What is “human” nature? While human beings are animals, we believe we are special, radically different from other animals. Why? What traits are unique to humans? Are we sure? How to explore human nature from an evolutionary perspective? Featuring interviews with Quayshawn Spencer, Alexander Rosenberg, Massimo Pigliucci, Rachell Powell, Helen De Cruz, Paul E. Griffiths, and John Dupré. Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need ...
Jul 23, 2025•27 min•Ep. 205
Donate any amount to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. How do we define a soul? Can AI become consciousness? Julia Mossbridge discusses these questions along with the main trends in parapsychology, transpersonal psychology, and ESP research over the last decade. Dr. Julia Mossbridge is an American cognitive neuroscientist, author, and educator who works on exceptional human performance including psi effects, notably on precogniti...
Jul 16, 2025•48 min•Ep. 204
Contribute what you can to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. Two big ideas in biology: the evolution of species via mutation, fitness and natural selection; and the embryological development of individuals, from fertilized egg to whole organisms. How do these two big ideas—“Evo-Dev,” as it’s called—relate? What novel ideas emerge? Featuring interviews with Denis Noble, Richard Dawkins, Alexander Rosenberg, Philip Kitcher, Alan C. Love, and Jo...
Jul 09, 2025•27 min•Ep. 203
James Hughes Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as the Associate Provost for Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning for the University of Massachusetts Boston. He holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago, where he also taught bioethics at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Dr. Hughes is author of Citizen Cyborg and co-editor of Surviving the Machine Age. Wat...
Jul 02, 2025•47 min•Ep. 201
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. While evolution is how life on earth came to be, where does the evolution occur? At what level of the hierarchy of life—from genes to individuals to groups to species—does evolution work its selection magic? Is it multilevel? Featuring interviews with Richard Dawkins, Lisa Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Paul Griffiths, Elliott Sober, and Samir Okasha....
Jun 25, 2025•27 min•Ep. 202
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. How will AI-generated deepfakes reshape truth, trust, and society? Can AI someday merge with human consciousness? Futurist Zoltan Istvan explores the disruptive power of synthetic media—from political deception to personal identity—and what it means for the future of ethics, law, and reality itself. Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, professionally known as Zoltan Istvan, is an Americ...
Jun 18, 2025•52 min•Ep. 199
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq Explore evolution—its scope and depth. How did life on earth come to be as it is, and how did humans come to be as we are? What are the deep principles driving evolution? What are evolution’s challenges and open questions? Featuring interviews with Elliott Sober, Richard Dawkins, Samir Okasha, John Dupré, Denis Noble, and Michael Ruse. Episode 1,...
Jun 11, 2025•27 min•Ep. 200
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. Chris French discusses his latest book, The Science of Weird Shit , where he convincingly debunks ESP, communicating with the dead, and alien abduction claims, among other phenomena. All the while, however, French maintains that our belief in such phenomena is neither ridiculous nor trivial; if anything, such claims can tell us a great deal about the human mind if we pay ...
Jun 04, 2025•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 198
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. What could life be as we don’t know it? Three transitions in astrobiology. Non-life to life. Life to intelligent life. Intelligent life to technological civilization. For alien life, would Darwinian evolution hold? Fermi’s Paradox is profound: with at least 10 22 planets in the known universe, we find no evidence of alien life, anywhere, much less alien intelligence. Is t...
May 28, 2025•27 min•Ep. 197
Jonathan Schooler is an American psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who researches various topics that intersect aspects of both cognitive psychology and philosophy such as: Belief in free will, meta-awareness, mindfulness, mind-Wandering, memory, creativity, and emotion. Schooler is also known for his sometimes controversial research on topics such as Anomalous Cognition and the decline effect. This interv...
May 21, 2025•23 min•Ep. 190
Can superintelligent AI destroy humanity—or will it collapse under its own philosophical doubts? Professor Joseph Corabi, Chair of Philosophy at Saint Joseph’s University, joins Robert Lawrence Kuhn at MindFest 2025 to explore the limits of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the metaphysics of mind. Drawing from his presentation, "A Collapsing Superintelligent AI?" , Corabi argues that future AI—however advanced—may become paralyzed by skeptical challenges that human minds navigate thro...
May 16, 2025•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 196
Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, and Hinduism address the ultimate essence of all things, the ground of being? What are transcendence, oneness, interconnectivity, ineffability? Compare Dao in Daoism to Brahman in Hinduism. Compare Wu in Daoism with Emptiness in Buddhism. Does God fit in? Featuring interviews with Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami ...
May 14, 2025•27 min•Ep. 195
Make a tax-deductible donation of any amount to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq Anyone who has ever participated in a brainstorming session will know that most of us do not lack ideas. Yet, many people never breathe life into these ideas. To turn inspiration into real achievement, you must decide to act—and then decide to act again and again, despite obstacles, until your thoughts take shape and come to life. In Pringle's new book,...
May 07, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 194
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. Dualism claims reality has two parts, a physical and a nonphysical (mental or spiritual), both equally real. Dualism is believed by most people but rejected by most philosophers and scientists. Featuring interviews with Yujin Nagasawa, Richard Swinburne, Jaron Lanier, Bede Rundle, and Peter Forrest. Watch the episode on our YouTube channel here ....
Apr 30, 2025•27 min•Ep. 193
Innovative economist Robin Hanson discusses the age of artificial intelligence, decision making and predictive markets, astrobiology, and AI consciousness. Robin Hanson is an author, economist, and associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. His bestselling book, The Elephant in the Brain , is on sale now. This interview was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Futur...
