Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

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

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

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

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

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