Wild with Sarah Wilson

Prof. Joel Pearson (Neuroscientist; AI and intuition expert) developed the first scientific test to measure intuition, dragging it out of the woo-woo realm and into a cognitive framework. He’s now written The Intuition Toolkit: The New Science of Knowing What without Knowing Why to show us how and when to use this mysterious superpower in our lives (not while rock-climbing on a date, not at a casino!).Joel is the founder and Director of Future Minds Lab which applies neuroscience findings to art, AI, media, advertising and various philosophical quandaries. He’s also a National Health and Medical Research Council fellow and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of New South Wales, Australia.In this chat we cover when and how to use intuition, why intuition is hijacked by anxiety and depression, whether AI will ever be able to have intuition, aphantasia and a bunch of deep, wide questions about what it means to be human, including the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Mostly, Joel is a great conversationalist, someone you’d want to sit next to at a dinner party.SHOW NOTESGet Joel’s book The Intuition Toolkit: The New Science of Knowing What without Knowing WhyFollow Joel on his Future Minds Lab Substack You might also like to listen to my WILD chat with Sheena Iyengar, the scientist who first ran those “paradox of choice” studiesAnd with George Paxinos, regarded as the world’s leading brain expert on whether our brains are “good” enough to save the planetI mention the book Klara and the Sun by Kazuo IshiguroIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Frankopan (Silk Roads author, Oxford historian) has just written a mega-history book called The Earth Transformed that reframes human history not via various major battles and legendary leaders but through a climate lens. Floods, droughts and, invariably, a volcano or two, dictated the fall of the Roman Empire, the fate of Cleopatra, the rise of gossip and beer halls, slavery and the different flavours of religion that exist around the world. I was keen to talk to Peter to find out what we might be able to learn from the past about adapting and surviving climate upheavals, what the factors that saw climate destroy some civilisations and not others and what it means to live in an era where climate calamities are global in scale, as are all the fundamental aspects of society – trade, finance, disease routes, warfare capabilities. Oh, and at the end we talk about what is entailed in writing a book that’s more than 600-pages!This conversation feeds into previous episodes about limits to growth with the Club of Rome’s Gaya Harrington and collapse theories with Meg Wheatley.SHOW NOTES The Earth Transformed: An Untold History is available hereRead more about Peter via his website and you can connect with him on Twitter/XIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s question has come in from many of you over recent weeks. It’s an important one to ask as we grapple with the horror in the Middle East and our sense of powerlessness, as leaders around the world seem immobilised by geopolitical interests. I’ve invited Palestinian peace broker Aziz Abu Sarah to help answer it. Aziz is one of the world's most powerful and connected peacebuilders. He’s a National Geographic Explorer and Ted Fellow. He has founded and led countless global conflict resolution organisations and helped broker peace deals in more than 60 nations, including Syria and Afghanistan.I put it to him: Is there a role that those of us outside the region can play that will actually help, not hinder, the ultimate cause – peace and the cessation of the bloodshed and humanitarian disaster? What is the right thing to do on social media? What should we post and not post? Do protests, boycotts, and petitions work at this point? And is peace possible any time soon? I learned a lot more than I expected to from this chat – some of Aziz’s answers are very very confronting. Strap in for this one, dear friends. It’s big and hard. It’s also longer than my normal AMAs (and forgive me for the sound quality - I don’t quite have the budget yet for a producer for these Friday episodes!).I encourage you to head over to my Substack for additional content, including:Where Aziz will join the comments thread and happily answer additional questions there.I will share the credible peace organisations, influencers and journalists that he recommends we support.I will also share some other useful links that explain points raised in our conversation, including the Israeli bias in media.SHOW NOTESYou can listen to our previous conversation hereHere’s Aziz’s website, social media and his book, Crossing Boundaries: A Traveler's Guide to World PeaceIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Kelly Weinersmith (behavioural ecologist and space expert) and her husband Zach have just spent four years researching a subject that perplexes many of us – why all the fuss about moving to Mars? Which begs, can we actually build a human settlement on Mars? And, would we want to?They share their findings in their new book A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? which became an instant New York Times bestseller and Scientific American’s #1 Book for 2023.Kelly, an adjunct with Rice University in Texas, joins me to talk through both the broad and the granular implications of what I think amounts to a “destroy and run” attitude to our relationship with Earth. I have a lot of questions, like: What’s with the tech bros and their obsession with living on a dusty, toxic planet? Who would “own” space settlements? Who would control the oxygen? Surely we’re not going to let Elon run rampant with this? And can you actually have sex in space? If you’re after a TL;DR, Kelly concludes: “Space: quite bad”.SHOW NOTESA City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? is available hereThe Wild episode with Douglas Rushkoff about billionaires and their apocalypse bunkers is hereIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An atheist chaplain shares his experience providing spiritual counsel to a convicted murderer on death row without invoking God. They discuss humanist approaches to death and life, offering peace and perspective in the face of existential threats. The conversation explores radical hope, embracing humanity in adversity, and the complexities of defining personal beliefs without traditional faith.

