Toward a Cognitive Science of Transcendence

Understanding the nature of transcendence requires careful experimentation and innovative ways to reveal essence and tease out aspects of aesthetics. What are key characteristics of transcendence? Tracking imperceptible eye movements, or brain blood flow during mental activity, reflect neural activity, which is always ready to spring surprise.   Featuring interviews with Elisabeth Schellekens, Helen De Cruz, Kutter Callaway, Joshua Wilt, Bahador Bahrami, and Oludamini Ogunnaike.

There is an idea that shakes the core of our scientific principles: That our consciousness participates in creating our physical reality. It’s an idea that runs counter to the materialist worldview we’re all taught in school. But the outer edges of scientific inquiry bleed into what can only be called ‘magic.’ With a uniquely science-backed approach, parapsychologist Dean Radin explores the "magical" elements of consciousness including telepathy, spell casting, conjuring spirits, and more.   Radin's book, The Science of Magic: How the Mind Weaves the Fabric of Reality, is on sale now.   Dean Radin is an American parapsychologist. Following a bachelor and master's degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in educational psychology Radin worked at Bell Labs, as a researcher at Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh, and was a faculty member at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Mathematics describes the real world of atoms and acorns, stars and stairs, with remarkable precision. So is mathematics invented by humans—like chisels and hammers and pieces of music? Or is mathematics discovered—always out there, somewhere, like mysterious islands waiting to be found? Whenever mathematics is will help define reality itself.   Featuring interviews with Roger Penrose, Stephen Wolfram, Max Tegmark, David Gross, and George Lakoff.

Compare inner-life practices among diverse religions/traditions. Islamic prayer as the core of Muslim belief. Buddhist meditation calms the mind. Hindu meditation can be theistic-devotional or non-dual inner exploration. Embodied practices in Chinese traditions.     Featuring interviews with Helen De Cruz, Venerable Dr. Yifa, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Franklin Perkins, Aaron Segal, and Hamza Yusuf.

This holiday season, support Closer To Truth with a tax-deductible donation of any amount.   What is intelligence, and how is AI emergence a natural consequence of evolution? In his book "What Is Intelligence?" and in this conversation, Google's Blaise Agüera y Arcas takes up the idea that prediction is fundamental not only to intelligence and the brain but to life itself, and explores the wide-ranging implications. These include radical new perspectives on the computational properties of living systems, the evolutionary and social origins of intelligence, the relationship between models and reality, entropy and the nature of time, the meaning of free will, the problem of consciousness, and the ethics of machine intelligence.   Blaise Agüera y Arcas is a VP/Fellow at Google, where he is the CTO of Technology & Society, and the founder of Paradigms of Intelligence, an organization dedicated to fundamental AI research. He is the author of Who Are We Now?, and his research has included work on privacy-preserving machine learning, on-device AI, large language models, and human identity.

Giving Tuesday is around the corner! Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.   How do diverse religions/traditions treat the “person,” present status and afterlife future? Buddhism’s no self. Hinduism’s soul illuminating the mind. Prior lives in Eastern and African traditions. Body and soul, resurrection and judgment, in Abrahamic traditions.   Featuring interviews with Jay Garfield, Yang Xiao, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Imran Aijaz, Andrew Loke, and Swami Medhananda.

Make a donation to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.   The Ruliad is a term that Stephen Wolfram developed, which he describes as the entangled limit of everything that is computationally possible, the result of following all possible computational rules in all possible ways.   Stephen Wolfram is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his work in computer algebra and theoretical physics. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is the founder and CEO of the software company Wolfram Research, where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine.

This giving season, contribute what you can to help Closer To Truth continue exploring the world's deepest questions.     Concepts of God/deities/ultimates in diverse, non-Western religions/traditions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, African. Is God/deities a “person?” Islam’s one transcendent God. Hinduism’s many schools: personal, impersonal, both. Buddhism’s no God but many deities.     Featuring interviews with Hamza Yusuf, Mohammed Saleh Zarepour, Oludamini Ogunnaike, Swami Medhananda, Venerable Dr. Yifa, and Yujin Nagasawa.

Support the show with a tax-deductible donation of any amount so we can continue exploring the world's biggest questions without the need for paywalls.   When the long-awaited day dawns and the aliens finally arrive on Earth, they might eat us and destroy the planet―or, just maybe, they might share the secrets of the Universe with us. When that time comes, will we be able to cross the communication barrier to beg for our lives? If the aliens do hold out those precious jewels of knowledge, will we even be able to grasp them? Professor Daniel Whiteson and Warner explode what we thought we knew about talking to our cosmic neighbors―and even science itself―by asking and answering questions both lighthearted and profound.   Whiteson's book, Do Aliens Speak Physics?: And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality, is available for purchase now.

Make a donation to Closer To Truth to help us continue exploring the world's deepest questions without the need for paywalls.   What happens after we die? Is there life after death? If so, what kind of life? From heaven and hell to systems and cycles of reincarnation, we explore Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Chinese traditions, as well as Christianity.   Featuring interviews with Hamza Yusuf, Carol Zaleski, Tao Jiang, Andrew Loke, and Yujin Nagasawa.