Openen in ClueVideo's om Engels te leren109
Michio Kaku: The impending collapse of digital computing as we know it
12 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-bti-kaku-rndGPnKQYd4 Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Michio Kaku: The Universe in a Nutshell (Full Presentation) ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NbBjNiw4tk “The next revolution will be quantum computers that will make the digital computer look like an abacus.” 0:00 How quantum computers will change everything 2:13 Turning medicine upside down 4:05 Moore’s law is falling apart 6:10 The power to crack digital code 8:38 Computing on parallel universes 10:15 The winners will use quantum computers Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/quantum-computing-michio-kaku/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Michio Kaku: Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU).
Yuval Noah Harari: Why advanced societies fall for mass delusion
11 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock Yuval's full class, AI and the Future of Civilization: https://bigthink.com/my-classes/ai-and-the-future-of-civilization/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-harari-I4l1fr-t3ZE Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Yuval Noah Harari: How to safeguard your mind in the age of junk information ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1OvbwY6GPM “The problem is in our information. Humans, yes, we are generally good and wise, but if you give good people bad information, they make bad decisions.” Human history is a paradox: we accumulate knowledge at astonishing speed, while remaining vulnerable to deception, superstition, and the stories that steer entire civilizations. From the first clay tablets to today’s global media systems, the structures that carry our ideas have always shaped what societies can build, believe, and destroy. That paradox is even more important in the age of AI, says Yuval Noah Harari. 0:00 If humans are so smart, why are we on the verge of destruction? 1:45 Why is the quality of our information decreasing? 2:19 The rise of alien intelligence 14:20 How information technology shapes society 19:52 The rise of inorganic information 28:21 The importance of human institutions 37:09 Information isn’t truth Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/ftm_episode/collapse-of-truth/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Yuval Noah Harari: Yuval Noah Harari, born in Israel in 1976, is a historian and philosopher renowned for his bestselling books, including Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI. His works have sold over 45 million copies in 65 languages, establishing him as a leading public intellectual. Harari earned his PhD from the University of Oxford in 2002 and currently lectures at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 2019, he co-founded Sapienship, a social impact company focused on education and storytelling, with his husband, Itzik Yahav. His research delves into macro-historical questions, exploring the relationships between history and biology, the distinctions between Homo sapiens and other animals, and the ethical implications of science and technology in the 21st century. Harari has delivered keynote speeches at the World Economic Forum and engaged in discussions with global leaders, including Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. His influential works and public engagements continue to shape contemporary discourse on humanity's past, present, and future.
The art and science of failing well
10 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. Failure is inevitable, but your response to it is a choice – and it makes all the difference. Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Journalist Tim Harford, PhD, psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, and organizational behavior expert Robert Sutton, PhD, reveal how failure can become the foundation of success when it’s examined and built upon. Reframing failure as information, rather than a personal setback, is what sets productive thinkers apart. Read more from this interview ► https://bigthink.com/videos/the-art-and-science-of-failing-well/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description Explore the Perception Box series hub ► https://bigthink.com/perception-box/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more. https://members.bigthink.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ►Get Big Think+ for Business Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business. https://bigthink.com/plus/great-leaders-think-big/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
Why the next 25 years could surpass anything in modern memory | Peter Leyden: Full Interview
5 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Old systems of the past are collapsing, and new systems of the future are still to be born. I call this moment the great progression.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, We are living through a slowdown in human progress | Jason Crawford ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ebqoan4SE We are at a tipping point. In the next 25 years, technologies like AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are poised to reshape society on a scale few can imagine. Peter Leyden draws on decades of observing technological revolutions and historical patterns to show how old systems collapse, new ones rise, and humanity faces both extraordinary risk and unprecedented opportunity. 0:00 We’re on the cusp of an era of progress 0:37 The Great Progression 1:08 What was the ‘Long Boom?’ 4:56 How often do these epoch resets happen? 6:12 3 Tipping points 6:39 Artificial Intelligence 7:13 Clean energy technologies 7:32 Biotechnology 9:00 The 80-year cycle 13:27 The Gilded Age 17:50 The Founding Era 22:46 The new enlightenment 32:18 The clean energy revolution 37:13 Bioengineering the genome 39:43 Industrial production vs biological engineering 47:40 What will the future think? Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/great-progression-2025/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Peter Leyden: Peter Leyden is a longtime tech expert and thought leader on the future. He came to San Francisco to work with the founders of WIRED magazine at the beginning of the digital revolution and has followed the front edge of technological change every step since—including into the AI revolution today. In addition to being an influential writer and author, Leyden is a keynote speaker who has explained the implications of new technologies and the positive possibilities to come to audiences throughout America and Europe on a monthly basis over the last 25 years. Leyden also founded several startups that pioneered fields transformed by new technologies and currently advises senior leaders in strategic foresight through his company Reinvent Futures. You can read Peter Leyden's writing at http://peterleyden.com
How childhood wiring impacts adult life, in 90 minutes | Becky Kennedy: Full Interview
4 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Why would adding shame and blame help me improve my behavior?” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, How the body keeps the score on trauma ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTefkqYQz8g Parenting is often framed as a battle between discipline and chaos, but Dr. Becky Kennedy argues that the real story lives beneath the behavior we see. Kennedy traces how early relationships teach children which parts of themselves are welcome, which emotions feel dangerous, and how those lessons quietly script adult identity. 0:00 Rethinking how we learn, grow, and change 5:41 Two foundations of childhood 6:42 Behavior vs identity 10:11 How to deal with lying 12:29 Fear-based punishment and compliance 14:03 Managing emotions and early relationships 16:22 Gentle Parenting 21:54 Understanding our own “factory settings” 22:08 Attachment Theory 28:29 Internal Family Systems 39:14 Dysregulation, co-regulation 37:32 How to regulate your emotions at any age 1:12:42 Frustration tolerance 1:18:44 Rupture, repair, and Deeply Feeling Kids 1:28:28 Deeply Feeling Kids 1:36:28 4 habits that build emotional strength Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/childhood-wiring/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Becky Kennedy: Dr. Becky Kennedy is a clinical psychologist, mom of three, and founder of Good Inside. Her goal is to empower parents to feel sturdier and manage the challenges of parenting through mindfulness, emotion regulation, and internal family systems theory. She lives in New York City and can be found on Instagram @drbeckyatgoodinside.