I’ve been doing a bunch of Substack meetups around Australia over the past few weeks (the Sydney and Northern NSW ones are happening in March and you can register in the Substack post here). And several people in the community have posed some related questions to do with balancing where the world is at with your need for creative freedom, our own mental health, our tendency to run from hard topics and emotions. Yes, we MUST create and make art in these difficult, “liminal” times. I reference Teju Cole and late 19th-century philosophers to make my case. I also answer: How do you stay sane and be of service? How do I motivate myself out of depression to be of service?I share how I’ve been navigating things, lying awake many nights in a row, trying to rise to the challenges inherent in these questions.If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Award-winning author and journalist Maggie Jackson discusses the benefits of embracing uncertainty, building 'uncertainty tolerance', and the importance of not always knowing the answers. They also explore the wild idea of ocean swimming, using hedge words, and championing leaders who admit 'I don't know' as ways to navigate the complexities of our times.

This podcast explores the mental and physical benefits of hiking in nature, including stress reduction, improved immune function, creativity, and mood. It discusses the calming effect of nature's fractal patterns, the activation of the prefrontal cortex through walking, and the historical use of walking by famous thinkers. Hiking is shown to enhance clear thinking, anxiety modulation, and provide a break from daily torment, while also offering insights and opportunities for flow state.

Maggie Dent (the “queen of common sense”;  parenting expert) raised four sons, largely solo, and went on to write about her experiences and lessons learned. She soon became highly sought after for her candid and loving take on raising young men (she’s also known as the “boy champion”). Maggie is host of The Good Enough Dad and Parental As Anything podcasts, and the author of nine books, including her bestselling boys’ books From Boys to Men and Mothering Our Boys.I’ve been doing an occasional series here on Wild addressing the issues affecting boys and men and was super keen to get Maggie on to answer some of the questions that keep coming up. Thank you to everyone who sent in their questions for Maggie.In this episode we cover where the issues are stemming from, how we can benefit from boys’ “aggression nurturance”, what good men can be doing to plug the “Andrew Tate gap”, why parents need to buy boys a guinea pig, the need for a bro podcast on hacks for being an uber-productive life partner… and why mums need to fart in front of their sons!SHOW NOTESYou can get hold of Maggie’s books here Listen to The Good Enough Dad and Parental As Anything podcastsLearn more about Maggie and her work via her website and InstagramHere’s a Wild episode on men and porn with Connor BeatonI have written about issues relating to masculinity, toxic men and why we should be worried about boys on SubstackIf you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did you see the results of the survey published in the Financial Times that showed there is a growing political gap between millennial men and women? I was asked this week what my thoughts were, what’s causing the drift in both directions and other gaps, between young people, should we be worried and what to do?I reference lots of different articles and data and put all the links over at Substack where you have the option to WATCH these bonus episodes and you can also join a conversation afterwards in the thread (and post a question for future AMAs).SHOW NOTESExplore the full episode on my Substack, complete with links to references, thought-provoking articles, and podcasts.If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" pageFor more such conversations subscribe to my Substack newsletter, it’s where I interact the most!Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious LifeLet’s connect on Instagram and WeAre8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.