I talk with Robert A. Jensen, author of the new book Personal Effects: What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me About Caring for the Living. Over the past three decades Jensen has travelled to every major disaster you’ve heard of, and many you haven’t, to help recover bodies and the personal effects of the deceased. We discuss the importance of recovering “fragments”, the role played by local customs in his work, the politics of dead bodies, and why the British Empire buried their citizens wherever they died.

Related links:

• Jensen’s former company, Kenyon International Emergency Services

• Robert A. Jensen homepage

• Personal Effects for sale at Barns & Noble

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this solo show, I respond to a listener email about why I didn’t talk about 9/11 last episode, by talking about it way too much this episode. I reflect on my own slice of life during that moment of death, talk about freedom, tally up costs, and tell a story about an extreme tailgater. I promise you it all fits together, somehow.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this solo show, I talk about what happens when our inherently restless and looping minds do battle against multinational, multibillion dollar companies intent on addicting us to their services. Also, I discuss the milk crate challenge because I have a theory about it. This show was aired on September 11, 2021, the twentieth anniversary of  the beginning of the modern era of terror as political tool.

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

This episode was recorded in front of a live studio audience at the Key West Theatre. Vaughn Scribner is a professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas. His book, Merpeople: A Human History looks at the role played by mermaids and tritons over centuries, from ancient artifacts to Christian icons (of danger) to modern controversy about mermaid movies. The show also included music from Myles Mancuso, which you’ll hear during the breaks.

Related links:

Vaughn Scribner Homepage

Merpeople: A Human History

Myles Mancuso

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Philosopher Michael Huemer and I discuss the idea that we are bound by a social contract, as well as other issues. We compare the state to the mafia, talk about ethical intuitionism, discuss who should get to vote, and debate whether it’s actually possible to be a vegan.

Related links:

Micael Huemer’s homepage

Micael Huemer’s blog

Michael Huemer’s page at the University of Colorado

Author page at Amazon

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I speak with UCSB professor and META lab director Jonathan Schooler about some of my favorite topics, including panpsychism, multiple minds, the filter that is consciousness, and how we understand the world.

Related links:

META lab page

Jonathan Schooler profile at the META lab

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this solo episode I answer a question from a listener, that question being, essentially,  Who the hell are you? Instead of a proper reply, I tell a few stories from my past and digress a lot. Expect caffeine talk, recipes for alcoholic beverages, suggestive imagery of mountains, and in the podcast-only extra, a highly inappropriate tale that ends with a hasty exit from quasi-legal establishment.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I talk with the most iconic figure in the life extension movement, Aubrey de Grey. We discuss the current state of progress towards achieving “longevity escape velocity,” cryonics, and philosophical issues related to efforts to expand human life indefinitely.

Related links:

SENS Research Foundation

Writings and research links

TED talk from Aubrey

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Brandy Schillache and I talk about her new book, Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher: A Monkey’s Head, the Pope’s Neuroscientist, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul. Brandy tell the extraordinary story of a doctor’s quest to transplant organs, including an entire body. Along the way we discuss Russian scientists, two headed dogs, naked brains, and the nature of consciousness itself.

Related links:

+ Mr. Humble & Dr. Butcher Book

+ Brandy Schillache Homepage

+ Previous The Filter discussion about panpsychism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

I talk with writer Tim Zimmermann about a gripping story he wrote for Outside magazine. It involves deep diving in a freshwater cave and an attempt to recover a body at the bottom. Everything about the story is extraordinary, including how it ends.

Related links:

* The original story at Outside Magazine

* Tim Zimmermann’s website

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download