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Develop leaders in your organization with Big Think+ classes
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Create premium thought leadership and storytelling with Big Think Creative
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Philosophy
Examine life’s biggest questions, from ethics to existence, with curiosity and critical thinking.
Skim or scan this. No need to deep-read.
A new framework suggests that bursts of neural chaos could be the fingerprints of a conscious mind at work.
Anne Lamott and Neal Allen join us to discuss why embracing constraints can be the best way to find freedom in the craft.
1hr 19mins
Theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili explores why our sense of time may be incredibly misleading, including the idea that past, present, and future might all exist at once.
23mins
Brian Cox examines why, despite billions of stars and trillions of planets, we have found no evidence of other intelligent life.
No civilization, no matter how successful, can last forever. What does the non-detection of intelligent aliens mean for our own longevity?
Throughout history, the ability to tell increasingly believable stories has become available to more people. Kevin Ashton says that’s a blessing and a curse.
When people born blind gain sight, the hardest part isn’t opening their eyes — it’s teaching the brain how to see.
The quiet transfer of human agency in the age of artificial intelligence.
Philosopher Sven Nyholm on reclaiming achievement from the machines.
Ambition. Descent. Wisdom.
The great Chinese philosopher offers a durable and practical blueprint for harmonizing with our work colleagues.
The fundamental building blocks of reality are indivisible: quanta that cannot be split or divided. Our understanding remains incomplete.
What’s in a number? Only a vanishingly small slice of your life, it turns out.
Long after the last star burns out, the Universe will experience its end state: a heat death. Will everything prior then be meaningless?
58mins
Alain de Botton argues that our romantic lives are shaped more by the emotional patterns we learned in childhood than by destiny.
Science fiction romanticized Mars as a place of adventure and future settlement; science tells a very different story.
Technology, shifting rules, and human ambition push athletes beyond biology’s perceived limits.
Sixty years ago, a little-known philosopher challenged how science understands life. His perspective is finding new relevance in the age of artificial intelligence.