As our civilization careens toward a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction, and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview tells us we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world. This worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings. In this talk, author Jeremy Lent will discuss themes from his new book, The Web of Meaning, revealing how another worldview is possible—based on our deep interconnectedness with all of life. Showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures, the presentation weaves together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous wisdom. --- Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as “one of the greatest thinkers of our age.” He is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, examines the way humans have made meaning from the cosmos from hunter-gatherer times to the present day. His new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, offers a solid foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a sustainable, and flourishing future. He is the founder of the nonprofit Liology Institute and writes topical articles exploring the deeper patterns of political and cultural developments at Patterns of Meaning. Author website: https://www.jeremylent.com --- Links: - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Jeremy’s website: https://www.jeremylent.com - Jeremy’s blogs: https://patternsofmeaning.com - Jeremy’s books: https://amzn.to/3tJF3gK

As the theme of this month’s conference is Psychology & Nonduality (https://bit.ly/nd-conference), I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the nondual understanding and its implications for everyday life. So, I’ve spent around 30+ hours researching the subject, and summarised the best of what I was able to find in this podcast. If you’re relatively new to the area and looking to develop a better understanding, this can be a good starting point. Links: TWU's psychology and nonduality conference: https://bit.ly/nd-conference Written version of this episode: https://bit.ly/nondual-essay

According to our standard view of things, consciousness exists only in the brains of highly evolved organisms, and hence consciousness exists only in a tiny part of the universe and only in very recent history (cosmically speaking). According to panpsychism, in contrast, consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. The view sounds a bit strange, but a growing number of philosophers and neuroscientists are starting to think it might be our best hope for integrating consciousness into our scientific story of the universe. Dr Philip Goff explains why consciousness poses such a challenge for contemporary science and why panpsychism might be the answer. --- Dr Philip Goff, PhD is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Durham University. Goff’s main research focus is consciousness, but he is interested in many questions about the nature of reality. Goff is most known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. Goff has authored an academic book with Oxford University Press – Consciousness and Fundamental Reality – and a book aimed at a general audience – Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness. He is currently working on a book exploring the middle ground between God and atheism. Goff has published 45 academic articles as well as writing extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, The Guardian, Aeon, and the Times Literary Supplement. The interview with Goff by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Gareth Cook was one of the most viewed articles in Scientific American of 2020. You can check more of his work at www.philipgoffphilosophy.com and follow him on Twitter @Philip_Goff. Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr Goff’s website and Twitter: https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com - Dr Goff’s books: https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/books.html

This episode is part of our Meeting of the Minds series in which we bring together leading thinkers from different backgrounds to discuss topics of mutual interest. The topic is “religion without belief” in which we explore to what extent it is possible to benefit from religious practices, without fully adopting the associated belief systems. The speakers are Rupert Sheldrake, Paul Kingsnorth, and Philip Goff, and some of the key points discussed include: — How they arrived at their current understanding and the spiritual experiences that have had the biggest impact on them — What our culture’s increasing drive towards secularisation might be costing us - both individually and collectively. — Whether it is possible to pick and choose ‘parts’ of a religion without adopting it fully And more. You can learn more about their work by going to www.sheldrake.org, www.paulkingsnorth.net, and www.philipgoffphilosophy.com. --- Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 85 scientific papers, who was named among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders for 2013. He studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, then philosophy and the history of science at Harvard, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He is the author of 13 books, including “The Science Delusion”, “Science and Spiritual Practices”, and “Ways to Go Beyond”. Paul Kingsnorth is a former journalist and deputy editor of The Ecologist magazine who has won several awards for his poetry and essays. He is also the author of ten books: both fiction and nonfiction. In 2009, he co-founded the Dark Mountain Project, an international network of writers, artists, and thinkers in search of new stories for troubled times. Dr Philip Goff is a Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, whose main research focus is consciousness, but he is interested in many questions about the nature of reality. Goff is most known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. He has authored an academic book with Oxford University Press – Consciousness and Fundamental Reality – and a book aimed at a general audience – Galileo’s Error. He is currently working on a book exploring the middle ground between God and atheism. --- Interview Links: — Galileo’s Error - Philip Goff: https://amzn.to/3EFCByV — Why religion without belief can still make perfect sense - Philip Goff: https://psyche.co/ideas/why-religion-without-belief-can-still-make-perfect-sense — Philip’s website: https://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com/ — Paul’s website: https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/ — The Cross and the Machine - Paul Kingsnorth: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/06/the-cross-and-the-machine — The Abbey of Misrule (Paul’s newsletter): https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/ — Science and Spiritual Practices - Rupert Sheldrake: https://amzn.to/3CBBNsj — Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work - Rupert Sheldrake: https://amzn.to/3TaqG0n — Rupert’s website: www.sheldrake.org — Rupert’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RupertSheldrakePhD

