- 1 hour 29 minutes#166 Are Plants Conscious? - Michael Pollan
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Michael Pollan is an American journalist and the first Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer at Harvard University.
Get A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness.
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) North America Tour
(0:20) The Solar Eclipse
(2:56) What Is It Like To Be A Plant?
(14:52) Are Neurons Overrated?
(19:15) Is This All Complete Nonsense?
(20:59) The Strange Behaviour of Plants
(26:37) Consciousness by Negation
(37:31) Does Matter Or Consciousness Come First?
(44:09) What Do Humans Have That Plants Don’t?
(54:25) Do Plants Feel Pain?
(56:52) Is Feeling the Basis of Consciousness?
(01:06:45) Is Consciousness Falsifiable?
(01:17:41) Where Does Awareness Come From?
(01:22:15) Are Psychedelic Experiences Real?
(01:24:59) What is Everybody Getting Wrong About Consciousness?
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27 September 2026, 6:13 pm - 1 hour 44 minutes#165 Buddhist Emptiness Explained - Jan Westerhoff
Get all sides of every story and be better informed at https://ground.news/AlexOC - subscribe for 40% off unlimited access.Come to my North American tour this November: https://www.alexoconnor.com/p/tour.Jan Westerhoff is a German philosopher and orientalist with specific interests in metaphysics and the philosophy of language. He is currently Professor of Buddhist Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religion of the University of Oxford.Get Jan Westerhoff's books here.TIMESTAMPS:0:00 Nāgārjuna, The “Second Buddha”6:03 The Middle Way9:16 Ontological Nihilism20:00 Are Madhyamaka Buddhists Nihilists?38:56 How Emptiness Escapes Causal Arguments for God45:40 Preempting Immanuel Kant?50:37 Emptiness1:10:07 How to Escape Suffering1:16:54 Visualising Emptiness1:20:30 Is Consciousness Empty?1:34:28 Reality Without SubstanceCONNECT:My Website: https://www.alexoconnor.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cosmicskepticFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/cosmicskepticInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/cosmicskepticTikTok: @CosmicSkepticThe Within Reason Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/16wUbvDT95dxzpG2KEhakK?si=3196e07690bb489dCONTACT:Business email: [email protected] enquiries: [email protected]
31 August 2026, 2:19 pm - 2 hours 14 minutes#164 The Chosen Creator: Putting Words in Jesus' Mouth?
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Dallas Jenkins is an American film and television director, writer and producer. He is best known as the creator, director, co-writer and executive producer of The Chosen, the first multi-season series about the life of Jesus of Nazareth.
LINKS:
Watch the trailer for season six of The Chosen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nymMxV88QyY&feature=youtu.be
Season six premieres November 15th on Prime Video, with three episodes at launch and new episodes weekly through December 6th. And the story doesn't end on streaming — the season finale arrives as a feature film, exclusively in theaters, on March 12th, 2027.
Follow The Chosen:
https://www.thechosen.tv/en-us
https://www.instagram.com/thechosentvseries/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thechosentv?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/InsideTheChosen
https://www.youtube.com/@TheChosenSeries
Follow Dallas: https://www.facebook.com/DallasJenkinsOfficialhttps://www.instagram.com/dallas.jenkins/https://www.youtube.com/@DallasJenkinsOfficial
TIMESTAMPS:
(00:21) What is The Chosen’s Purpose?
(04:01) Is It Appropriate to Embellish the Story of Jesus?
(14:05) Harmonising the Gospel Accounts
(36:40) Do Actors Sometimes Theologically Disagree?
(48:02) Controversial Additions to the Show
(56:14) Why Didn’t Jesus Heal Little James?
(01:14:47) Depicting Judas Iscariot
(01:33:25) The Women of The Chosen
(01:40:37) Stories Left Out of the Show
(01:46:58) Watching The Chosen As an AgnosticCONNECT:
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9 August 2026, 5:32 pm - 1 hour 48 minutes#163 Religion is an Obligation - Ross Douthat
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Ross Douthat is an American journalist who is a correspondent for the CBS News program 60 Minutes. Prior to joining CBS, he was a conservative columnist at The New York Times, a senior editor at The Atlantic, and film critic for National Review. He has written on religion, politics, and society.Get "Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious": https://amzn.to/4fw2bIJ
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Is Religious Belief An Obligation?
