
RSam Podcast
Philosophy & Theory | AI & CogSci
Latest episodes

Nov 20, 2024 • 1h 35min
Pietro Mazzaglia: Embodied AI and Alternatives to LLMs
Dr Pietro Mazzaglia is a Senior Machine Learning Researcher at Qualcomm Research Netherlands. He did his PhD at Ghent University, Belgium, with the dissertation title "Efficient Learning Strategies for Embodied Intelligence." Dr Mazzaglia's main research areas are embodied AI, robotics, world models, and deep reinforcement learning. In this episode, we discuss embodied AI, the gap between neuroscience and AI research, multimodal foundation world models, computational phenomenology, the ARC-AGI, drawbacks of LLMs, and general artificial intelligence.
You can find more of Dr Mazzaglia's work at https://mazpie.github.io/
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #57
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://mazpie.github.io/#research
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11023-023-09638-w
https://arcprize.org/arc
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
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Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Nov 16, 2024 • 1h 48min
Why German Idealism? (w/ Christopher Satoor)
Christopher Satoor is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in the Department of Humanities at York University. His research focuses on the Classical German philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries and the German idealist philosophies of Kant and Fichte, with an extra special concentration on the work of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. He is also the creator of the #TheYoungIdealist series on Classical German Philosophy on YouTube. In this episode, we discuss all things Kantian philosophy and German Idealism.
You can find more of Christopher's work at https://yorku.academia.edu/ChristopherSatoor and https://x.com/aufgehenderRest
The Young Idealist: https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungIdealist
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #56
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://epochemagazine.org/56/the-influence-of-plato-on-schellings-living-cosmos-the-timaeus-the-freedom-essay-and-ages-of-the-world/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4333304-bruno
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo16835785.html
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
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Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Nov 10, 2024 • 1h 41min
Michael Potter: The Rise of Analytic Philosophy
Prof Michael Potter is Professor of Logic at Cambridge and a Life Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. He was previously at Oxford, where he took a D.Phil. in pure mathematics and was a Fellow of Balliol College. Prof Potter has authored multiple books on Frege, Wittgenstein, set theory and analytic philosophy, including 'Wittgenstein's Notes On Logic', 'Set Theory And Its Philosophy' and 'The Rise of Analytic Philosophy.' His primary research interests focus on Wittgenstein's Tractatus, the philosophy of set theory, neo-Fregean logicism and philosophy of language. In this episode, we discuss Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Frank Ramsey, Kurt Gödel, the nature of logic and the rise of analytic philosophy.
You can find more of Prof Potter's work at https://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/people/teaching-research-pages/potter
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #55
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://youtu.be/-4O4hUwcpDw?si=TPORXhPXu4nEVxkD
https://www.routledge.com/The-Rise-of-Analytic-Philosophy-1879-1930-From-Frege-to-Ramsey/Potter/p/book/9781138015142
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
---------------------------------------
If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Nov 8, 2024 • 1h 46min
Cadell Last: Systems, Subjects and a Hegelian Philosophy of Science
Dr Cadell Last is an anthropologist and Hegelian philosopher who is interested in biocultural evolution, mind-matter relations, and speculative futures. His PhD thesis, Global Brain Singularity, focuses on all three of these topics. He is the author of Systems and Subjects, Enter the Alien, and many other interdisciplinary books. Dr Last has taught multiple courses on Hegel's Science of Logic, Sigmund Freud's Unconscious, Alenka Zupančič's What IS Sex? and is also the founder of Philosophy Portal, an education platform focused on teaching the foundational philosophical discourses of the modern world. In this episode, we discuss systems theory, foundations of science and subjectivity through continental philosophy apropos Hegel, Heidegger, Lacan and Žižek.
You can find more of Dr Last's work at https://philosophyportal.online/ and https://www.youtube.com/@PhilosophyPortal.
Systems & Subjects: https://philosophyportal.online/systems-subjects
Global Brain Singularity: https://philosophyportal.online/global-brain-singularity
Logic for the Global Brain: https://philosophyportal.online/logic-for-the-global-brain
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #54
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com
---------------------------------------
{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-023-01688-z
https://youtu.be/aiBnR2gSik8?si=WiDngyy3Cy7B-OtN
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
---------------------------------------
If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Nov 3, 2024 • 1h 52min
Katherine Everitt: Quantum Mechanics, Psychoanalytic AI, and a Hegelian Ontology of Space
Katherine Everitt is a Hegelian scholar, philosopher, writer, poet and artist. Katherine is a Research Fellow at the Global Center for Advanced Studies in Dublin and a Secondary Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her PhD, 'Hegel in Vertigo: An Ontology of Space,' was supervised by Frank Ruda at the European Graduate School. Reading Hegel with Badiou and Zizek, she argues that space is the indifferent ground of logic, nature, and spirit in Hegel's Encyclopedia. In this episode, we discuss the philosophy of quantum mechanics, space and the void, subjectivity and the gap, psychoanalysis and AI, vertigo and Katherine's Hegelian ontology of space.
You can find more of Katherine's work at https://linktr.ee/katherineveritt and https://x.com/katherineveritt.
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #53
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
Email me if you want to read Katherine's thesis 'Hegel in Vertigo: An Ontology of Space'.
https://youtu.be/vSeug7ROyRQ?si=3WvQ8sV2-zGcLqSp
https://youtu.be/VhgIaTJ6kzM?si=uC9IY2kSA0PcADci
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
---------------------------------------
If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Oct 31, 2024 • 1h 37min
Does Capitalism Lead to Scientific Innovation? (w/ Vlasta Sikimić)
Dr. Vlasta Sikimić is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Science and a member of the Philosophy and Ethics group at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her research focus is on the Social Epistemology of Science, Metascience, Philosophy of AI & ML in Science and Philosophy of AI in Education. In this episode, we discuss the relationship between science and capitalism.
