Musing Mind Podcast

What is the current arc of the psychedelic renaissance in Western society missing? How do psychedelic experiences affect politics? And what are the psychedelic humanities? To guide us through these questions, I speak with Oliver Davis. He's a professor of French Studies and director of graduate studies at the University of Warwick in the UK, a co-editor of an ongoing series on the psychedelic huma...

As algorithms rise to play larger roles in how we interact with the world, how are they recursively acting upon us to play larger roles in how we experience ourselves? What, in short, does an algorithmic society do to consciousness? Eran Fisher is a professor of sociology at the Open University of Israel, and has a recent book out titled: Algorithms and Subjectivity: On the Subversion of Critical...

Christian is an economist whose work can help answer the question: how might economics become an 'emancipatory' social science? Christian holds a PhD in economics, is a professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, a former advisor to the alternative bank of Switzerland, and was a long-time researcher at the Belgian National Science Foundation. He's the author of Critical Political Econo...

Today, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson joins the podcast to discuss his recent paper, co-authored with Dennis Snower: "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics." Neoclassical, or orthodox economic theory is based on physics equations that assume the economic system is always trending towards equilibrium. Their paper suggests replacing physics with Darwin's evolutionary science,...

An unlocked, patreon-only episode where I reflect on the process at the heart of my conversation with Michael Levin, the evolutionary process through which little selves integrate into larger collective intelligences. Also incudes a fun experiment where I splice in audio clips from a prior conversation – with Ruben Laukkonen – to show themes that run across episodes. If you'd like access to past &...

How does collective intelligence emerge? How do parts get integrated into larger wholes? How can we increase the intelligence and agency of collective systems? Are cities, economies, or even societies intelligent systems of which humans are unwitting parts? On this episode, I'm joined by Michael Levin to discuss how his research in the collective intelligence of biological systems might help us th...

On this episode, I'm joined by Ruben Laukkonen to describe his new model that makes sense of what meditation does to the mind, through the lens of predictive processing. Ruben is a post-doc cognitive scientist at the University of Amsterdam, a contemplative with experience in traditions like Advaita and Therevada, has consulted for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, and writ...

On this episode, I explore data capitalism, acid communism, and the psychedelic ties between them, with Emma Stamm. Emma holds a PhD in cultural & social thought, and works at the intersections of the philosophy of technology, critical theory, and science and technology studies. She has taught at both NYU & Virginia Tech, and is now a professor in the philosophy department at Villanova University....

In this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Chris Letheby: a philosopher of cognitive science who focuses on psychedelic experience & its implications for our understanding of consciousness. Chris is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Western Australia and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Adelaide. He has a soon-to-be-published book: Philosophy of Psychedelics . Along with Philip G...

My guest in this episode is (once again!) Erik Hoel: PhD in neuroscience, research assistant professor at Tufts University studying consciousness, and author of the upcoming (phenomenal) novel, The Revelations . We center the conversation around themes from his novel, which lead us into: How fiction, as a form of “intrinsic media”, offers a unique approach for exploring consciousness that non-fict...

In this conversation, intellectual historian Barnaby Raine joins me in a wide-ranging, encyclopedic, and wonderful conversation about capitalism and the self. Barnaby is working on his PhD at Colombia, where he studies the end of capitalism in social & political thought since Marx, with a focus on ‘the problem of transition’: the challenge of seeking to move beyond a system upon which our lives st...

My guest on this episode is Katherine Gibson, a fiercely creative thinker on the relationship between post-capitalism and consciousness. With Julie Graham, she is co-author of a number of books, including The End of Capitalism as We Know It, and Postcapitalist Politics. Katherine is an economic geographer at Western Sydney University, and founded the ‘Community Economies Collective’, which is a pr...

My guest today is Julie Nelson: economist, and zen teacher. She co-edited a book in 1993 that became known to many as an early manifesto for feminist economics, and has spent her career questioning assumptions - of both the human mind and the discipline of economics. She is an economics professor (emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, a senior research fellow at the Global Developm...

