Explore the phenomenon of word aversion and its connection to synesthesia, autism, shapes, and sound probabilities. Discover why certain words like 'moist' trigger strong negative emotional responses. Learn about the mere exposure effect and how repeated exposure to something can lead to a preference for it. Dive into the concept of neighborhood density and its relation to word aversion. Get insights into ongoing research on the genetic and neural bases of word aversion.

David Eagleman is joined by Christopher Chabris and Dan Simons to discuss their book, Nobody's Fool. They explore various topics related to deception, including understanding others, cognitive shortcuts, the deception of attention, the confidence of AI models, struggling to update beliefs, and expanding mental models.

Exploring the brain's ability to readjust its circuitry and its impact on our perceptions. Topics include motion after effect, visual aftereffects, the McCulloch effect, adaptation in the brain, invisible parts of the world, predicting and filtering sensory information, and retina functions in day and night.

Explore the challenges of deciphering an alien language and the parallels to understanding communication among Earth's diverse species. Delve into the Fermi Paradox and uncover intriguing hypotheses surrounding the absence of extraterrestrial signals. Discover the power of data and AI in opening up infinite possibilities. Explore advancements in AI for translating and decoding animal languages. Discuss the challenges of understanding and translating the language of an alien species. Explore the potential of technology in decoding animal languages and communicate with extraterrestrial beings in the future.

Explore the science of attractiveness and beauty, the biology of beauty and attraction, the power of attractiveness in decision-making, unraveling the hidden nature of instincts and the science of attraction, understanding the brain's mechanisms of attraction, unconscious signals of fertility and attractiveness, and the role of anticipation and biased judgments.

Would you torture someone if you were commanded by an authority figure? To what degree are your decisions contextual, and what does this have to do with matching the length of a line, the Iroquois Native Americans, the banality of evil, soldiers posing with dead bodies of their enemies, propaganda, giving shocks to a stranger, or how we should educate our children? Join Eagleman for part 2 of the exploration into brains, dehumanization, and what we can do to improve our possible future.

Why do we so naturally form ingroups and outgroups? And what does that have to do with evolution, monkeys, Greeks, psychopaths, Syndrome E, and propaganda posters? Join Eagleman to learn why our brains are so wired for tribalism, what the consequences are for the world, and how a bit of knowledge goes a long way to making us more immune to propaganda. 

How good is your memory, really? Why do we feel so certain about our memory, even while it is so suspect? Can something told to you after an event change your memory of the event? Why is it so hard to reconstruct a face? Is there a relationship between confidence and accuracy? How is your ability to remember a scene changed if there's a gun pointed at you? Join Eagleman to find out why eyewitness testimony is the most questionable technology we allow in courts.

How would we know if we were living in a simulation? What if you were a butterfly having a dream it was a human? What does any of this have to do with John Lennon, or Renee Descartes, or freezing yourself in a vat of liquid nitrogen? How will we eventually solve the problem that human bodies can’t do space travel? Join Eagleman for a wild ride into the strange possibility of making brains immortal.

How do your billions of tiny brain cells build consciousness as they chatter away with electrical spikes and chemical signals? And why is your laptop, with its sophisticated algorithms and billions of parts, presumably not conscious? Could other large systems like a city become conscious? And what does this have to do with ant hills, blue birds, or your memory of your first kiss? Join Eagleman on a journey into one of the central mysteries of neuroscience: why we have awareness.