You can find more of Dr Sikimić's work at https://vlastasikimic.com/ and https://x.com/VlastaSikimic
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #52
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Please consider financially supporting my work (ONLY if you have the means).
Patreon: https://patreon.com/trsam?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com
---------------------------------------
{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
SFP: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rahul-samaranayake
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://substack.com/@trsam/
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://link.springer.com/collections/dbjicbfcda
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371982028_The_Immortal_Science_of_ML_Machine_Learning_the_Theory-Free_Ideal
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13194-022-00478-6?
https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-knowledge-machine-9780141981260
{Music Used}
"Supapao - Can't Fall In Love" is under a Free To Use YouTube license https://soundcloud.com/supapao
Music powered by BreakingCopyright
---------------------------------------
If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Sep 25, 2024 • 2h 4min
Nikhil Venkatesh: Left-Utilitarianism and Socialism for Effective Altruists
Dr Nikhil Venkatesh is a fellow in the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law at King's College London. He specialises in moral, social, and political philosophy. His research focuses primarily on utilitarianism and socialism. His PhD thesis argues that recognising the social nature of persons makes utilitarianism more defensible. In this episode, we discuss the social nature of a person contra human nature, collective vs. individual actions, Marxism, socialism, utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism.
You can find more of Dr Venkatesh's work at https://nikhilvenkateshphilosophy.com/ and https://x.com/nikvenkatesh/.
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #51
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10164799/
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/may/25/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Sep 13, 2024 • 1h 39min
Daniel Lakens: Metascience, Open Science and a Philosophy of Statistics
Prof Daniel Lakens is an Associate Professor in the Human-Technology interaction group at Eindhoven University of Technology. His areas of expertise include meta-science, research methods and applied statistics. Prof Lakens' main lines of empirical research focus on conceptual thought, similarity, and meaning. He also focuses on how to design and interpret studies, applied (meta)-statistics, and reward structures in science. Outside academia, Prof Lakens has a podcast on science called Nullius in Verba with his cohost, Smriti Mehta, from UC Berkeley. In this episode, we discuss metascience, the openness initiative in science, incentive structures, scientific realism vs anti-realism, and the philosophy of applied (meta)-statistics.
You can find more of Prof Lakens's work at https://sites.google.com/site/lakens2/, https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/daniel-lakens and https://x.com/lakens.
Nullius in Verba: https://nulliusinverba.podbean.com/
The 20% Statistician: https://daniellakens.blogspot.com/
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #50
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/1745691614528520
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691612462586
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.150547?cpetoc=
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Sep 6, 2024 • 1h 26min
Emily Qureshi Hurst: The Theology of Spacetime and Quantum Mechanics
Dr Emily Qureshi-Hurst is a Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College and a College Lecturer in Philosophy at Oriel College in Oxford. Dr Qureshi-Hurst completed a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Oxford in Science and Religion (2021). Her thesis examined the theoretical support for a B-theory of time provided by special and general relativity, and re-interpreted Paul Tillich's doctrine of salvation in light of this metaphysical temporal model. In 2022, Cambridge University Press published her first book exploring these themes: 'God, Salvation, and the Problem of Spacetime'. Her second book on this topic, 'Salvation in the Block Universe: Time, Tillich, and Transformation', will be published in the second half of 2024. In this episode, we discuss the relationship between modern physics and religion, theories of time and the theology of Paul Tillich.
You can find more of Dr Qureshi-Hurst's work at https://www.emilyqureshihurst.com/ and https://x.com/equreshihurst.
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #49
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/god-salvation-and-the-problem-of-spacetime/3256416169B3737BF33DC3CA1BD3B046
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/salvation-in-the-block-universe/4A92AE269AA9585E211111CF8AE8F3A6
---------------------------------------
If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.

Sep 1, 2024 • 1h 45min
Eliot Rosenstock: Žižek in the Clinic, Dialectical Egoism and Self-Interest
Eliot Rosenstock is a psychotherapist. He is the senior editor of The Young Freudians magazine, an experimental philosophy and psychology journal that provides ideas on everything from new ideas in psychodynamic therapy to eco-theory. He is the author of Žižek in the Clinic and The Ego And Its Hyperstate. In this episode, we do a Žižekian ideology critique of mental health while discussing Freud through Hegel, hyperpsychology and where psychology went awry.
You can find more of Eliot's work at https://x.com/CtrlRetrnRpresd and https://21stcenturysynthesis.substack.com/
Watch the video version here.
RSam Podcast #48
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{Podcast}
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulSam
Substack: https://rsampod.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4ryEqjut4r6SMtfxLdM1Le
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/rahul-samaranayake
Available on other platforms at https://link.chtbl.com/PDBAf9Zd
Website: https://rahulsam.me/
{Social Media}
https://www.instagram.com/name_is_rahul/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-samaranayake-981a9315b/
https://twitter.com/trsam97
{Reference Links}
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56450822-the-ego-and-its-hyperstate
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40005814-i-ek-in-the-clinic (Message Eliot for a free copy.)
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If the ideas I discuss in this podcast evoke your interest, consider visiting https://theunhappyman.substack.com/
---------------------------------------
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statutes that might otherwise be infringing.
If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have a problem with the use of the related material, please email me at trahulsam@gmail.com, and we can sort it out.
Thank you.