Very Bad Wizards

Special guest Robert Wright joins the podcast to discuss his latest book "Why Buddhism is True." What is the Buddhist conception of not-self? When we become aware that the boundaries between us and the world are fluid, what is the “we” that arrives at this insight? Can daily meditation make you less of a dick? How does evolutionary psychology bear on these questions? Plus, Dave horrifies Tamler with his new hipster habit. Special Guest: Robert Wright. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: One-Hand Clapping Kōan [wikipedia.org] Robert Wright (journalist) - Wikipedia Robert Wright's Website Pre-order "Why Buddhism Is True" by Robert Wright [amazon.com affiliate link] Break music: Try Harder by peez | Free Listening on SoundCloud

What happens when we discover why we believe the things we believe? What if we discover that our values are the product of our cultural tradition, or personal experience, or natural selection? Should we be more skeptical of our values once we learn their history? Plus, data on Google porn searches reveal that you're all a bunch of sick fucks. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Proof that Americans are lying about their sexual desires - Vox Doris, J. M. (2009). Genealogy and Evidence: Prinz on the History of Morals. Kahane, G. (2011). Evolutionary debunking arguments. Noûs, 45(1), 103-125. The Splintered Mind: Tamler Sommers Break Music: Everything Is Wrong by peez

David and Tamler try to put the topic of campus politics to bed once and for all – with limited success. First, we get into a big fight about the prevalence and danger of political correctness in American universities. We junked that recording, and tried to distill our best points into a new one. (Trust us – it was for the best.) We also narrow down all the topic recommendations from our beloved Patreon supporters to five finalists. In the second segment, James Lindsay (co-author of the "Conceptual Penis" hoax) joins us to talk about why he thinks the hoax was more successful in exposing gender studies than some of their critics (including us) have suggested. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: James Lindsay (@GodDoesnt) | Twitter James Lindsay's Website (God Doesn't; We Do) Skeptic » Reading Room » The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies Alan Sokal: Some Thoughts on “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct” Hoax Break Music: Dusted by peez [soundcloud.com]

David and Tamler break down a recent classic in the philosophy of mind: "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. What is boundary of your mind? Is it contained with your body, or does it extend to the external environment--to your laptop, notebook, smartphone and more? Is this a purely terminological question, or one with practical and moral significance? And what is the role of intuition in providing an answer? Plus, Dave shares an email alerting him to the psychological trauma of male circumcision along with an exciting all-natural method for restoring the foreskin (that was stolen from us as infants). Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Gay man, who suffered from depression over his circumcision, kills himself Circumcision’s Psychological Damage | Psychology Today Foreskin restoration for circumcised males — "Non-surgical foreskin restoration was reinvented in the late 1970s by a movement of circumcised men, mostly from the United States, who were upset at having been mutilated against their will." Break Music- In Effect by peez "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers Distributed cognition - Wikipedia

David and Tamler break down the latest small-stakes academic controversy--yes the one about conceptual penises. Does the recent "Sokal-like" hoax expose the ideological extremism of gender studies? Or does it show that certain portions of the "skeptic" community are susceptible to the same biases as their opponents? In the main segment they discuss the problems with measuring pain, pleasure, and happiness. When your doctor asks you to rate your pain between 1 and 10 and you say a 7, does your '7' reflect the same subjective experience as another person's '7'? (That depends--have you experienced childbirth?) How can we get more accurate readings of pain and pleasure across different people with different experiences? Most importantly, which number gets you the Vicodin? Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Skeptic » Reading Room » The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct: A Sokal-Style Hoax on Gender Studies Sokal affair - Wikipedia Why the "Conceptual Penis" Hoax is Just a Big Cock Up. - Bleeding Heart Libertarians The engine of irrationality inside the rationalists – Ketan Joshi An embarrassing moment for the skeptical movement – Footnotes to Plato Bartoshuk, L. (2014). The measurement of pleasure and pain. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9, 91-93. Krueger, A. B., & Stone, A. A. (2014). Progress in measuring subjective well-being. Science, 346(6205), 42-43.

David and Tamler go ambulance chasing for scandals in their own fields. Inspired by a tweet from Jay Van Bavel, they argue about which of their disciplines--philosophy or psychology--is more completely and irredeemably fucked. Is the recent controversy at the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia diagnostic of larger problems in philosophy? Can the replication crisis ever be solved? Can philosophy return to studying the big questions? What can psychologists actually discover about the human mind? Warning: this episode features a more respectful and mature dialogue than some VBW listeners may be comfortable with. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: Jay Van Bavel on Twitter: "Psychologists: "our field is a hot mess" Philosophers: "hold my beer" https://t.co/mX344fBBfV" EP. 86 SAM HARRIS Part #1 by #WeThePeople LIVE | Free Listening on SoundCloud Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog: Issues in the Profession This Is What a Modern-Day Witch Hunt Looks Like The real damage done by the flare-up over a philosopher's journal article (essay) The Nastic Gospels | Peez Brian Nosek's Reproducibility Project Finds Many Psychology Studies Unreliable - The Atlantic Inside Psychology’s ‘Methodological Terrorism’ Debate -- Science of Us Replication studies: Bad copy : Nature News & Comment Repeat After Me - by Maki Naro sometimes i'm wrong [Simine Vazire's blog] The Hardest Science [Sanjay Srivastava's Blog] The 20% Statistician [Daniël Lakens' Blog] The Black Goat – A podcast about doing science You Are Not So Smart