(17:44) Pantheism vs Theism
(23:35) The Connection Between Mind and Universe
(43:32) The Fine-Tuning Argument
(49:18) The Problem of Evil
(1:06:26) Is Belief in God Enough?
(1:20:53) Animal Suffering
(1:34:37) Is Heaven Hierarchical?CONNECT:
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31 July 2026, 10:49 pm - 51 minutes 6 seconds#162 Two Million Subscriber QnA
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TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) – Intro
(0:18) – My YouTube Watch History
(01:33) – What Do I Want to Be Remember For?
(10:13) – Will I Do a PhD?
(13:06) – Warzone
(13:28) – How Many Philosophers Does It Take to Screw in a Light Bulb?
(14:14) – My Music Channel
(14:30) – My Career if I Wasn't a YouTuber
(15:49) – Things I Struggle With
(17:58) – Favourite Beatles Song?
(19:20) – Daily Life and Episode Prep
(23:09) – Favourite Debate?
(27:17) – Which Country Do I Want to Visit?
(27:30) – Which Country Do I Never Want to Visit?
(28:09) – Which Person from History Would I Want to Talk To?
(31:47) – Who Am I a Fan Of?
(32:18) – Favourite Sport and Club?
(39:25) – Favourite Dish and Beverage?
(40:23) – What Is One Thing You Regret?
- CONNECT
My Website: https://www.alexoconnor.com
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The Within Reason Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/16wUbvDT95dxzpG2KEhakK?si=3196e07690bb489d
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30 July 2026, 8:17 am - 57 minutes#161 What’s the Point of Going Back to the Moon? Chris Hadfield -
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Chris Hadfield is a retired Royal Canadian Air Force colonel, test pilot, and CSA astronaut. As the first Canadian to perform extravehicular activity in outer space, he has flown two Space Shuttle missions and also served as commander of the International Space Station. Get Chris's book Final Orbit.
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Have We Lost Interest in Space Travel?
(3:56) What Is There To Learn In Space?
(12:01) Is Space Exploration National Or Global?
(18:00) Will Civilians Need Training To Go To Space?
(22:35) The Psychological Challenges of Space Exploration
(26:28) Are Astronauts Thrill Seekers?
(34:33) Writing Fiction As An Astronaut
(42:58) How Chris Became a Novelist
(50:32) The Biggest Risk Chris Has Ever Taken
(53:09) How Chris Tackles Fear
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15 July 2026, 5:43 pm - 2 hours 20 minutes#160 Every Theory of Consciousness - Robert Lawrence Kuhn
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Robert Lawrence Kuhn is an American public intellectual and investment banker. He is also an author, television producer, columnist and commentator, especially on topics related to China. Kuhn is the creator of the PBS series @CloserToTruthTV .View the Landscape of Consciousness Map here.
TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) The Landscape of Consciousness Map
(16:32) Materialism
(26:58) What Counts As Materialism?
(45:12) The Difference Between Panpsychism and Materialism
(49:36) What’s the Difference Between Panpsychism and Idealism?
(58:12) Idealism and Monism
(1:03:51) Do All These “Theories” Really Differ?
(1:08:40) Dualism and Property Dualism
(1:20:30) Are Psychedelic Experiences Significant?
(1:32:02) The “Challenge” Category
(1:42:36) Quantum Theories of Consciousness
(1:47:57) Integrated Information Theory
(2:01:53) Theological Approaches to Consciousness
(2:15:33) How Theory of Mind Brings Us Together
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2 July 2026, 6:31 pm - 1 hour 24 minutes#159 Aristotle: The World's Greatest Philosopher?
