The Big Think Interview

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Intimate interviews with the world's biggest thinkers.
Latest episode
The biological necessity of boredom in the age of screens
"I call it a tyranny of attention because there's so many demands on our attention coming from so many different directions that we are simply overwhelmed and we don't have the mental bandwidth to cope with it."

Richard E. Cytowic

Bald man wearing glasses and a peach shirt sits on a chair against a white background, gesturing with his left hand while talking.
A man in glasses and a suit jacket sits indoors, gesturing with his right hand. Exposed brick walls, a window, and a lamp are visible in the background.
16mins
"The production of the silicon wafers that are used in the chip manufacturing process requires extraordinary levels of purity."
A bald man wearing a dark sweater sits against a plain white background, looking slightly to the side with a neutral expression.
11mins
Now that love has been liberated, it seems to have become more complicated and more illusive than ever. Alain de Botton explains.
A man with curly hair, a beard, and glasses, wearing a green button-up shirt, gestures with his hand against a plain white background.
22mins
"Rationalism is the idea that, in order to truly know something, you have to be able to describe it explicitly."
A lone silhouette of a person stands in a hazy, grainy environment, surrounded by darkness and indistinct shadows.
8mins
"The thing that the nihilist recognizes is that the values he or she holds are not grounded in anything other than their own preferences."
Bald man wearing glasses and a dark suit jacket sits against a plain white background, looking slightly to the side with a neutral expression.
25mins
"In the process of mapping the heavens, it doesn't take long to realize the data problem they generated."
An older man with glasses and a light blue shirt sits and smiles while raising his hand with fingers spread, in front of a plain white background.
18mins
"It's this modern idea of doing voluntary discretionary, physical activity for the sake of health and fitness."
A man with short hair and a beard, wearing a light blue button-up shirt, sits indoors in front of a wooden wall.
21mins
"By keeping people biologically younger, we can enjoy a longer health span, a longer period of healthy life where we're active, where we're happy, where we can engage in our hobbies, and play with our grandkids and great grandkids."
A woman with long brown hair wearing a tan blazer over a dark shirt sits in front of a plain white background, looking at the camera.
7mins
Members
We tend to trust our intuitions about consciousness because they feel immediate and personal, but feeling convinced is not the same as being right. Annaka Harris explores what happens when […]
A man sitting in a chair.
25mins
"I continue to believe that in the long run, boys, young men will believe their eyes more than their ears."
A man with glasses and a gray beard stands in front of illustrations of three classical columns, each with a different capital style.
22mins
"It's much better to try to understand how the world works and then act accordingly. Rather than trying to impose on the world the way we want to think or the way we preferred things to be."
Illustration of a human head made of cracked material with bandages, set against a cloudy sky background.
25mins
"The big question then is why are most people resilient and why are some people not resilient?"
An older man sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop in a modern, brightly lit room with colorful pillows and minimalist decor.
16mins
"Being connected to another person makes us feel safer and keeps our bodies at a kind of physiologic equilibrium that promotes health."
A person in a red sweater sits on a stool in front of a white backdrop in a bright room with plants, a colorful rug, and a table with a lamp.
7mins
Members
“The problem with cognitive scripts is when we use them to make more important decisions in our lives, we let our choices be driven by those stories that we have internalized that tell us how we're supposed to behave in a certain situation.”
An older man with long white hair wearing a dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, and red tie, looking directly at the camera against a plain light background.
11mins
Members
“The next revolution will be quantum computers that will make the digital computer look like an abacus.”
Green decorative geometric shape with the text "Rewriting the Rules of Life" written in black serif font across the center on a light green background.
15mins
“Until very recently, I thought I would die with the same genome that I was born with.”
A man in a suit with half of his face and head illustrated as mechanical gears and machinery, blending human and robot features.
8mins
“I've started to think about three puzzles we need to solve for as we bring these technologies into our organizations.”
A weathered metal sign reading "PROGRESS" with an arrow stands in a barren desert landscape under a blue sky.
13mins
“People got skeptical, fearful, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.”
A silhouette of a person climbing up the edge of a steep cliff against a beige background.
8mins
“The purpose of a coach is to not be the one to set the goals, but instead to say, "Here are the kinds of goals we can work our way through.””
A petri dish with a red agar medium shows various colonies of bacteria growing, with dense streaks on the right and scattered colonies on the left.
13mins
“Chance invents and natural selection propagates that chance invention.”
A timeline diagram showing portraits of various scientists, documents, and equations connected by arrows, illustrating the historical development of quantum mechanics.
16mins
“The messy reality of it is that all of these very smart people, including Isaac Newton, were talking to other people.”