modernism w/ Evan Thompson: https://soundcloud.com/thesideviewco/tsvepisode25evanthompson Buddhist Modernism Summary: https://thebasecamp.substack.com/p/buddhist-modernism Support The Side View: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesideview PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/thesideview Follow Us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSideViewCo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSideViewCo/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheSideViewCo SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/thesideviewco
Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and an Associate Member of the Department of Asian Studies and the Department of Psychology (Cognitive Science Group). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. This Episode: Evan Thompson: https://evanthompson.me/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/evantthompson Buddhist modernism: https://thebasecamp.substack.com/p/buddhist-modernism The Embodied Mind (Revised Edition): https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/embodied-mind-revised-edition Waking, Dreaming, Being: https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Dreaming-Being-Consciousness-Neuroscience/dp/0231136951 The Blind Spot: https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience Support The Side View: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thesideview PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/thesi... Follow Us: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSideViewCo Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSideViewCo/ Web: http://thesideview.co/
John Vervaeke is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Psychology at the University of Toronto. He has an excellent youtube channel and I would particularly recommend his series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis". Awakening from the Meaning Crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54l8_ewcOlY&list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ In this conversation we talk about what Neoplatonism was, how it interacted with Christianity, and how it is relevant today. We mention Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Carl Jung, Pierre Hadot, Plotinus, Hypatia, D. T. Suzuki, John H Spencer, The Stoics, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, Sir Roger Penrose, William Lane Craig, Alfred North Whitehead, Owen Gilbert, Keith Stanovich, Jules Evans, Polar Bears, Bret Weinstein, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Evan Thompson, Christopher Mastropietro, Pseudo Dionysius, John Scotus Eriugena, Heraclitus, Jonathan Pageau, Augustine, and Paul Vanderklay.
Providing a theory of the mind that tells us what it is, how it works, and how it relates to the brain or body is an intensely difficult project. Thinkers have been struggling with it for thousands of years. It is no less difficult a project today, but recent work that brings insights from different disciplines, cultures, and schools of thought is offering us the chance to think about the mind in novel and fruitful ways. This is exactly what Dr Evan Thompson is doing and we are going to talk about how he is doing it in this week's episode.
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