264 episodes

Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.

Very Bad Wizards Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro

    • Society & Culture
    • 4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.

    Episode 261: Death of the Author

    Episode 261: Death of the Author

    What’s the meaning of a work of art? Does the text mean just what the author intends it to mean? Does it matter what Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark thinks about the end of 2001? Or is the artist’s interpretation just one interpretation among many once the text is out in the world? We explore the question of authorial intent, and brace yourselves - this is just about as postmodern as David gets.
    Plus – do we have what it takes to get an invite to the thought criminals club? 
    Links
    The Party is Canceled [newyorker.com]
    Was I Wrong About The Irishman? by Thomas Flight [youtube.com]
    Authorial Intent [wikipedia.org]
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW NordVPN: Keep your internet connection safe, and enjoy streaming services when you travel abroad with NordVPN! NordVPN is the best VPN if you’re looking for peace of mind when you use public Wi-Fi, access personal and work accounts on the road, or want to keep your browsing history to yourself. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/VBW Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Promo Code: VBW

    • 1 hr 22 min
    The Scream That Never Found a Voice (Murakami's "Sleep")

    The Scream That Never Found a Voice (Murakami's "Sleep")

    David and Tamler take the first excursion into the work of Haruki Murakami and talk about his short story “Sleep.” A thirty-year-old woman, the wife of a dentist and mother of a young boy, has a terrifying dream and when she wakes up, she no longer needs to sleep. This isn’t insomnia, it’s something else – she has never felt so alive, strong, and awake. She can swim laps for an hour in the afternoon and read Anna Karenina with perfect concentration until dawn. What is this condition? Is it real? What does it tell us about her past, her sense of self, her alienation from friends, family, and her role? This is a banger of a story folks, check it out.
    Plus - if you had to say one word or sentence to distinguish yourself from an AI, what would you say?
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW Aura Frames: From phone to frame, enjoy all your memories with ease with Aura digital frames. Use code "VBW" at checkout for %30 off of their best-selling frames. Offer is good until May 14! (Just in time for Mother's Day shopping). Promo Code: VBW NordVPN: Keep your internet connection safe, and enjoy streaming services when you travel abroad with NordVPN! NordVPN is the best VPN if you’re looking for peace of mind when you use public Wi-Fi, access personal and work accounts on the road, or want to keep your browsing history to yourself. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/VBW Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards
    Links:
    One word Turing test The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

    • 1 hr 29 min
    Losing Time ("Tár" with Paul Bloom)

    Losing Time ("Tár" with Paul Bloom)

    The great Paul Bloom returns to the show to explore the many mysteries of Todd Field’s 2022 film “Tár.” Is it a ghost story? A movie about cancel culture and abuse of power? Guilt? Professional disappointment? The anxiety of getting old, losing touch with youth and reality? Reminds me of my freshman year at Smith…
    Plus – Paul gets into trouble on Twitter for saying he’s mildly pro-trigger warnings in certain cases. But is he ignoring the science???
    Special Guest: Paul Bloom.
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards
    Links:
    Paul Bloom on Twitter: "I agree with this decision-nobody should force profs to use trigger warnings. But I'm mildly pro-TW and have used them in the past. It's often basic decency to warn people--and this includes students--before exposing them to shocking material. https://t.co/ap8gxHgsp8" / Twitter Tár - Wikipedia

    • 1 hr 56 min
    Mystic Peeza

    Mystic Peeza

    David and Tamler talk about William James’ chapter on mysticism from his book "Varieties of Religious Experience." What defines a mystical experience? Why do they defy expression and yet feel like a state of knowledge, a glimpse into the window of some undiscovered aspect of reality? Is Tamler right that David has a little mystic inside of him just waiting to burst forth from his breast?
    Plus – another edition of VBW does conceptual analysis and we’re sticking with ‘c’ words – this time the definitive theory of ‘creepy.’
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards
    Links:
    The Varieties of Religious Experience - Wikipedia The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature by William James [Project Gutenberg Free e-book]

    • 1 hr 33 min
    Aural Fixation

    Aural Fixation

    David and Tamler deliver a PODCAST episode, one of many that comes from the INTERNET, that you’ll probably listen to through Air Pods or some other kind of WIRELESS HEADPHONES as you go about your day.
    (Incidentally, the topic of the episode is Marshall McLuhan on how new forms of media profoundly shape our experience and identity, but in a way that makes us focus on the content of the specific medium and not the medium itself.)
    Plus, can algorithms help to optimize our well-being, and Steven Pinker transforms his ideas into a new asset class of NFTs.
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW Support Very Bad Wizards
    Links:
    Best-Selling Author & Harvard Professor Steven Pinker Will Transform His Ideas into NFTs | Blockster I Asked an Algorithm to Optimize My Life. Here's What Happened | WIRED The Medium is the Message by Marshall McLuhan Marshall McLuhan - Wikipedia Marshall McLuhan Interview from Playboy (1969)

    • 1 hr 39 min
    The Right to Punish?

    The Right to Punish?

    Here’s an episode with something for both of us – a healthy serving of Kantian rationalism for David with a dollop of Marxist criminology for Tamler. We discuss and then argue about Jeffrie Murphy’s 1971 paper “Marxism and Retribution.” For Murphy, utilitarianism is non-starter as a theory of punishment because it can’t justify the right of the state to inflict suffering on criminals. Retributivism respects the autonomy of individuals so it can justify punishment in principle – but not in practice, at least not in a capitalist system. So it ends up offering a transcendental sanction of the status quo. We debate the merits of Murphy’s attack on Rawls and social contract theory under capitalism, along with the Marxist analysis of the roots of criminal behavior.
    Plus – the headline says it all: Blame The Brain, Not Bolsonaro, For Brazil’s Riots.
    Sponsored By:
    BetterHelp: You deserve to be happy. BetterHelp online counseling is there for you. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment. Our listeners get 10% off the first month by visiting BetterHelp.com/vbw. Promo Code: VBW ReThinking with Adam Grant Support Very Bad Wizards
    Links:
    What Neuroscience Tells Us About Insurrections | Essay Murphy, J. G. (1973). Marxism and retribution. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 217-243. Psych (with Paul Bloom and David Pizarro)

    • 1 hr 36 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
2.5K Ratings

2.5K Ratings

John Rawllie Fingers ,

What really is Absurd?

Dear Wizards,

First ever review of a Podcast so let me know if I’m doing it wrong…

Just listened to the episode and The Absurd while getting a pedicure on mushrooms. Is that absurd? I have no idea but it’s all the local meaning I need. Carry on.

The.glacier ,

Thoroughly Profane

…and consistently engrossing. The only podcast of which I never tire. If all my jackass smart friends from high school were still living in a dorm together 30 years later, the conversation might be something like this.

biased-estimator ,

5 Contingent on future episode topics

I demand Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell and the Genealogy of Morals are discussed in future episodes.

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