Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ philosophy of mind and cognitive science • neuroscience of consciousness, qualia, pain, attention • AI and language models, neural networks, simulation/mind uploading • metaphysics of time, physics foundations • transhumanism, immortality, religion/Buddhism, naturalism
This podcast features wide-ranging conversations at the intersection of philosophy of mind, cognitive science and neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and the metaphysical foundations of physics. Hosted by philosophy professors, it approaches classic philosophical problems—especially consciousness—from an explicitly naturalistic perspective, often testing intuitions against what psychology, brain science, and computational models might imply. Recurring questions include what it takes for a mental state to be conscious, how attention and awareness relate, and whether higher-order theories can explain the qualitative character of experience. Pain, perception, the nature of the self, and the possibility of unconscious or illusory aspects of experience are treated as live philosophical and scientific topics.
A major thread is the relation between minds and machines. The show examines neural networks, image-generating and language-model systems, and broader debates about connectionism, representation, and whether purportedly “human” capacities might be understood as language-driven or functionally characterizable processes. These discussions connect to transhumanist themes such as mind uploading, digital afterlives, technological immortality, and the ethical status of simulated beings, alongside questions about personal identity and prudential self-concern under radical transformation.
Another core focus is time and physics-informed metaphysics. The podcast explores disputes over presentism versus eternalism, four-dimensionalism, and thought experiments involving spacetime “worms,” counterpart theory, and the relationship between physical information and paradox. Cosmology and fundamental physics topics—entropy, the arrow of time, quantum interpretations, fine-tuning, and Boltzmann brains—appear as part of an effort to see how far philosophical explanation can go and where scientific theorizing might “bottom out.”
The show also brings in broader worldviews and lived practices, including engagements with Buddhism, meditation, psychedelics, hypnosis, and near-death experiences, as well as examinations of religion (including Christianity and Mormonism) in relation to naturalism and empiricism. Across themes, the style leans on argument, conceptual analysis, and imaginative thought experiments, sometimes drawing on science fiction and popular culture to frame issues about mind, reality, and the future of humanity.
|
Episodes:
|
Episode 40: Crungus Among Us (with Alex Kiefer)
2022-Jul-15
|
Episode 39: Complicated Moist Robots (with Tarik LaCour)
2022-Jun-28
|
Episode 38: The Spirit of the Senses Session
2022-Jun-15
|
Episode 37: Rainbow in the Dark (with Jacob Berger)
2022-May-24
|
Merch!
2022-May-16
|
Episode 36: NeuroYogacara (with Bryce Huebner)
2022-May-11
|
Episode 35: Consciousness and Funky Content
2015-Oct-31
56 minutes
|
Episode 34: Awareness, Attention, and Globally Accessible Information
2015-Oct-16
56 minutes
|
Episode 33: The Philosophy of Mind of Pain (with David Pereplyotchik)
2015-Sep-15
108 minutes
|
Episode 32: Technological Immortality and Secular Hell
2015-Sep-01
72 minutes
|
Episode 31: Future Philosophy
2015-Aug-15
61 minutes
|
Episode 30: Singularity Cinema: Ex Machina and Advantageous
2015-Jul-31
68 minutes
|
Episode 29: The Rise and Fall of Phizzy Callizm and the Spiders From Mars
2015-Jul-15
72 minutes
|
Station Identification
2015-Jul-04
|
DIY Inceptionism
2015-Jul-03
|
Episode 28: Psychedelic Artificial Neural Networks
2015-Jul-01
61 minutes
|
Episode 27: Pains and Brains (with David Pereplyotchik)
2015-Jun-15
101 minutes
|
Episode 26: Your Digital Afterlives (with Eric Steinhart)
2015-Apr-15
101 minutes
|
Episode 25: Leaning Into the Linguistic Turn (with David Pereplyotchik)
2015-Mar-18
108 minutes
|
Episode 24: Fading Qualia
2015-Mar-01
96 minutes
|
Episode 23: Transhumanist Hot Tub (w Ken Williford)
2015-Feb-15
81 minutes
|
Episode 22: Time Shuffling, Finger Sausages, and a Brain Made out of Paper.
2015-Feb-01
86 minutes
|
We successfully uploaded three hours of consciousness to our YouTube channel
2015-Jan-27
|
Episode 21: Three Men and a Baby Universe (with Sean Carroll)
2015-Jan-16
98 minutes
|
Coming This Winter
2015-Jan-07
|
Episode 20: Paradoxes of Physical Information
2015-Jan-01
88 minutes
|
Episode 19: Fun, Pain, and Ontology (with Eric Kaplan)
2014-Dec-14
93 minutes
|
Episode 18: Truth and Naturalism
2014-Nov-30
51 minutes
|
Episode 17: Memory, Emotion, and Consciousness (with Joe LeDoux)
2014-Nov-15
90 minutes
|
Episode 16: Singularity and Sociopathy (with Roger Williams)
2014-Nov-01
92 minutes
|
Episode 15: Supernature (with Roger Williams and Gregg Caruso)
2014-Oct-15
69 minutes
|
MindChunk: Don't Torture Your Norns
2014-Oct-10
|
Episode 14: Eternalism Versus Presentism (with Brit Brogaard)
2014-Oct-01
86 minutes
|
LOL WUT
2014-Sep-24
|
MindChunk: How do you know you're not a zombie?