Apr 25, 2025•46 min•Ep. 192
Contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls. Terry Sejnowski offers a nuanced exploration of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and what their future holds. How should we go about understanding LLMs? Do these language models truly understand what they are saying? Or is it possible that what appears to be intelligence in LLMs may be a mirror that merely reflects the intelligence of the interviewer? In this d...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 187
Help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls with a tax-deductible donation of any amount/ To explore scientific Breakthroughs is to find theories or discoveries that challenge conventional wisdom, change patterns of thought, provide novel frameworks for research. What is the deep essence or general nature of scientific breakthroughs? This episode features interviews with Paul Davies, David Wallace, Jim Holt, David Chalmers, and John Horgan....
Apr 15, 2025•27 min•Ep. 191
Consider supporting Closer To Truth in our quest to explore life's deepest questions by making a donation of any amount . We offer distinctive approaches to consciousness including cognitive science, phenomenology, and even the implications of aesthetics like fiction and films. We observe the richness of consciousness studies.v This episode features interviews with Judith Wolfe, Stacie Friend, Elisabeth Schellekens, and Zorana Pringle....
Apr 09, 2025•38 min•Ep. 189
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. What is extended mind? How does the mind work? It’s not obvious. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? What is extended mind? What is embodied mind? Featuring interviews with David Chalmers, Andy Clark, and Raymond Tallis.
Apr 02, 2025•27 min•Ep. 188
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. We human beings sit roughly midway between atoms and galaxies, and both must be so perfectly structured for us to exist. It's called "fine tuning" and it's all so breathtakingly precise that it cries out for explanation. To some, fine-tuning leads to God. To others, there are non-supernatural explanations. Featuring interviews with Robin Collins, Victor Stenger, Ernan McMullin, and Michio Kaku....
Mar 26, 2025•27 min•Ep. 186
In a follow-up to her seminal book, "Conscious", Annaka Harris' new audio original documentary offers beginners and experts alike a chance to unravel some of humankind’s most enduring puzzles. Where "Conscious"presents new questions about felt experience, Lights On seeks to find the answers. Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe is available for purchase now. Annaka Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundament...
Mar 19, 2025•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 185
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. Free will seems the simplest of notions. Why then is free will so vexing to philosophers? Here's why: no one knows how free will works! Science, seemingly, permits no "gaps" in which free will can operate. This episode features interviews with John Searle, Rodolfo Llinas, Eran Zaidel, Roger Walsh, Mike Merzenich, Henry Stapp, Colin McGinn, and Christof Koch....
Mar 12, 2025•27 min•Ep. 184
Help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's biggest questions with a donation of any amount. Astrophysicist and science visionary Janna Levin discusses all things cosmology: black holes, gravitational waves, the James Webb Space Telescope discoveries, early galaxies, and more. Janna J. Levin is a theoretical cosmologist and a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College. She researches black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves in the shape of spacet...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 183
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. The universe is strange and wondrous—dauntingly vast, menacingly violent, infinitely complex. The origin of the universe is equally fascinating. There are explanations, but is there a final explanation? Featuring interviews with Alan H. Guth, Andrei Linde, George F. Smoot III, Robert Spitzer, Jill Tarter, and Douglas Vakoch.
Feb 26, 2025•27 min•Ep. 182
Two notable Closer To Truth contributors—and two good friends—discuss their intellectual and spiritual journeys in what seems to be opposite directions: one toward a form of Christianity and the other away from it. Philip Goff is a British author, idealist philosopher, and professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. Specifically, it focuses on how consciousness can be part of the scientific worldview. He is the author most recently of the book W...
Feb 19, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 180
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. Cosmos and consciousness seem utterly different, the former encompassing the vast universe, the latter emerging from tiny brains. Yet consciousness founds most religions, and some cosmologists speak quietly, profoundly, about consciousness. Featuring interviews with David Chalmers, Alexander Vilenkin, David Brin, Colin McGinn, and Paul Davies....
Feb 12, 2025•27 min•Ep. 181
Make a tax-deductible donation of any amount to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions: https://closertotruth.com/donate/ Evolutionary biologist Nathan Lents argues that many of our supposedly modern ideas about gender and human sexuality are, in fact, deeply rooted in our animal ancestors. In this Chat, Lents discusses his new book, "The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships", a fascinating exploration of sexual behavior ...
Feb 05, 2025•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 179
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq We like pushing boundaries, trying to discern existence, searching the foundations of reality, knowing all that can be known. Overly ambitious? Sophomoric? WeI don't care. We do it anyway. Here are ultimate questions. Featuring interviews with Lawrence Krauss, John Leslie, Max Tegmark, and Paul Davies.
Jan 29, 2025•27 min•Ep. 178
Donate to Closer To Truth and help us keep our content free and without paywalls. What is quantum theory and why is it so strange? To know reality, one must confront the quantum. It is how our world works at the deepest level. What's the quantum? It is bizarre, defying all common sense. Featuring interviews with Wojciech Zurek, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Lee Smolin, and Seth Lloyd.
Jan 22, 2025•27 min•Ep. 177
Make a donation of any amount to help support Closer To Truth reach new audiences and continue exploring deep questions: https://shorturl.at/OnyRq Robert Lawrence Kuhn sits down with philosopher Richard Swinburne to embark on a retrospective of his views and arguments over his illustrious career. In this episode, they'll explore the problem of evil, atonement, resurrection, and more. Richard Granville Swinburne FBA is an English philosopher. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Unive...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 30 min•Ep. 176