Somehow, after 113 episodes David and Tamler have never done a top 5 movie episode about revenge (so unbelievable that we had to double-check). That changes today. Among the things we learned: good revenge movies are harder to find than we thought, revenge (at least, movie revenge) is messy, and David knows at least one movie that Tamler has never heard of. Plus, should Jews be celebrating the killing of Egyptian first borns? Or atoning for it? (Or perhaps just pouring out a little more wine at Passover?) Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The price of freedom | OUPblog Progressive Family Unable to Finish Game of 'Guess Who?' David's #5: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) - IMDb Tamler's #5: High Plains Drifter (1973) [IMDb.com] David's #4: Tombstone (1993) [IMDb.com] Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - Wikipedia Earp Vendetta Ride - Wikipedia Tamler's #4: The Limey (1999) [IMDb.com] David's #3: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) [IMDb.com] David's #2: Carlito's Way (1993) [IMDb.com] Tamler's #2: Blue Ruin (2013) [IMDb.com] Tamler's #1: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002) [IMDb.com]

David and Tamler break down what may be the best argument that it's rational to believe in God: Pascal's Wager. (No, we're not just trolling our Sam Harris listeners.) Does the expected value of believing in God outweigh the probability that you're wrong? How does belief work--can you just turn it on and off? What if you believe in the wrong God? This leads to a wide-ranging discussion on decision theory, instrumental rationality, artificial intelligence, transformative experiences, and whether David should drop acid. Your brain AND your future self will love this episode! Support Very Bad Wizards Links: 2017 BP MS 150: Mr. Tamler Sommers - National MS Society Prose&Cons - YouTube Why people are so bad at thinking about the future. On Intertemporal Selfishness: How the Perceived Instability of Identity Underlies Impatient Consumption | Journal of Consumer Research | Oxford Academic "Homer's Soul" by Paul Bloom and David Pizarro Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia Pascal's mugging - Wikipedia Transformative Experience by L.A. Paul, in conversation with Paul Bloom. "Transformative Experience: by L. A. Paul [amazon.com affiliate link]

For four years Tamler has been bitching about Gettier cases without even explaining what they are or why he hates them. That ends today. David and Tamler talk about the famous paper that challenged the (widespread? non-existent?) notion that knowledge is, and only is, justified true belief. We talk about the so-called skeptics about knowledge that Gettier inspired, then discuss the real skepticism that Descartes examined with his evil demon thought experiment. Plus, you know how you're in a monogamous relationship because of science? Well, turns out that science may be flawed.... Support Very Bad Wizards Links: The idea of monogamy as a relationship ideal is based on flawed science — Quartz A Former Student Says UC Berkeley’s Star Philosophy Professor Groped Her And Watched Porn At Work - BuzzFeed News About - The Casual Sex Project The Woman With an Alternative Theory of Hookups -- The Cut Clark, R. D., & Hatfield, E. (1989). Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 2(1), 39-55. Research - The Gottman Institute Break music: Shadow Play by peez Brock Jarrett on Twitter: "I was shocked to meet a podcast hero at a coffee shop in Denver. @tamler @verybadwizards https://t.co/4WBdqhUw8t" #BONUS – “Dr. David Pizarro from Very Bad Wizards.” - I Doubt It with Dollemore A Good Cause: Sponsor Tamler in the 2017 BP MS 150 Gettier, E. L. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge?. analysis, 23(6), 121-123. Frankfurt cases - Wikipedia Evil demon - Wikipedia The Long Road to Skepticism on JSTOR

In Part 2 of our episode with film scholar Yoel Inbar (AOS: Quebecois New Wave Cinema), we break down the philosophy and psychology of the movie Arrival. [Note: Massive spoilers, see the movie first!] Does our language shape our perception of reality? Would you have a child that you knew had a short time to live? What color is 'fuschia'? Why does right-wing radio make you want to dynamite alien spacecrafts? For Part 1 of this episode, see https://verybadwizards.fireside.fm/110 Special Guest: Yoel Inbar. Support Very Bad Wizards Links: yoel inbar :: home Arrival (2016) - IMDb Casasanto, D. (2008). Who's afraid of the big bad Whorf? Crosslinguistic differences in temporal language and thought. Language learning, 58(s1), 63-79. Chicago Break Music (soundcloud.com/peezismyname) Linguistic relativity - Wikipedia Inscrutability of reference - Wikipedia Sex-related differences in the color lexicon