Michael Devitt, "Biological Essentialism" (Ox...

How do scientists reason when they posit unobservables to explain their observed results? For example, how did Watson and Crick reason that DNA had a double-helix structure when they observed Franklin’s image 51, or how did Hodgkin and Huxley reason that sodium ions carried the c ...  Show more

How can habits of racialization be affected by art, in its reception and its creation? How can a carnal aesthetics help us understand Latinx life? What if we listen to photographs? How might they undo us? Can we be undone? In Carnalities: The Art of Living in Latinidad (Duke UP, ...  Show more

In episode 107 of Overthink, David and Ellie take up a philosophical perspective on biology’s squirmiest concept: the organism. From Kant’s distinction between organisms and mechanisms, to Deleuze and Guattari’s infamous call for ‘bodies without organs,’ they uncover and quest ...

Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as an hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that some kind of consciousness is present not just in our human brains but throughout the universe, right down to cells or even electrons. This is panpsychism and its proponents argue it offers a compelling alternative to those who say we ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that some kind of consciousness is present not just in our human brains but throughout the universe, right down to cells or even electrons. This is panpsychism and its proponents argue it offers a compelling alternative to those who say we ...  Show more