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John Sellars is a Reader in philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, a visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Member of Wolfson College, Oxford. His books include Lessons in Stoicism, The Fourfold Remedy, Aristotle and his work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Get John Sellars' books here.
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) What’s So Great About Aristotle?
(03:06) Actuality and Potentiality
(12:59) Forms: Aristotle vs Plato
(20:02) The Four Causes
(25:16) Evolution and Final Causation
(29:40) Did Aristotle Believe In God?
(32:38) The Unmoved Mover
(38:58) The Soul (Is Not What You Might Think)
(48:51) How Aristotle Invented Formal Logic
(55:54) The Nicomachean Ethics
(01:15:56) Ethics as Descriptive
(01:21:04) Where To Start With Aristotle
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25 June 2026, 10:35 pm - 2 hours 7 minutes#158 Could Consciousness Be an Illusion?
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Keith Frankish is a British philosopher specialising in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of cognitive science.
Read Keith's essay, "Illusionism as a theory of consciousness" (2016).
Find Keith's website here.
Keith Frankish and Philip Goff co-host a channel 'Mind Chat', where they debate panpsychism versus illusionism, and explore cutting-edge thought on consciousness: / @mindchat
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Is Consciousness An Illusion?
(4:02) Do We Have a Private World?
(10:00) The Nature of Visual Experience
(20:13) Is Awareness Behavioural?
(28:17) Isn’t Introspection Itself a Private Experience?
(33:04) Philosophical Zombies
(43:05) What Motivates Illusionism?
(50:02) Psychedelics and the Dissolution of the Self
(59:23) Why Are Philosophers Always Categorising?
(1:10:31) Does Alex’s Triangle Exist?
(1:21:40) Is Pain Just a Reaction to Stimulus?
(1:49:05) Is Pain an Emergent Phenomenon?
(1:55:52) What Illusion Is Actually Happening?
(1:59:07) Can AI Be Conscious?
CONNECT
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18 June 2026, 7:11 pm - 1 hour 4 minutes#157 How a Blind Man Sees the World - Tommy Edison
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@TommyEdisonXP is a blind YouTuber and radio presenter. He got his start online as the “Blind Film Critic”, reviewing movies despite being unable to see them, and thereby offering a unique angle on their storytelling.
TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) Being a Blind YouTuber
(2:03) How Do You Understand Blindness If You Are Blind From Birth?
(4:26) Being Blind in School
(7:20) Tommy’s Early Life
(12:11) Has Life Become More Accessible For the Blind?
(19:35) How Vision is Embedded in Our Language
(21:35) How Does A Blind Person Watch A Movie?
(25:40) What Does Tommy Know About Colour?
(27:51) Mary’s Room
(32:16) Can A Blind Person Play Video Games?
(35:39) The Questions People Are Too Afraid to Ask
(41:42) How Does A Blind Person Understand Attractiveness?
(44:27) What Can We Make More Accessible?
(48:24) Why Electric Cars Aren’t Best For Everyone
(51:33) Is Offering Help Patronising?
(54:35) What Can Tommy Do That People Think He Can’t?
(58:32) Why Tommy Chooses Joy
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8 June 2026, 9:43 pm - 1 hour 17 minutes#156 Mysticism: The Heretics Who Got Too Close to God - Simon Critchley
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Simon Critchley is a British philosopher, author and professor at The New School in New York. He is best known for his work on existentialism, mysticism, ethics and continental philosophy, and is the author of books including The Book of Dead Philosophers, Faith of the Faithless and Mysticism. Get Simon's book Mysticism here.
TIMESTAMPS:
(7:52) What is Mysticism?
(18:58) Unification With the Divine
(29:58) Mysticism and the Self
(40:38) Why Are So Many Mystics Women?
(48:41) The Limits of Language
(59:54) Was Pascal a Mystic?
(01:03:21) Where Does Simon Stand on Mysticism?
(01:11:22) Where Should We Start With Learning About Mysticism?
(01:15:36) Imagery in Simon’s Book
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26 May 2026, 5:51 pm - More Episodes? Get the App