Philosophy

Philosophy

Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.

A hand is pointing at a diagram illustrating the tyranny of small decisions.
Acting "little and often" has huge consequences and they're not always good — but awareness yields solutions.
Five new book covers of various genres on a colorful background.
From "The Castle of Otranto" to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, these books changed the literary landscape.
Illustration of a spacecraft, an astronaut, and a planet against a dark purple background.
35mins
Kmele talked with a planetary scientist, a physicist, and a futurist, to understand how visionaries across disciplines are thinking about the future of our planet and humankind.
Tolkien's imaginative world encompassed a square and stationary earth.
Narnia and early Middle-earth were pancake-esque — but their creators took differing views on de-globalization.
quantum gravity
For generations, physicists have been searching for a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity isn't actually quantum at all?
A monkey dressed in human clothes paints a nude human figure in a studio setting, holding a palette and brush.
31mins
Filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, rock icon Steve Albini, and comedian Fred Armisen told Kmele how they make sense of the world — and leave their mark on it.
An image of a blue nebula in space.
Your life’s memories could, in principle, be stored in the universe’s structure.
A piece of wood with words written on it, discovered near Vesuvius.
The volcano’s historic eruption preserved an ancient library, but rendered its content illegible. A public competition aims to change that.
A drawing of a man with chart in the background.
The essential element needed for innovation is creative dissonance — and the keys to unlocking it were forged by bankers in Italy.
A collage featuring detailed illustrations of an eye, nose, ear, mouth with tongue, and a hand against a light background.
43mins
Consciousness isn’t just a problem for philosophers. On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele sat down with scientists, a mathematician, a spiritual leader, and an entrepreneur, all trying to get to the heart of “the feeling of life itself.”
a visualization showing the view from inside the inner event horizon of a Kerr black hole
The brilliant mind who discovered the spacetime solution for rotating black holes claims singularities don't physically exist. Is he right?
An integrated woman's feet resting on a chair.
There are steps we can take to create a new paradigm that will help shift society's attitude towards women in the workplace.
A little boy finding lockdown compensation by reaching out to an old lady through a window.
Lockdowns moved the burden of COVID from the at-risk elderly to the less-at-risk young. Does this sacrifice merit compensation?
An old black and white photo of a man practicing phrenology on a bust.
The pseudoscience phrenology swept the popular imagination, and its practitioners made a mint preying on prejudices, gullibility, and misinformation.
A black and white photo of a building that has been destroyed in New Jersey.
"I grew up in New Jersey in the 1970s and that experience gave me everything I needed to become a skeptic."
A group of cows are grazing peacefully in a lush green field.
Hundreds of millions of animals get killed for meat every day.
Two clocks displaying the accurate time on a blue background.
Our intuitive understanding of time is very different from a physicist's understanding of time. How do we reconcile these views?
An image of a fetus in an incubator, showcasing the delicate growth process.
Stem cells from a fetus can live within the mother for decades — and help her heal.
A person wearing a paper bag with a smiley face on it, exuding an air of happiness.
Instead of fear, his delusions bring him cheer. His psychiatrist embraces them.
A man in a black suit and white shirt is smiling, unaffected by the doomer mindset.
When ancient humans stared into the darkness, they imagined monsters. Today, staring into the future, AI is the monster.