3 challenges AI must overcome to unlock major productivity gains | Martin Gonzalez for Big Think +
3 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “I've started to think about three puzzles we need to solve for as we bring these technologies into our organizations.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The smartest people have mastered these 6 core skills ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32z8Ax1j-Q4 AI is often framed as a force that will either replace us or elevate us in the workplace, but Google’s Organization and Leadership Development Lead Martin Gonzalez argues that the real story sits somewhere far more complicated. The story is a puzzle comprising three challenges shaping the future of work: Selective upgrades that benefit some employees and hinder others, the human need for control that can undermine adoption, and the gradual drift toward isolated, AI-mediated tasks. 0:00 Teams are harder than tech 1:06 AI and transformative potential 1:19 3 puzzles to solve for 1:30 The Selective Upgrade Puzzle 4:07 The Agentic Preference Puzzle 6:42 The Self-Sufficiency Spiral Puzzle Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/ai-workplace-integration/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Martin Gonzalez: Martin Gonzalez is the co-creator of Google’s Effective Founders Project and the co-author of The Bonfire Moment.
The science of delivering cures straight to your cells | Eric Kelsic
1 dec 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Until very recently, I thought I would die with the same genome that I was born with.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5k72A30kUc&vl=en What if the genome you were born with wasn’t fixed? Eric Kelsic, CEO of Dyno Therapeutics, explains how gene therapy is moving from promise to reality, delivering treatments directly to cells and potentially curing diseases for a lifetime. 0:00 The power of genetic technology 1:17 Meet Eric Kelsic 1:31 Making gene therapy mainstream 2:26 Engineering the capsid sequence 4:34 Producing and purifying capsids at scale 7:50 Automating the analysis of patterns 9:55 Permanent cures 10:26 Zolgensma 12:19 Improving cost efficiency in gene therapy Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/gene-therapy-kelsic/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Eric Kelsic, PhD Prior to founding Dyno, Eric led a team to develop the technology underlying Dyno’s artificial intelligence powered capsid engineering platform in George Church’s lab at the Wyss Institute of Harvard Medical School. There he measured the first comprehensive fitness landscape of the adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid protein and co-discovered the AAV MAAP gene. He earned a PhD in Systems Biology from Harvard University and a BS in Physics from Caltech. Under Eric’s leadership Dyno has raised over $100M in VC financing, including a 2021 Series A led by a16z and signed partnership with world-leading gene therapy companies (Novartis, Sarepta, Roche, Spark and Astellas). Dyno was named Xconomy’s 2020 Startup of the Year and Eric was recognized as one of Endpoint’s 20 under 40 next-gen biotech leaders in 2021.
How one psychedelic trip can alter an entire lifetime | Matthew Johnson: Full Interview
28 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fi-johnson-U_sFWG5WFjo “Psychedelics crosscut so many interesting domains. They've been used for time immemorial by indigenous cultures. In our own Western cultural history, they really exploded on the scene in the 1960s, and were associated with radical changes to society.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Are drugs really frying your brain? | Dr. Carl Hart ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90MHZbXrmY0 Psychedelic research is enjoying a renaissance. Matt Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins, is at the forefront of the movement to redefine our understanding of the mind and its interaction with these powerful substances. As psychedelic compounds steadily enter the sphere of clinical trials, Johnson's groundbreaking research underscores their potential to bring about a paradigm shift in psychiatry, neuroscience, and pharmacology. 0:00 Meet Dr. Matthew Johnson 0:25 Why are psychedelics unique among drugs? 3:42 What does the term ‘psychedelic’ mean? 7:40 What is hallucinogen vs. entheogen vs. psychedelic? 13:46 The first wave: Hofmann, Leary, and the CIA 18:54 Are psychedelics legal? 21:39 What are the main effects of psychedelics? 24:28 How do psychedelics work in the brain? 39:57 Are psychedelics dangerous? What is the link to schizophrenia? 48:43 What are the biggest risks of psychedelics? 50:42 How do “all arounders” get to the core of psychiatric disorders? 54:48 What is the role of a guide in a psychedelic session? 58:22 What is the focus and impact of your research? 1:03:44 What really amazes you in your research? 1:09:54 Why are we in a psychedelic renaissance? 1:17:09 What are some pitfalls of psychedelic medicine? Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/psychedelic-drugs-101/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Matthew Johnson: Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., is The Susan Hill Ward Endowed Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins. Working with psychedelics since 2004, he is one of the world’s most widely published experts on psychedelics. He has published research on psychedelics and mystical experience, personality change, tobacco smoking cessation, cancer distress treatment, and depression treatment. In 2021 he received as principal investigator the first grant in 50 years from the US government for a treatment study with a classic psychedelic, specifically psilocybin in treatment of tobacco addiction. He is also known for his expertise in behavioral economics, addiction, sexual risk behavior, and research with a wide variety of drug classes. He’s been Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, Fox News, Fox Business News, BBC and in Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind.
