Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman iHeartPodcasts

Why do you sometimes feel that you trust this person but not that one -- for reasons you can't quite put your finger on? What signals does the brain vacuum up in your daily life, and what fraction of those does your conscious mind have access to? When does intuition steer us wrong? And what is the future of intuition, as we build new technologies to take the myriad signals racing around in the dark of our brains and bodies and bring them to light? Join Eagleman and his guest, cognitive neuroscientist Joel Pearson, to unpack when to trust and when to ignore the signals of intuition.

Why do we believe our own truths so strongly? What is steel-manning, and why is it so important? What does any of this have to do with F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Keats, or the future of our society? This week's episode deals with polarization and what we might do about it. Join Eagleman and his guest Isaac Saul, who works to represent different points of view in his newsletter Tangle -- all in the name of the intellectual humility that can blossom from grappling with conflicting ideas.

How do brains picture things internally, and how might you and I imagine differently? How have recent discoveries completely changed the debate and the way we understand internal experience? What does this have to do with Disney's Fantasia, or Pixar's aphantasia? Strap in for some very wild surprises today about our internal experiences, with guest Ed Catmull, founder of Pixar Studios. 

From a neuroscience point of view, what is creativity? How does it shine light on the current lawsuits over large language models and whether they produce anything fundamentally new... or are simply remixing the old? How do the arts expose something important about what's happening in the human brain? What do we know about the cultural evolution of ideas? And what does any of this have to do with how cell phones got their names, and why koala bears don’t write novels? Join Eagleman and his guest, composer Anthony Brandt, as they uncover the surprises about creativity.

Can we measure a lie from a blood pressure test, or pedophilia from a brain scan? And how should a judge decide whether the technology is good enough? What does this have to do with Ronald Reagan, or antisocial personality disorder, or how the television show CSI has impacted courtrooms? Today’s episode lives at the intersection of brains and the legal system. When are new neuroscience techniques allowed in courts, and when should they be?

David is taking his birthday week off and wanted to re-share this episode due to it's ongoing relevance.

Modern AI is blowing everyone’s mind. But is it intelligent like humans, or is it just playing impressive statistical games? Could AI reach or exceed our level of intelligence, and how would we know when it gets there? Traditional tests for intelligence (Turing test, Lovelace test, etc) have long been surpassed, so Eagleman proposes a new kind of test.