• Ep146 "Who Counts as Human in Your Mind?" with Lasana Harris
    Mar 23 2026

    When do you view another person like an object? This is what neuroscientists mean when they talk about de-humanization: your brain doesn't crank up its social circuitry to understand the other person as having a mind like you do. Is dehumanization a cause of violence, or the fuel that keeps it burning? Do people who view themselves as highly empathetic dehumanize more than others? And on the flip side, why do we sometimes think chatbots or robots are people with interior minds? Will kids raised with AI grow up to fight for AI rights? Today we dive deep into how your brain sees others with social neuroscientist Lasana Harris.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 8 mins
  • Ep145 Why do we compulsively click on ragebait? with Angele Christin
    Mar 16 2026

    Do algorithms shape our lives? What did clickbait look like before the internet? Why do journalists start writing differently when metrics are introduced? What does any of this have to do with cooking pasta in the bathtub, the actress  Sarah Bernhardt, or Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year? Join Eagleman with sociologist Angele Cristin to learn how algorithms invisibly sculpt our behavior.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Ep144 "How do things last?" Part 2: Millennia with Alexander Rose
    Mar 9 2026

    What is a 10,000 year clock? What is the Y10k bug? What allows some organizations to last a millennium? What do ancient ceramics have to do with ball bearings in satellites? What does any of this have to do with bristlecone pine trees, cymbals, or an extant hotel that launched in the sixth century? Join today for thinking about ourselves on a 10,000 year timescale with guest Alexander Rose.

    Show more Show less
    56 mins
  • Ep143 "How do things last?" Part 1: neurons to civilizations
    Mar 2 2026

    What makes things last, and what do very different lasting things have in common? Why might a space alien not be able to understand music? Why do windows in medieval cathedrals look thicker at the bottom, and what does this reveal about the world’s religions? What was the most important weapon in ancient history, and how did it disappear? Join today for the story of persistence, from sharks to schizophrenia to Roman concrete to DNA.

    Show more Show less
    44 mins
  • Ep142 "Do breakthroughs require rule-breakers?" with Eric Weinstein
    Feb 23 2026

    Why do revolutionary ideas so often come from outsiders? Do good scientists sometimes crowd out great ones? Do we still have room for scientific cowboys? And what is the relationship between national security and modern science? Are scientists participants in a larger game they barely see? What if the most important ideas are the ones you’re not allowed to hear about? From Crick and Watson to nuclear bombs and AI, today we’ll cover it all with physicist, mathematician, and iconoclast Eric Weinstein.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 33 mins
  • Ep141 "What do brains and weather systems have in common?" with Nicole Rust
    Feb 16 2026

    Does brain science need a new grand plan? Is the brain less like an assembly line and more like a weather system? What does this mean for what counts as explanatory, and how might AI help us in the near future? What does any of this have to do with how the drug Ritalin got its name? Today we’ll speak with neuroscientist Nicole Rust, author of Elusive Cures.

    Show more Show less
    37 mins
  • Ep140 "How does your brain decide what’s true?" with Sam Harris
    Feb 9 2026

    Why do we believe what we believe? Why is changing our opinions so difficult, and why does a challenged belief so often feel like a personal attack? What if beliefs didn’t evolve to be true, but to be socially useful? Today we speak with Sam Harris about the topic of our beliefs: how we see the world and what we take to be true about it.

    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 21 mins
  • Ep139 "What does alignment look like in a society of AIs?" with Danielle Perszyk
    Feb 2 2026

    Is intelligence a property of individual brains, or is it something that emerges from many brains trying to align with one another? How can we build AI agents to improve our understanding of the world and to mediate between rivaling humans? For this and much more, we speak today with Danielle Perszyk, a cognitive scientist who leads the human-computer interaction team at Amazon’s AGI Lab.

    Show more Show less
    58 mins