philosophy

Porosity vs. Meditation

“Porosity” is a term developed by anthropologist Tanya Marie Luhrmann and psychology researcher Kara Weisman, to help understand the root of religious and spiritual beliefs. They argue that at the heart is the concept of a porous boundary between mind and world and that people in all human societies have conflicting intuitions about this boundary.

Here at Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman, Dr. Bob Duke, and Rebecca McInroy find this concept interesting and thought we would spend a little time, not only understanding it, but also complicating it, and asking, “what’s the difference between the concept of porosity and meditation?”

In this third and final episode in our three-part series on porosity, we dig into the mind-body connection.

“Porosity is The Heart of Religion”

V&B – Spinoza Today

In this episode of Views & Brews, KUT’s Rebecca McInroy joins Dr. Tracie Matysik and Dr. Gene Garver to talk about one of the most important philosophers of the 17th century.

How can Spinoza’s ideas of happiness and well-being inform our lives today? What can he teach us about ethics outside of religion? And how has his work influenced Freud, Marx, Einstein and others?

Artificial Intelligence

In this edition of In Perspective we teamed up with KUT’s Views and Brews for a discussion on various elements of and debates over Artificial Intelligence. What does it actually mean to think? How does understanding how computers work inform what we understand about the brain? And what is on the horizon for us in the world of Artificial Intelligence?

Listen back as KUT’s Rebecca McInroy discusses all things AI with: Dr Galen Strawson, philosophy professor and author of Locke on personal identity: Consciousness and Concernment; Dr. Peter Stone, professor of computer science and author of: Keyframe Sampling, Optimization, and Behavior Integration: Towards Long-Distance Kicking in the RoboCup 3D Simulation League; and novelist and poet Dr. Louisa Hall, whose latest novel Speak takes the reader through 5 decades of building an AI doll.

Jason Neulander

On this installment of The Write Up host Owen Egerton interviews and the co-creator, writer and director of the Intergalactic Nemesis, Jason Neulander. Neulander’s story is one to inspire adventurers everywhere to take just one more climb up the mountain or trip out to sea. He bravely fought the forces of rationality to go on to produce one of the most successful radio plays of our time.