The Wright Show

Michael Pollan's new book, How to Change Your Mind ... Dissolving the ego via meditation and via psychedelics ... Brain, self, and personal narrative ... The underground subculture of psychedelic guides ... Michael feels the love and sees the unity (you had to be there) ... Do psychedelics validate scientific materialism or undermine it? ... Scientific vs. religious descriptions of psychedelic experience ... Why is the brain capable of psychedelic experiences? ... The future of psychedelics in research and society ...

The Hameroff-Penrose theory of quantum consciousness ... Why we'll never construct a true artificial intelligence ... The implications of quantum consciousness for free will ... Do microtubules in the brain explain consciousness? ... How quantum physics could help us understand anesthesia ... Why Stuart doesn't dismiss paranormal research ... Could quantum entanglement explain paranormal phenomena? ...

Defining transhumanism ... Why David is pessimistic about the Singularity ... Becoming happier by shifting our "hedonic set points" ... Could we phase out suffering by tackling its genetic roots? ... Can chemicals deliver enduring happiness? ... Why David has never tasted meat ... Is transhumanism a secular religion? ...

Omar critiques Wajahat Ali's controversial article on West Bank settlers ... How the Israel/Palestine conflict is covered in the media ... The Israel Anti-Boycott Act ... Bob offers a defense of Ali's article ... Has the Mideast conversation shifted in America? ... Omar sees the Boycott Israel movement growing in power ... Israeli fears of Palestinian violence and their political consequences ...

Jim's new book of essays, When Einstein Walked with Gödel ... The Platonists who believe mathematics is transcendent ... Against viewing math as transcendent ... The implications of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem ... What's so special about light? Einstein can explain ... Tachyons, the hypothetical particles that travel faster than light ... How Jim became a "rigorous dilettante" (with cameos by B.F. Skinner and Bette Midler) ...

How Wajahat got disinvited from a major Muslim conference ... The Israel-Palestine conflict: Jews vs. Muslims or Jews vs. Arabs? ... Why publishing in The Atlantic fueled the controversy ... Wajahat’s essay takes criticism from left and right ... Worst-case scenarios ... Can the international community change the equation? ... The case against Wajahat, and his response ...

Yemen-born Shireen on the civil war in her homeland ... Why is the US helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen? ... Shireen: The Saudis work with Al Qaeda in Yemen ... A brief history of the conflict in Yemen ... How the war turned Shireen into an activist ... What's the Saudi endgame? What's the Houthi endgame? ... Is the US in effect helping Al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen? ...

“The harshness of Russian law is softened by its optionality” ... Nikita’s briefly successful escape from a paddy wagon at a political rally ... It’s not always Putin who kills Russian journalists (Meet Chechnya’s leader) ... A look inside Russia’s supposedly fearsome troll factory ... Support for Putin and Russia's intimate relationship with suffering ... “Monstration”: a mock rally investigating the absurd ...

The quest to reboot the Syrian civil war ... Why toppling Assad would be a catastrophe ... How the Syrian civil war got started ... Some dubious groups the US has armed in Syria ... Assad and chemical weapons ... The reliance of western journalists on rebel PR ...

Tamler's new book, Why Honor Matters ... Why human dignity is not enough ... Collective honor vs. individual honor ... The difference between honor and courage ... In defense of fighting in sports ... Tamler explains the idea of restorative justice ... Fighting Ted Cruz by calling him dishonorable ...

Is the anti-Trump sentiment of scholars biasing their research? ... Busting demographic myths about the 2016 election ... Status threat vs. economic anxiety as sources of Trump's support ... Do liberals have a deep need to see Trump voters as creepy? ... The many strategic mistakes Clinton made ... "Negative intersectionality" as a problem for Democrats ... Musa gives Trump good odds for 2020 ... Musa: A return-to-normalcy campaign by Dems won't cut it ...

Steve's new book, Enlightenment Now, and Bob's critique ... Cognitive biases that undergird tribalism ... Bob wants to crowdfund a meditation retreat for Steve, who is uncooperative ... How Al Gore’s climate change activism may have hurt his own cause ... Is it crazy to suspect that there’s a larger purpose unfolding through the workings of nature? ... Has our growing grasp of computation and cognition made consciousness less mysterious or more so? ...

Damon wonders whether international law is hopeless ... Bob: America would be better off if it respected the UN Security Council ... How legitimate is international law? ... Damon: There's no real judicial system in international law ... United Nations 1.0 vs. United Nations 2.0 ... Why do chemical weapons outrage us in a way that bombs do not? ...

Chris’s experience as a humanist chaplain at Harvard and Yale ... Secular community with a moral tone ... Atheism, anti-theism, and humanism ... What Richard Spencer doesn’t like about the Abrahamic faiths ... Atheism and tribalism ... Atheistic fervor as a response to religious trauma ... An inspirational atheism ... Does some New Atheist rhetoric encourage bigotry? ...

Jonah's new book, Suicide of the West ... Children of the affluent who hate affluence ... Jonah criticizes the Howard-Zinnified view of history ... The problem with Alinskyite conservatives ... Capitalism and its (white conservative) discontents ... The trouble with being a measured conservative critic of Trump (i.e., being Jonah) ... Jonah’s plan for Western Suicide prevention ...