“Use your head.” That’s what we tell ourselves when facing a tricky problem or a difficult project. But a growing body of research indicates that we’ve got it exactly backward. What we need to do, says acclaimed science writer Annie Murphy Paul, is think outside the brain. A host of “extra-neural” resources—the feelings and movements of our bodies, the physical spaces in which we learn and work, and the minds of those around us—can help us focus more intently, comprehend more deeply, and create more imaginatively. In this talk, Paul will explore the research behind this exciting new vision of human ability, exploring the findings of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and psychologists.  You’ll learn about the secret history of how artists, scientists, and authors have employed mental extensions to solve problems, make discoveries, and create new works. Additionally, the lecture will explain how you can incorporate outside-the-brain thinking into your everyday life. This presentation offers a dramatic new view of how our minds work, full of practical advice on how to think better. --- Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and The Best American Science Writing, among many other publications. Her latest book is The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. Published in June of 2021, it was selected as an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Nonfiction, one of “50 Notable Works of Nonfiction” by the Washington Post, and one of “100 Notable Books of 2021” by The New York Times. She is the author of Origins, also named by the New York Times as a “Notable Book,” and The Cult of Personality, hailed by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker as a “fascinating new book.” Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 2.7 million times. Paul is a recipient of the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, the Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship, and the Bernard L. Schwartz Fellowship at New America. A graduate of Yale University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she is currently a Learning Sciences Exchange Fellow at New America. --- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events/ - Annie’s website: https://anniemurphypaul.com - Annie’s book: https://amzn.to/3EVuevr

Research tells us that our autonomic nervous system scans our body four times per second asking “am I safe?, am I safe? am I safe? am I safe?” If the answer is ‘yes’, we stay neurobiologically in our prefrontal cortex, the most mature part of our brain, our wise adult self, the part of us that is here and now that can observe, reason and decide. However, if the answer is ‘no, I don’t feel safe’, more primitive parts of our neurology get activated. The wise adult self shuts down and the more primitive reactive automatic parts of our nervous system take over. We find ourselves, despite our best intentions, repeating the same dysfunctional moves in relationships that we first learned in our childhood. The sense of the whole of US, disappears and we move into a you and me, win or lose adversarial contest. The spiritual teacher, Krishnamurti, once said “True liberation is freedom from our own automatic responses.” This workshop teaches the skill of ‘relational mindfulness’, the cultivation of our wise adult selves even in heated moments. Trauma pulls us into immature behaviors in our relationships and learning mature relational skills has the power to heal our deepest injuries. --- Terrence Real is an internationally recognized family therapist, speaker, and author. He founded the Relational Life Institute, offering workshops for couples, individuals, and parents along with a professional training program for clinicians to learn his Relational Life Therapy methodology. He is the bestselling author of “I Don’t Want to Talk About It”, “How Can I Get Through to You?”, and “The New Rules of Marriage”. You can check more of his work at https://terryreal.com Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Terry’s website: https://terryreal.com - Terry’s books: https://terryreal.com/product-category/books - Terry’s audio books & courses: https://terryreal.com/product-category/audio-books-courses - Terry’s new book “US” PRE-ORDER at: https://terryreal.com/us-book

In a previous two-hour lecture for TWU, I argued for the nature of consciousness as a foundational element in the cosmos, not derivative from anything else.  In this talk, I will not attempt to repeat that argument, but start from where I left off.  In a new book, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva Press, November 2021), I ask how we come to know anything at all, and move on to consider what we can say about the irreducible ‘building blocks’ of reality: time, space, matter, consciousness, values, purpose and the sense of the sacred.  I take value and purpose to be implied by the very nature of consciousness itself; constitutive of reality, not ‘invented’ (though obviously particular values and particular purposes may be); that although science is popularly thought to contradict such a view it does not, rightly understood, do so at all; and that reason and evidence strongly supports such a conclusion.  I hold that our failure to understand this lies at the heart of our global predicament. --- Dr. McGilchrist has published original research and contributed chapters to books on a wide range of subjects, as well as original articles in papers and journals, including the British Journal of Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, The Wall Street Journal, The Sunday Telegraph and The Sunday Times. He has taken part in many radio and TV programmes, documentaries, and numerous podcasts, and interviews on YouTube, among them dialogues with Jordan Peterson, David Fuller of Rebel Wisdom, and philosopher Tim Freke. His books include Against Criticism, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning, and Ways of Attending. He published his latest book: The Matter With Things, a book of epistemology and metaphysics. You can keep up to date with his work at https://channelmcgilchrist.com Dr Iain McGilchrist is a Psychiatrist and Writer, who lives on the Isle of Skye, off the coast of North West Scotland. He is committed to the idea that the mind and brain can be understood only by seeing them in the broadest possible context, that of the whole of our physical and spiritual existence, and of the wider human culture in which they arise – the culture which helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains. He was formerly a Consultant Psychiatrist of the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley NHS Trust in London, where he was Clinical Director of their southern sector Acute Mental Health Services. -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr McGilchrist’s website: https://channelmcgilchrist.com - Dr McGilchrist’s books: https://amzn.to/3eU89TF