The strongest arguments for and against the existence of God | Alex O'Connor: Full Interview
27 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “I think that there are very good arguments to believe that there are some kind of foundational principle of the universe, some necessarily existing being, some first cause.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, How to grow deeply happy | Jonny Thomson ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WShJeNX7W8 Instead of treating belief as a private preference, philosopher Alex O’Connor examines how our moral positions shape institutions, obligations, and the ways we justify our choices. His arguments invite a closer look at why we hold certain principles, and whether those principles survive contact with their real-world consequences. 00:00 The lure of meaning 01:15 The strongest arguments for and against the existence of God 03:38 Hierarchical causes and borrowed causal power 06:33 Sustaining causes and necessity of foundation 10:04 How classical thinkers framed the first cause 14:27 Suffering as the challenge to God 17:42 Between classical theism, deism, and atheism 20:58 Understanding nihilism and the human condition 24:36 Self-justifying motives and meaning 28:00 Meaning in a materialist world 31:41 Ecclesiastes and the first nihilist 36:38 Why stories explain what logic can’t 48:55 Emotion’s grip on belief 54:20 How emotivism shapes ethics 1:05:18 Where morality meets emotion Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/first-cause-argument/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Alex O'Connor: Alex O’Connor, also known as Cosmic Skeptic, is an English public speaker and content creator recognized for his work on philosophy, ethics, religion, and secularism. He hosts the podcast Within Reason
Why you should see the world like a large language model | Dan Shipper: Full Interview
21 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “What's really interesting about neural networks is the way that they think or the way that they operate is a lot like human intuition” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Yuval Noah Harari: How to safeguard your mind in the age of junk information ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1OvbwY6GPM What if we could use automation not just as a tool, but as a mirror for our own human behaviors? From the limits of rationalism to the rise of neural networks, Dan Shipper, CEO and co-founder of Every, traces a history of knowledge that spans Socrates, the Enlightenment, and modern machine learning. Shipper explains why “if/then” rules break in messy reality, and how large language models actually see the world through context and pattern. He explores how AI can work with our own creativity and why these tools are unlikely to steal our humanity. Explore more of Dan's work by reading an excerpt of his forthcoming book here: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/where-explanations-end 0:00 Neural networks and human intuition 1:13 The limits of rationalism, from Socrates to neural networks 1:23 Rationalism 2:42 Socrates, the father of Rationalism 5:47 The Age of Enlightenment 7:36 The structure of social sciences 8:51 Defining AI 9:47 The origins of AI 10:39 The General Problem Solver 15:09 Neural networks 18:22 Metaphors for the mind 23:00 Seeing the world like a large language model 30:25 Should we stop looking for general theories? 32:22 Training neural networks 39:32 Will AI steal our humanity? 43:43 AI and rational explanation 47:17 Could LLMs be dangerous? 51:12 Knowledge economies and allocation economies Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/human-intuition-ai/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Dan Shipper: Dan Shipper is the CEO and cofounder of Every, where he explores the frontiers of AI in his column, Chain of Thought, and on his podcast, ‘AI & I.’
How two superpowers built fundamentally different futures | Dan Wang and Kmele Foster
20 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “China has built essentially one New York City plus a Boston's worth of housing every single year for roughly the last 30 years.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5k72A30kUc What does it mean to witness a society transform at breakneck speed? Kmele Foster and Dan Wang explore the contrasts between the U.S. and China. Through the lens of immigration, culture, and personal experience, they reveal how policies and national ambition have redefined these two global superpowers. 0:00 China’s rapid progress 7:17 China’s first-tier city wealth boom 11:02 The contrast between China and the U.S. 12:50 American elites as lawyers 17:33 Chinese innovation and competition 21:00 “Made in China” 22:37 American manufacturing challenges 24:56 Autocratic societies and innovation 28:06 One of China’s biggest challenges 31:22 U.S. Tariffs and the trade war 38:06 Law students and the federal government 43:28 The benefit of a lawyerly society 51:37 U.S. and China's futures © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every major leap in human progress has this in common | Jason Crawford: Full Interview
19 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Progress happens when we choose to make it happen. It happens through choice and effort. And ultimately, to make progress happen, we have to believe in it.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, We are living through a slowdown in human progress | Jason Crawford ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ebqoan4SE Humanity’s progress is neither automatic nor inevitable – from the printing press to the Industrial Revolution, and today’s digital age, every leap in technology has reshaped what’s possible for our civilization. Jason Crawford traces the history and philosophy behind these breakthroughs, revealing the forces that drive innovation and the risks that come with unchecked advancement. 0:00 The philosophy of progress 2:17 The idea of progress throughout history 2:52 Francis Bacon 4:30 The Gutenberg printing press 6:38 The Industrial Revolution 8:47 The end of wars? 9:17 After the world wars of the 20th century 11:58 The idea of progress 14:38 Material progress and the human experience 15:01 The technologies of progress 15:38 Agricultural advancements 16:43 Sources of power 18:36 Energy 19:12 Medicine 20:58 Transportation 26:15 Why does the pace of progress accelerate? 29:03 The future of progress 32:55 Has progress slowed down in the last 50 years? 33:36 The regulatory apparatus 34:12 Organizing scientific research 34:46 Loss of confidence and ambition Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/the-philosophy-of-progress/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jason Crawford: Jason Crawford is the founder of The Roots of Progress, where he writes and speaks about the history of technology and the philosophy of progress. He is also the creator of Progress Studies for Young Scholars, an online learning program for high schoolers; and a part-time adviser and technical consultant to Our World in Data, an Oxford-based non-profit for research and data on global development. Previously, he spent 18 years as a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder. From 2013–2018, he was co-founder & CEO of Fieldbook, a hybrid spreadsheet-database. He has also been an engineering manager at Flexport, Amazon, and Groupon, and a co-founder or early employee at other startups. Before that, he was a research engineer at D. E. Shaw Research, working on a new supercomputing architecture for computational biochemistry. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
How big tech is censoring LLMs
