The Weekend University

Johann Hari, an acclaimed author and speaker, delves into the misconceptions surrounding depression. He critiques the damaging 'chemical imbalance' theory and advocates for a holistic view of mental health, emphasizing the importance of social connections and environmental factors. Hari shares personal stories and scientific insights that redefine how we perceive depression. He also introduces an innovative approach to treatment, highlighting the transformative power of community engagement through projects like gardening, showcasing how connection can combat isolation.

If I have a visual experience that I describe as a red tomato a meter away, then I am inclined to believe that there is, in fact, a red tomato a meter away, even if I close my eyes. I believe that my perceptions are, in the normal case, veridical—that they accurately depict aspects of the real world. But is my belief supported by our best science? In particular: Does evolution by natural selection favor veridical perceptions? Many scientists and philosophers claim that it does. But this claim, though plausible, has not been properly tested. In this talk, I present a new theorem: Veridical perceptions are never more fit than non-veridical perceptions which are simply tuned to the relevant fitness functions. This entails that perception is not a window on reality; it is more like a desktop interface on your laptop. I discuss this interface theory of perception and its implications for one of the most puzzling unsolved problems in science: the relationship between brain activity and conscious experiences. --- Prof. Donald Hoffman, PhD received his PhD from MIT, and joined the faculty of the University of California, Irvine in 1983, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Sciences. He is an author of over 100 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence, and The Case Against Reality. He received a Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association for early career research, the Rustum Roy Award of the Chopra Foundation, and the Troland Research Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. His writing has appeared in Edge, New Scientist, LA Review of Books, and Scientific American and his work has been featured in Wired, Quanta, The Atlantic, and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. You can watch his TED Talk titled “Do we see reality as it is?” and you can follow him on Twitter @donalddhoffman. 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 Hoffman’s profile: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff - Prof Hoffman’s book: https://amzn.to/3njNX1G - Prof. Hoffman’s content/interviews- https://bit.ly/3bvyNUn

Many psychologists and philosophers believe that people are hedonists, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. But what about our appetites for spicy foods, hot baths, horror movies, sad songs, BDSM, and hate reading? How can we explain our choices to suffer—in pursuits such as art, ritual, sex, and sports, and in longer-term projects such as training for a marathon or signing up to go to war? Drawing on research from developmental psychology, social psychology, anthropology, and behavioral economics, I suggest that we are driven by non-hedonistic goals; we revel in difficult practice, we aspire towards moral goodness, and we seek out meaningful lives. --- Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. Paul Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with a special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He is past-president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and for popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of six books, including his most recent, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning --- Links: - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Paul’s website: https://paulbloom.net - Paul’s books: https://paulbloom.net/#books

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