My guest today is the historian and professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa, Ben Hunnicutt. His scholarship focuses on a simple, perplexing question: why, after 100 years of shortening working weeks, did America abandon the pursuit of leisure? I feverishly read two of his books - Work Without End, and Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream - that chronicle the history of the relati...

My guest today is Michael Brooks: host of The Michael Brooks Show and author of Against the Web . On top of having one of the most popular Leftist political talk shows (full of wonderfully deep political analysis), Michael has a rich background in meditation, integral philosophy, and the general consciousness scene. He regularly speaks about the need to situate the Leftist political project within...

My guest today is Gustav Peebles: professor of economic anthropology at The New School, and author of an explosive essay that turns Adam Smith on his head.  In our conversation, we explore: The forgotten “splenetic” philosophy of Adam Smith, and how his Theory of Moral Sentiments challenges the popular notion of his economic vision How the conflation of wealth with wisdom is bad for individuals, b...

My guest today is Glen Weyl: co-author of Radical Markets, founder of the RadicalxChange movement, Ph. D. in economics from Princeton, and in his spare time, works as Microsoft’s Chief Technology Political Economist and Social Technologist (OCTOPEST). In our conversation, we explore: How social technologies and economic institutions shape our physical, mental, and social lives The myth of individu...

My conversation today is with Peter Frase, author of Four Futures: Life After Capitalism , and member of Jacobin Magazine’s editorial board. Peter is among the most cogent writers on complex socioeconomic topics I’ve encountered. He dropped out of a sociology PhD program & began writing for a more popular, inclusive audience both through his personal website , and as a frequent contributor for Jac...

Today, I’m speaking with Dr. Alex Williams. Alex is co-author of the fantastically provocative book, titled: Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. He’s also coauthor of a forthcoming book titled Hegemony Now, which updates Antonio Gramasci’s theory of how power operates in societies in light of complexity science.    When he’s not writing, he’s a lecturer at the University...

In this conversation, John Vervaeke & I discuss: The meaning crisis as a crisis of interiority The religion that is not a religion Socioeconomic policies as forms of psycho-technologies The cognitive science of capitalist realism The tension between wisdom and commodification John is a professor of cognitive psychology & science at the University of Toronto. He recently completed a 50-episode lect...

My guest today is Karl Widerquist. Karl has been an active support of Universal Basic Income for 40 years. During that time, he earned two phD’s, one in economics and another in political theory from Oxford. He works on theories of justice and freedom, as the motivation for adopting a basic income. He’s a professor at Georgetown’s Qatar campus, co-chair of the basic income earth network, and a rea...

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Zachary Stein. Zak is difficult to introduce because he’s so wide-ranging. He works alongside philosophers Ken Wilber and Marc Gafni at the Center for Integral Wisdom, bringing the heart of integral theory into the discussion of 21st century possibilities. He did his graduate education at Harvard, studying education and human development, and most of his work...

Erik Hoel studies consciousness & emergence as a research assistant professor at Tufts University. Since growing up in his family-owned bookstore, he’s also a magnificent writer. We discuss consciousness, two of his essays - Fiction in the Age of Screens, and Enter the Supersensorium - why Freud was the best thing to ever happen to television, meditation, and why rediscovering a sense of snobbery...

Andrew Taggart is a nomadic philosopher and contemplative currently writing about ‘Total Work’, where the paradigm of work is becoming the central mechanism of our identities. In our conversation, we dig into the relationship between Total Work and postmodernism, the shortcomings of radical leftists in considering what constitutes ‘the good life’ beyond material subsistence, his experience with me...

I’m joined by Ron Purser to discuss how mindfulness, rather than starting any meaningful revolution, is feeding right into the neoliberal capitalist ideology, and becoming what Purser calls “the new capitalist spirituality”. Ron is a professor of management at San Francisco State University, as well as an ordained Zen dharma teacher in the Korean Zen Taego order of Buddhism. We discuss the incompa...