18 nov 2025
This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @TempletonFoundation. Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch all of Mchangama's interviews ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_B7bI1QVmJBpGqPZQP1mSFrN1Rfy0CR5 What happens when the technology mediating nearly all our information begins to decide what speech is acceptable? Free speech scholar Jacob Mchangama warns that AI’s growing role in search, email, and word processing means its hidden biases could shape freedom of thought itself. With his team at the Future of Free Speech, Mchangama ran an experiment that tested 268 prompts against popular LLMs and found that the results often reflected inconsistent standards. According to Mchangama, this shows why ownership of AI models matters, since their values, incentives, and pressures ultimately shape public access to information. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/when-ai-self-censors/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description_bigthink ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jacob Mchangama: Jacob Mchangama founded and leads The Future of Free Speech, is a research professor at Vanderbilt, and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). A prolific commentator and author on free speech and human rights, he created the podcast “Clear and Present Danger” and wrote the 2022 book “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About The Well Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let's learn from them. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Well on your favorite platforms: ► Facebook: https://bit.ly/thewellFB ► Instagram: https://bit.ly/thewellIG
We are living through a slowdown in human progress | Jason Crawford
17 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “People got skeptical, fearful, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.” To learn more about Jason's upcoming book, visit: https://technohumanist.org/ Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5k72A30kUc Have we begun to lose faith in the future? The idea of ‘progress’ didn’t truly exist throughout the majority of human history. Most ages didn’t see history as an upward curve – they saw history as cyclical, full of ups and downs. This belief only shifted around the 1500s, says Jason Crawford, founder of The Roots of Progress and the author of The Techno-Humanist Manifesto. The idea that progress would automatically continue became widespread, until the first World War shattered the illusion that technology would bring peace and cooperation. Out of this rose a counterculture concern that modernity was a mistake, that progress itself was the problem. But was it? Are we now moving backwards? How can we regain trust in pushing forward? 00:00 Was modernity a mistake? 00:45 The history of progress 02:02 Francis Bacon 03:33 The Industrial Revolution 06:07 A period of optimism 07:25 Technology and world wars 08:29 The cost and risks of progress 11:46 What our future can bring Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/is-progress-inevitable/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jason Crawford: Jason Crawford is the founder of The Roots of Progress, where he writes and speaks about the history of technology and the philosophy of progress. He is also the creator of Progress Studies for Young Scholars, an online learning program for high schoolers; and a part-time adviser and technical consultant to Our World in Data, an Oxford-based non-profit for research and data on global development. Previously, he spent 18 years as a software engineer, engineering manager, and startup founder. From 2013–2018, he was co-founder & CEO of Fieldbook, a hybrid spreadsheet-database. He has also been an engineering manager at Flexport, Amazon, and Groupon, and a co-founder or early employee at other startups. Before that, he was a research engineer at D. E. Shaw Research, working on a new supercomputing architecture for computational biochemistry. He has a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Why the body doesn't keep the score: the real science of trauma in 90 mins I George Bonanno
14 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “There are at least three very much interrelated misconceptions about trauma right now.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 We may think that trauma leaves irreversible scars, reshaping our brain and emotional regulation permanently. The science, however, shows the opposite, says psychologist George Bonanno. Our biology is much more resilient than we give it credit for. Bonanno dismantles common myths surrounding trauma and PTSD, and shares a practical mindset shift to navigate difficult experiences. 0:00 Rethinking trauma 01:07 The human capacity for resilience 04:33 Potentially traumatic vs. just really hard 09:28 Four pathways after adversity 15:45 How our brains encode trauma and shape our memories 26:20 The resilience paradox 31:27 The flexibility sequence 37:00 Why flexibility matters for healing 50:41 The history of PTSD 1:00:54 The psychology of grief 1:03:31 How the brain processes loss Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/myths-of-trauma/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About George Bonanno Dr. George Bonanno is a professor of psychology, chair of the department of counseling in clinical psychology, and director of the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab at Teachers College Columbia University. He’s the author of The Other Side of Sadness and The End of Trauma.
How evolution works | Sean B. Carroll
13 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Chance invents and natural selection propagates that chance invention.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The mind-bending probability of our existence | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hOjpxNHgQc Evolution doesn’t create with intent: it begins with error. Random mutations, filtered through time and circumstance, give rise to the astonishing order of the natural world. Evolutionary biologist Sean B Carroll explains how chance and chaos operate as life’s quiet architects. 0:00 Evolution starts with error 0:44 The staircase of evolution 2:30 The speed of adaptation 3:14 The randomness of mutation 4:12 Icefish, antifreeze, and clear blood 6:43 Speciation 8:27 If humans evolved from apes, why are apes still around? 9:20 Our records of evolution 11:26 Evolution and the origin of life Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/error-and-evolution/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Sean B. Carroll: Sean B. Carroll is an award-winning scientist, author, educator, and film producer. He is Distinguished University Professor and the Andrew and Mary Balo and NIcholas and Susan Simon Chair of Biology at the University of Maryland, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was formerly Head of HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, and led the Department of Science Education from 2010-2023. He is also Professor Emeritus of Genetics and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin. An internationally-recognized evolutionary biologist, Carroll's laboratory research has centered on the genes that control animal body patterns and play major roles in the evolution of animal diversity. In recognition of his scientific contributions, Carroll has received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences, been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and elected an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. His latest book is A Series of Fortunate Events.