2014-Sep-22
|
Episode 13: Neurophilosophy and Consciousness (with Brit Brogaard)
2014-Sep-15
56 minutes
|
MindChunk: Spacetime Worms
2014-Sep-08
|
MindChunk: The Brain Is Finite
2014-Sep-06
|
Episode 12: The Fourth Dimension
2014-Sep-01
60 minutes
|
Station Identification
2014-Aug-28
|
Coming this fall on the SpaceTimeMind podcast
2014-Aug-28
|
Do check out our RequestBucket
2014-Aug-25
|
Moon
2014-Aug-24
|
Apes
2014-Aug-24
|
MindChunk: Uplift or Downgrade?
2014-Aug-22
|
Episode 11: Scientism
2014-Aug-14
100 minutes
|
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ride the Blue Jellyfish
2014-Aug-13
|
MindChunk: Time Consciousness and the Problem of the Unopened Einstein Book
2014-Aug-09
|
Consciousness as an M-Property
2014-Aug-08
|
SpaceTimeMind The Movie
2014-Aug-08
|
The SpaceTimeMind RequestBucket
2014-Aug-05
|
Who is the lowest turtle?
2014-Aug-03
|
Episode 10: All Up In the Global Workspace of Consciousness (with Bernard Baars)
2014-Aug-01
99 minutes
|
Debunking the Quantum Mind
2014-Jul-30
|
Cram for Consciousness
2014-Jul-28
|
MindChunk: Metaphysical Impasse and Existential Threat
2014-Jul-23
|
Episode 9: A Journey to the Edge of Hypertime
2014-Jul-15
66 minutes
|
Temporal Metaphysics The Musical
2014-Jul-14
|
More Roger Williams on Hannibal
2014-Jul-11
|
Consciousness and Biology
2014-Jul-10
|
Are You Afraid of the Negative Time Delay Circuit?
2014-Jul-09
|
Episode 8: Alien and Machine Minds (with Eric Schwitzgebel)
2014-Jun-28
73 minutes
|
Lord of Lightning, Eric Schwitzgebel
2014-Jun-26
|
Zombie Fight!
2014-Jun-23
|
The Unger Games
2014-Jun-17
|
Episode 7: The Illusion of Free Will (with Gregg Caruso)
2014-Jun-13
91 minutes
|
Joseph LeDoux on Memory, Emotion, and Consciousness
2014-Jun-12
|
Brit Brogaard on the Metaphysics of Time and the Neurophilosophy of Consciousness
2014-Jun-11
|
Just Like Superheroes, Philosophers Have Origin Stories
2014-Jun-11
|
On the Phenomenology of Conscious Thought
2014-Jun-09
|
You've Been McGurked
2014-Jun-06
|
Fields Are Awesome
2014-Jun-06
|
Don't Torture Your Norns
2014-Jun-05
|
Sci-Fi Author Roger Williams
2014-Jun-04
|
Hey, You Put Our Podcast In Your Webcomic
2014-Jun-03
|
Knowledge Is Poo-Poo
2014-Jun-02
|
Episode 6: The Extended Mind (with Lara Beaty)
2014-May-29
97 minutes
|
Another Bonkers Craze-Balls Cinematic Trailer by Dr. Brown
2014-May-29
|
Advice to Graduate Students
2014-May-27
|
Tweeting Sweetly
2014-May-25
|
Professor, what are MindChunks?
2014-May-23
|
18 Guests You Won't Believe Are Actually Upcoming
2014-May-23
|
SpaceTimeMind on Very Bad Wizards
2014-May-22
|
Scientism
2014-May-22
|
Consciousness, Computational Pythagoreanism, & Explanation
2014-May-19
|
Episode 5: Transhumanism and Existentialism
2014-May-15
94 minutes
|
"Transcendence" Official Featurette - What Is Transcendence?
2014-May-14
|
SpaceTimeMinders Interviewed In 3:AM Magazine
2014-May-12
|
Bigger Than Infinity
2014-May-09
|
Transhumanism & Existentialism
2014-May-08
|
Bernard J. Baars and the Global Workspace Theory of Consciousness
2014-May-07
|
On Philosophy TV Again
2014-May-05
|
Episode 4: Death and Logic (with Eric Schwitzgebel)
2014-Apr-28
96 minutes
|
Upcoming Guests
2014-Apr-25
|
Theme Song Music Video
2014-Apr-19
|
Follow us on Facebook
2014-Apr-18
|
Free this week: Philosophy of Cognitive Science at Oxford UP
2014-Apr-16
|
Episode 3: Consciousness explained (?) part 2: The nature of explanation
2014-Apr-14
50 minutes
|
Second trailer for SpaceTimeMind
2014-Apr-11
|
Episode 2: Consciousness explained (?) part 1: Computational Pythagoreanism
2014-Apr-06
49 minutes
|