Mark has a pretty interesting story to tell. Earlier in life, he was an international drug smuggler, an addict of 17 years, homeless, and has spent time locked up in a Spanish prison. Now, he is a leading addiction psychotherapist at Harley Street Clinic in London, a bestselling author of two books, a family-man, and a sought after speaker and teacher on working with addiction. His work has attracted praise from the likes of Russell Brand and Ross Kemp, and he has been featured on BBC, the Daily Record and numerous other news outlets. In this interview, we explore: — Mark’s background and his journey to recovery — Common myths surrounding addiction — The root causes of addiction — Mark’s 5-step framework for working with addiction in psychotherapy And more. Mark will be presenting on Schema Therapy & Addiction at our forthcoming Day on Addiction Online Conference on September 25th, 2022. The other speakers will be Dr Anna Lembke, who will give a talk on Dopamine and Addiction, and Professor Marc Lewis will present on Internal Family Systems and Addiction. --- Mark Dempster is a Harley Street Addiction Specialist, author, and former addict. In his younger years, he was addicted to alcohol and drugs, which eventually led to him smuggling, dealing, prison and homelessness. After turning things around in his thirties, he is on a mission to help others recover from addictions and flourish in their lives. He is the author of two books on addiction: Nothing to Declare and The Ongoing Path. You can learn more about Mark’s work at www.markdempstercounselling.com, and follow him on Twitter @mdcounselling. --- Interview Links: — Reinventing Your Life - Dr Jeffrey Young: https://amzn.to/3cfen2F — Mark’s books: http://markdempstercounselling.com/book

The comparative study of identical and fraternal twins is a powerful method for identifying the relative contributions of genes and environments to individual differences in behavioral, physical, and health-related characteristics. Studies of reared-apart twins provide even more compelling ways to approach this same class of questions, given that the co-twins were raised in different homes, communities and/or countries, so were unable to influence one another. This talk first reviews the different types of twins and the logic behind twin designs before presenting findings from past, recent and current studies of twins who grew up separately. Here, the focus will be on the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the Fullerton Study of Chinese Twins; however, research using reared together twins, virtual twins (same-age-unrelated individuals reared together who replicated twinship but without a genetic link) and unrelated look-alikes will also be described with reference to family relations, tacit coordination, personality similarity, and bereavement. The vast body of evidence indicates that genetic influence is pervasive, affecting virtually every measured human trait, but environmental factors also play a role. The occasional abuse of twin studies must be recalled to prevent their future occurrence. --- Prof. Nancy L. Segal, PhD is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Twins Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton. She has authored over 250 articles and six books on twins; her seventh book, Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart was released in November 2021. Dr. Segal’s 2012 book, Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study, won the 2013 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. She was a speaker at a TedX event in Manhattan Beach, California (2017), and delivered invited addresses at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2018) and the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, in Florence, Italy (2019). She was also an invited participant in a debate on parenting organized by Intelligence Squared in New York City (2019). Dr. Segal’s work has been featured in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on national and international television and radio programs, including The Today Show, 20/20, Long Lost Lives, AirTalk (NPR) and Hidden Brain (NPR). Dr Segal can be contacted via email at: nsegal@fullerton.edu, and you can learn more about her work on: drnancysegaltwins.org -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Prof. Segal’s website: http://drnancysegaltwins.org - Prof. Segal’s books: https://amzn.to/3EMVOfb

So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn’t exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains – and our choices over what we eat, whom we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of our unconscious minds. Did you know, for example, that: — Anxieties and phobias can be carried across generations in a family? — Your genes and pleasure and reward receptors in your brain will shape how much you eat? — We can sniff out ideal partners with genes that give our offspring the best chance of survival? In this talk, leading neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow will draw vividly from everyday life and other experts in their field to show the extraordinary potential as well as dangers which come with being able to predict our likely futures – and looking at how we can alter what’s in store for us. Lucid, illuminating, awe-inspiring, this talk will revolutionise your understanding of who you are – and empower you to help shape a better future both for yourself and the wider world. --- Dr Hannah Critchlow, PhD is an internationally acclaimed neuroscientist based at the University of Cambridge, who specialises in demystifying the human brain on Radio, TV and at Festivals. Dr Critchlow helped present BBC’s Tomorrow’s World Live and BBC2 -The Family Brain Games, published ‘Consciousness: A Ladybird Expert Guide’ with Penguin and The Science of Fate with Hodder in May 2019, which made The Sunday Times Bestseller list. In 2019, Hannah was named by Nature as one of Cambridge University’s ‘Rising Stars in Life Sciences’ in recognition for achievements in science engagement. She was also elected member of the prestigious European Dana Alliance of the Brain and joined the judging panel for the prestigious Wellcome Trust Science book Prize for 2018. Dr Critchlow’s work in science communication was named as a Top 100 UK scientist by the Science Council in 2014 and one of Cambridge University’s most ‘inspirational and successful women in science’ in 2013. While completing her PhD, Hannah was awarded a Cambridge University Fellowship and as an undergraduate received three University Prizes as Best Biologist. -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Dr Critchlow’s profile: https://bit.ly/drcritchlow - Dr Critchlow’s book: https://amzn.to/3GBXwkd