How to break the hidden limits of expertise | Atul Gawande for Big Think+
12 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member and watch Atul Gawande's full class: https://bigthink.com/my-classes/true-ingredients-of-successful-leadership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “The purpose of a coach is to not be the one to set the goals, but instead to say, "Here are the kinds of goals we can work our way through.”” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The smartest people have mastered these 6 core skills | Michael Watkins for Big Think+ ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32z8Ax1j-Q4 Atul Gawande has spent his career studying how professionals improve, and why most eventually hit a plateau. At this point, even the most skilled experts need a coach to reveal their blind spots, as true expertise hinges on having the humility to keep learning once success arrives. Gawande explores the paradox of mastery: the point at which experience becomes limitation, and the only path forward is to let someone else see what you can’t. 0:00 How professions approach skill improvement 1:10 The Federer Mindset 2:22 Recognizing why coaches matter 3:46 Getting ongoing feedback 6:23 Agree on development goals Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/skill-plateau/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Atul Gawande: Atul Gawande, MD, MPH is a renowned surgeon, author, and public health leader whose work explores how humans design and improve systems for better outcomes in complex environments. He is Professor of the Practice of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and holds the John and Cyndy Fish Chair in Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He also serves as Distinguished Professor in Residence at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for health systems innovation at Brigham and Women’s and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, which he co-founded and formerly chaired. From January 2022 to January 2025, he served as Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID. Gawande also co-founded Lifebox, a nonprofit organization making surgery and anesthesia safer worldwide. From 2018-2020, he was CEO of Haven, the Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase healthcare venture. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, Gawande is the author of the best-selling books Complications (a National Book Award finalist), Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal. He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science.
The illusion of shared reality | Anil Seth & Jonny Thomson
10 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Consciousness is fundamental. It's a fundamental property of the world that we inhabit, a fundamental property of the universe.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, How to grow deeply happy | Jonny Thomson ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WShJeNX7W8 What does it mean to be conscious, and why does it feel like something to be you? Neuroscientist Anil Seth argues that consciousness isn’t a mysterious spark but a deeply biological process, one that depends on prediction, perception, and the body’s constant negotiation with the world. In this conversation with philosopher Jonny Thomson, he explores how our brains don’t passively observe reality, but rather actively construct it. 0:00 Non-human consciousness 1:40 The current state of consciousness science 2:10 What is consciousness? 4:05 The similarity of conscious experiences 5:48 Consciousness in the brain 11:23 Technology for measuring consciousness 16:03 Measuring consciousness levels 20:33 Pragmatic physicalism and functionalism 23:25 Pansychism 28:25 Emergence 32:35 AI and consciousness 36:49 The difference between non-human animals and AI 41:49 Is artificial consciousness possible? 48:12 Consciousness in the body and outside the brain Consciousness in the future and AI 50:27 Audience Q&A 50:41 Could computers could simulate the brain and body? 59:55 Why are you skeptical about asserting the dependency of life to the consciousness? 1:03:31 If consciousness is so clinical, does it undermine free will? Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/science-of-consciousness/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Anil Seth: Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than 20 years. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. About Jonny Thomson: Jonny Thomson taught philosophy in Oxford for more than a decade before turning to writing full-time. He’s a columnist at Big Think and is the award-winning, bestselling author of three books that have been translated into 22 languages. Jonny is also the founder of Mini Philosophy, a social network of around two million curious, intelligent minds. He's known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.
Sean Carroll: Einstein’s most radical thought
7 nov 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-bti-carroll-rT7DMb3ZucU “The messy reality of it is that all of these very smart people, including Isaac Newton, were talking to other people.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Watch Sean Carroll's Full Interview with Big Think ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TBNJyztai0 Albert Einstein altered the way we think about reality itself, and we often think of him as the most important physicist. But even his breakthroughs were part of a larger, tangled conversation among scientists stretching from Aristotle to Maxwell to Minkowski. Sean Carroll, physicist and philosopher at Johns Hopkins University, traces how the universe emerged not from solitary genius, but from centuries of dialogue, error, and correction. 0:00 Einstein — underrated? 1:00 The network of genius 1:16 Classical mechanics 1:48 Space and time 2:21 Electromagnetism 2:59 The speed of light 4:20 Spacetime 5:38 Special theory of relativity 6:31 Inverse square law of gravity 7:56 General theory of relativity 9:07 Schwarzschild solution 10:12 Quantum field theory 13:22 Quantum mechanics 16:16 Why physics is a conversation Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/sean-carroll-einstein/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Sean Carroll: Dr. Sean Carroll is Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy — in effect, a joint appointment between physics and philosophy — at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and fractal faculty at the Santa Fe Institute. Most of his career has been spent doing research on cosmology, field theory, and gravitation, looking at topics such as dark matter and dark energy, modified gravity, topological defects, extra dimensions, and violations of fundamental symmetries. These days, his focus has shifted to more foundational questions, both in quantum mechanics (origin of probability, emergence of space and time) and statistical mechanics (entropy and the arrow of time, emergence and causation, dynamics of complexity), bringing a more philosophical dimension to his work.
Your life’s most important moments are flukes, not fate | Brian Klaas
6 nov 2025
“When you start to accept that you have profound influence on the world, but very limited control, you start to see the world differently.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, We control nothing, but we influence everything | Brian Klaas: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtn2Wxai-ug We like to believe that everything happens for a reason. But what if that belief is a comforting illusion? Political scientist Brian Klaas argues that randomness, not reason, drives much of human life. The stories we tell ourselves about cause and effect aren’t reflections of truth, rather, they’re coping mechanisms to make chaos feel like order. 0:00 The limits of control 0:30 Does everything happen for a reason? 1:58 Science and chaos 2:27 Religion and the scientific revolution 4:23 Making sense of patterns 6:56 “The delusion of individualism” Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/myth-of-fate?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more. https://members.bigthink.com/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ►Get Big Think+ for Business Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business. https://bigthink.com/plus/great-leaders-think-big/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Brian Klaas: Dr. Brian Klaas is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London, an affiliate researcher at the University of Oxford, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He is also the author five books, including Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters (2024) and Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us (2021). Klaas writes the popular The Garden of Forking Paths Substack and created the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, which has been downloaded roughly three million times. Klaas is an expert on democracy, authoritarianism, American politics, political violence, elections, and the nature of power. Additionally, his research interests include contingency, chaos theory, evolutionary biology, the philosophy of science and social science, and complex systems. In addition to Fluke and Corruptible, Klaas authored three earlier books: The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy (Hurst & Co, 2017); The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy, (Oxford University Press, 2016) and How to Rig an Election (Yale University Press, co-authored with Professor Nic Cheeseman; 2018).
Not all gratitude is created equal. A psychologist explains
4 nov 2025
This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @TempletonFoundation. Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch all of Schnitker’s interviews ► https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_B7bI1QVmJD3Txt76o1eObfk0ICzrVWD Gratitude connects us, but how we express it might matter more than we think. Baylor professor of psychology and neuroscience Sarah Schnitker explores how practicing gratitude can lead to stronger relationships and greater well-being. Her lab found that gratitude expressed through prayer may offer even more benefits than journaling or speaking it aloud, and that feeling connected to something larger may help combat today’s growing loneliness. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/how-gratitude-changes-you/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description_bigthink ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Sarah Schnitker: Dr. Sarah Schnitker, PhD, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University and Director of the BRIGHTS Center, researches virtue development in youth. Specializing in patience, self-control, and gratitude, she has 100+ publications, $10M in grants, and mentors doctoral students in science and virtue. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About The Well Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let's learn from them. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Well on your favorite platforms: ► Facebook: https://bit.ly/thewellFB ► Instagram: https://bit.ly/thewellIG
The greatest revolution in the history of medicine | Andrew Steele
3 nov 2025
“Over the last 10 or 15 years, scientists have really started to understand the fundamental underlying biology of the aging process. And they broke this down into 12 hallmarks of aging.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Why 2025 is the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5k72A30kUc We track age by the number of birthdays we’ve had, but scientists are arguing that our cells tell a different, more truthful story. Our biological age reveals how our bodies are actually aging, from our muscle strength to the condition of our DNA. The gap between these two numbers may hold the key to treating aging – which could help save 100,000 lives per day and win us $38 trillion dollars. 00:00 Rethinking longevity 01:27 Understanding aging 02:58 Biological age and epigenetics 04:29 New frontiers in longevity science 08:04 Future possibilities and ethical questions 10:24 The moral debate around living longer Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/aging-science-steele/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Andrew Steele: Dr. Andrew Steele is a scientist, writer and campaigner based in Berlin, author of Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old, and Director and Co-Founder of The Longevity Initiative.
Hollywood lied to you about Ancient Rome. Here’s the truth | Mary Beard: Full Interview
31 okt 2025
“Everyone's image of [Ancient Rome] is based on modern movies. In some ways, I think those were rather impressive, but they got some things terribly wrong.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Would you survive a week in Ancient Rome? | Mary Beard: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxtxmG_H-To We've inherited the history of Ancient Rome through movies, ruins, and shallow stories. The truth is far messier, says classicist Mary Beard. The hidden side of Roman life that screens rarely capture is chaotic; crowded streets teeming with Romans whose everyday lives were shaped by social hierarchies and familial obligations. Mary Beard unpacks what archaeology, literature, and even shoes tell us about the Romans’ daily lives. From the role of slaves in dressing elites to the rowdy crowds at chariot races, she shows how we’ve underestimated their complexity. If you'd like to see Mary Beard discuss these ideas live, go to: https://www.instantclassicspod.com/events 0:00 You’re picturing Ancient Rome all wrong 1:22 Mary Beard: scholar of Ancient Rome 20:41 The Roman triumph: the greatest celebration of all time 40:27 The Romans who shaped the world 41:25 Augustus 45:46 Virgil 47:22 Julius Ceasar 48:42 Cincinnatus 50:53 The Gracchii brothers 53:27 Marcus Tullius Cicero 55:19 Emperor Nero 57:45 Tacitus 1:06:01 Understanding “The Odyssey” Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/myth-truth-ancient-rome/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Mary Beard: Winifred Mary Beard, OBE, FBA, FSA is an English Classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and Royal Academy of Arts professor of ancient literature. She is also the classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement, and author of the blog, "A Don's Life," which appears in The Times as a regular column. Her frequent media appearances and sometimes controversial public statements have led to her being described as "Britain's best-known classicist."
How accepting impermanence can end the struggle to “fix” your life | Robert Waldinger
30 okt 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “The idea is that we move from a place of wanting the world to conform to what we like [towards] not needing other people to be different from who they are.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, 3 powerful mind states: Flow state, good anxiety, and Zen Buddhism ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvHne-U4lcw Most of us feel we have miles to go with self improvement. That we want to become calmer, wiser, more finished. What if this pursuit actually keeps us trapped from that becoming? Zen teacher and psychiatrist Robert Waldinger argues that enlightenment isn’t a destination or a rare mystical state. Rather, it's the ever-shifting recognition of the present moment. This quiet state of noticing, Waldinger says, can be extremely liberating, freeing us from the pressure of becoming. 0:00 Everyday Zen: mindfulness, impermanence, and compassion 0:45 Zen and community 2:52 Awakening 3:28 Impermanence 5:44 The Four Noble Truths 10:14 Having a beginner’s mind 15:22 The concept of enlightenment Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/zen-101/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Robert Waldinger: Robert Waldinger, MD is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, a practicing psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and a Zen teacher and practitioner. For the last two decades, Waldinger has been the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. This study, conducted over more than 85 years, has analyzed the entire lives of 724 families to determine the activities, behaviors, and dynamics that enhance a person’s life-long well-being. Waldinger has dedicated his career to examining these elements and discovering what brings true fulfillment to human existence. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.
You’ll never escape life's problems. Why that’s actually liberating | Oliver Burkeman for BT+
29 okt 2025
Become a Big Think member and watch Oliver Burkeman's full class: http://bigthink.com/my-classes/productivity-for-mortals/ Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, Why you’ll never “get on top of everything” | Oliver Burkeman for Big Think+ ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LMaT4rUdG4 Most of us are quietly waiting for our life’s problems to subside. We feel that after “solving” them, everything will be perfect, and we’ll achieve complete happiness. In actuality, learning to live in the problems that come our way can make us happier, and expecting a frictionless life actually causes more strife for us. Journalist Oliver Burkeman reframes challenges as the path to a more meaningful life. Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/ftm_episode/the-problem-trap/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive content, early, ad-free access to new releases, and more. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Explore content that enlightens, inspires, and transforms. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Get Big Think+ for Business Engage learners like never before with high-impact video microlearning from the biggest thinkers in the world. https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Oliver Burkeman: Oliver Burkeman is a bestselling author and journalist. He is best known for Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021), a self-help book on reframing productivity for happiness. He also publishes The Imperfectionist, an email on productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment.
The investment traps that destroy wealth and how to avoid them with Barry Ritholtz | Full Interview
24 okt 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Let me walk you through the biggest traps that you should be aware of that are a danger to your financial wellbeing.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The most powerful way to think about money ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugIuHWc6Nuc You probably think investing is about markets and strategy, but Barry Rithotz argues that it’s actually about biology. Our brains evolved to spot danger, not to manage portfolios, and the instincts that once kept us alive now push us towards panic and greed. That same wiring that told our ancestors to run from predators now tells modern investors to sell at the bottom. 0:00 Why your brain makes you a bad investor 2:28 Using our brains in ways they weren’t built for 3:57 Cognitive biases that derail investing 6:52 Emotional Bias 8:22 Gamestop and speculative bets 10:22 Narrative fallacy 12:01 Overconfidence bias and the Dunning-Kruger effect and 12:44 Confirmation bias 14:56 Conformity bias 16:25 Loss aversion 17:47 Anchoring 18:41 Tribal bias 20:19 Recency bias 23:51 Investing is a loser’s game. Here’s how to win 24:28 “The Loser’s Game” 27:28 2% of stocks are responsible for all returns 30:21 The odds against you picking successful stocks 31:52 Maximizing your ability to compound 32:02 Automate 33:03 Diversification 34:23 Costs 37:48 Rebalancing 39:54 Ignoring forecasts 42:15 Market timing 44:29 How financial media sets investors up for failure 46:06 The attention economy 46:55 What is margin debt? 48:03 How negative media influences our investments 50:30 Denominator blindness 54:07 Key qualities in financial media 56:35 Social media and investing Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/barry-investing-mistakes/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive content, early, ad-free access to new releases, and more. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Explore content that enlightens, inspires, and transforms. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Get Big Think+ for Business Engage learners like never before with high-impact video microlearning from the biggest thinkers in the world. https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Barry Ritholtz: Barry L. Ritholtz is co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC. Launched in 2013, RWM is a financial planning and asset management firm, with over $6.4 billion dollars in assets under management. RWM was named ETF Advisor of the Year, is on the Financial Times Top 300 Advisors in the US, and is the 4th fastest-growing RIA in America. His career history is filled with cutting-edge innovation and influential new ideas: He was one of the earliest traders to embrace behavioral economics, he created one of the first and most popular market blogs; his podcast was groundbreaking and among the earliest in the investment spaces. Named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the United States, he has been called one of the 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media. He writes a weekly column for Bloomberg Opinion (2013- 2021) and wrote a twice-monthly column on Personal Finance and Investing for The Washington Post (2011-2016). His latest book, “How Not To Invest: The ideas, numbers, and behaviors that destroy wealth – and how to avoid them” was published on March 18, 2025.
What the absence of aliens on Earth really tells us | David Kipping
23 okt 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc “Deep down the natural endpoint of this whole goal of looking for planets is to answer the question: are we alone?” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The great quest for extraterrestrial life | David Kipping Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI0cvzQiuvI Astronomer David Kipping explores humanity’s oldest question: if the universe is vast and ancient, why haven’t we found anyone else in it? He argues that our longing to discover another Earth often clouds our reasoning, and that the greatest challenge in the search for life isn’t technology, but temptation. 0:00 Are we alone? 1:19 The Drake equation 2:08 The problem with the Rare Earth hypothesis 2:56 What is life? 5:55 The Copernican principle 7:08 The weak anthropic principle 8:57 The Kardashev scale 10:58 Hart’s Fact A 15:49 How often does simple life become complex? 17:45 Using biosignatures and technosignatures to find alien life 21:01 Our past quests for alien life 23:10 The difficulty in proving a negative Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/search-alien-life/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive content, early, ad-free access to new releases, and more. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Explore content that enlightens, inspires, and transforms. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Get Big Think+ for Business Engage learners like never before with high-impact video microlearning from the biggest thinkers in the world. https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About David Kipping: David Kipping is an Associate Professor of Astronomy at Columbia University and the founding director of the Cool Worlds Laboratory, where he leads groundbreaking research on exoplanets, exomoons, and the search for extraterrestrial life. As a pioneer in the detection of moons around planets outside our solar system, his work has been published in prestigious scientific journals and has significantly advanced our understanding of distant planetary systems. Kipping employs sophisticated statistical methods to analyze data from NASA's Kepler and TESS missions, extracting subtle signals that reveal the properties of these distant worlds. Beyond academia, he created and hosts the popular Cool Worlds YouTube channel, which has attracted over 750,000 subscribers through its accessible explorations of cosmic frontiers and speculative astronomy. After receiving his PhD from University College London and holding positions at Harvard University, Kipping has established himself as a respected researcher who effectively bridges rigorous scientific investigation with compelling public science communication.
The backwards logic of censorship
21 okt 2025
This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @TempletonFoundation. Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch Mchangama's next interview ► Even AI is self-censoring. Here's why that matters. https://youtu.be/Cz-EOCb1pKA Historian and free speech advocate Jacob Mchangama explains how suppressing voices often has the opposite effect. From the crucifixion of Jesus fueling Christianity to Barbra Streisand accidentally amplifying photos of her Malibu mansion, attempts at censorship often strengthen what they aim to silence. Mchangama argues that while free speech can be messy and ugly, it remains essential to preserve its many benefits. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jacob Mchangama: Jacob Mchangama founded and leads The Future of Free Speech, is a research professor at Vanderbilt, and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). A prolific commentator and author on free speech and human rights, he created the podcast “Clear and Present Danger” and wrote the 2022 book “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About The Well Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let's learn from them. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Join The Well on your favorite platforms: ► Facebook: https://bit.ly/thewellFB ► Instagram: https://bit.ly/thewellIG
Why 2025 was the single most pivotal year in our lifetime | Peter Leyden
20 okt 2025
Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=membership&utm_content=bt-ytdesc-text-fti-leyden-w5k72A30kUc "We're living in an extraordinary moment in history. We are at a moment here in 2025 where we have world historic game-changing technologies now starting to scale." Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The alarm bells are sounding for young men. Will we listen? | Richard Reeves ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnA98N6CjBg We are living through the collapse of the old world, and the quiet construction of a new one. From artificial intelligence and clean energy to bioengineering and digital governance, the core systems that defined the last century are rapidly being dismantled and replaced. But this isn’t just about technology. According to futurist Peter Leyden, we’re at a historic turning point: One of the rare moments in American and global history when everything gets reimagined at once. 0:00 An extraordinary moment in history 1:05 Wired magazine 2:09 Technology adoption curve 2:53 80 year cycles 3:26 Post-war era 5:08 Gilded age 6:59 Founding era 8:24 The arrival of AI 9:42 The rise of clean energy 10:52 The rise of bioengineering 13:45 The beginning of a shift References: Article: Ziegler, M. S.; Trancik, J. E. Re-Examining Rates of Lithium-Ion Battery Technology Improvement and Cost Decline. Energy Environ. Sci. 2021, 14, 1635–1651. DOI: 10.1039/D0EE02681F URL: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/artic... Dataset: Ziegler, M. S.; Trancik, J. E., 2021, "Data series for lithium-ion battery technologies", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/9FEJ7C, Trancik Lab Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:sVT2vBwWolbQL4BxsTSDUg== [fileUNF] Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/great-inflection-2025/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive content, early, ad-free access to new releases, and more. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Explore content that enlightens, inspires, and transforms. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Get Big Think+ for Business Engage learners like never before with high-impact video microlearning from the biggest thinkers in the world. https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Peter Leyden: Peter Leyden is a longtime tech expert and thought leader on the future. He came to San Francisco to work with the founders of WIRED magazine at the beginning of the digital revolution and has followed the front edge of technological change every step since—including into the AI revolution today. In addition to being an influential writer and author, Leyden is a keynote speaker who has explained the implications of new technologies and the positive possibilities to come to audiences throughout America and Europe on a monthly basis over the last 25 years. Leyden also founded several startups that pioneered fields transformed by new technologies and currently advises senior leaders in strategic foresight through his company Reinvent Futures. Get more on all of this on his websites: http://peterleyden.com and https://peterleyden.substack.com/
The science of romantic love, explained by an anthropologist | Helen Fisher
17 okt 2025
“No matter what their gods were, what they did for a living, what they wore, the songs they sang, everything varies except love, and everybody loves.” Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The science of sex, love, and attachment | Dr. Helen Fisher: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAaaBevtT4 From the beginning of humanity, cultures and societies vary in tradition, religion, art, philosophy, and customs. One constant that remains unchanging? The essential need for love and partnership. Dr. Helen Fisher explains the drive for love from an anthropological perspective, exploring the science of attraction, heartbreak, rejection, and how our dopamine factories send us on lifelong quests to find “the one.” 0:00 The origins of romantic love and attachment 02:53 Love across cultures and time 04:39 The evolutionary roots of love 07:45 Discovering the brain in love 10:00 What the brain reveals about love 12:05 Love and addiction Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/the-big-think-interview/universality-of-love/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Member Get exclusive content, early, ad-free access to new releases, and more. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Explore content that enlightens, inspires, and transforms. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Get Big Think+ for Business Engage learners like never before with high-impact video microlearning from the biggest thinkers in the world. https://bigthink.com/plus/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Helen Fisher: Helen E. Fisher, Ph.D. biological anthropologist, was a Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, and a Member of the Center For Human Evolutionary Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. She wrote six books on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery and divorce, gender differences in the brain, the neural chemistry of romantic love and attachment, human biologically-based personality styles, why we fall in love with one person rather than another, hooking up, friends with benefits, living together and other current trends, and the future of relationships — what she called: slow love.
