Being in the World

In this spirited reunion, Tao Ruspoli welcomes back neuroscientist and writer Patrick House for a discursive meander through memory, addiction, architecture, mind control, and the seductive power of narrative. Recorded inside Tao’s newly finished Quonset hut in Yucca Valley, fresh from the seasonal migration to and from Bombay Beach, the episode unfolds like an improvised fugue—equal parts philoso...

In this evocative and wide-ranging conversation, Tao Ruspoli is joined by artist, filmmaker, and systems architect  Dulcinée DeGuere  to unravel the conceptual fabric of  Bombay Beach ,  Convivium , and the radical politics of community. From the ghostly traces of Georges Bataille’s  Acéphale  to the practical realities of water systems and website menus, the episode oscillates between myth and in...

B. Scot Rousse ("B") is a philosopher focused on existential phenomenology and its applications to AI. He holds a PhD from Northwestern University and is currently a visiting researcher at Topos Institute in Berkeley, a visiting scholar in philosophy at UC Berkeley, and the director of research at Pluralistic Networks, an educational and professional development company based in Oakland....

I had the incredible honor of delivering the commencement address to UC Berkeley Philosophy department's graduating class of 2024 during this time of momentous social upheaval. As an alumnus who studied under legendary professor Hubert Dreyfus, a pioneer in applying existential phenomenology to critique technology and "Artificial Intelligence" (AI), it was powerful to return and shar...

"Filmmaker Tao Ruspoli and neuroscientist Dr. Patrick House engage in a wide-ranging discussion that explores the nature of truth, myth, and meaning. The conversation begins with an examination of the significance of the number 40 in various cultural and religious contexts, revealing how this seemingly arbitrary number has been imbued with profound meaning throughout history. Ruspoli and Hous...

A tour of legendary, academy award winning production designer Dennis Gassner's home in the Hollywood hills. Dennis Gassner (born October 22, 1948) is an American-Canadian production designer. He is notable for his work on Bugsy, Big Fish, Into the Woods, and Blade Runner 2049, his collaborations with the Coen brothers and Sam Mendes, as well the James Bond films Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, an...

A both very intimate and very expansive conversation with Dulcinee about creativity, addiction, mental health, technology, "artificial" "intelligence", politics, relationships, and more.

Poetry & Beats by Dulcinee DeGuere Piano and Synths by Tao Ruspoli The boundaries of your bias Trickle, trembling With a shudder that you deny Though it wraps you in a fog So taught your veins start to pop I’m trying to rupture something I can’t see But it dangles right in front of me Entangling my dreams with delusion And death The stench of which flirts, converts, and perverts The precious f...

Tao and Dulcinee discuss the deals they've made with each other to successfully quit smoking, meditate, and drastically reduce phone time. They also discuss the nature of technology, art, artifacts, and how to remain human in a technological world.

Tao takes a walk with his friend Eric Kaplan, a TV writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory, etc.) with a PhD in philosophy. They try to get to the bottom of what makes a good story and what makes a good storyteller. Yucca Valley July 13, 2023

Riccardo Manzotti is a philosopher, psychologist, and AI expert and the author of  The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One . Born in Parma, Italy, in 1969, Manzotti received his PhD from the University of Genova in 2001, and is currently full professor of theoretical philosophy at IULM University (Milan). He has been Fulbright Visiting Scholar at MIT (Boston). Manzotti originally...

Dulcinée is a filmmaker, conceptual/performance artist, & Systems Architect for the Bombay Beach Biennale. Tao and Dulcinée have a frank and vulnerable conversation about both personal and societal mental health following her recent Bipolar 2 diagnosis. Speaking publicly about it for the first time, Dulcinée and Tao explore the complex landscape of contemporary mental health, using both an aut...

Tao talks to chatGPT4 about its philosophical, political, and creative implications. Part 2 of 2

Tao talks to chatGPT 4 about its philosophical, political, and creative implications.

Eric Kaplan is an American television writer and producer. His work has included shows such as Late Show with David Letterman, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Malcolm in the Middle, Futurama, The Simpsons and Rick and Morty. He also worked on The Big Bang Theory throughout its run.  Kaplan was raised in a Jewish family in Flatbush, Brooklyn where his father was a "storefront lawyer" and h...

Chris and Anya visit Tao in desert after an around the world trip. 

Tao and Anya, host of A Millennial's guide to Saving The World, discuss astrology and whether it's possible to find meaning in it in a similar way we find meaning in fictions and mythological tales. They discuss archetypes and the collective unconscious and stories that can help guide us through this life without a need to "believe" in something supernatural or anti-scientific.    Many p...

Patrick House's new book 19 Ways of Looking at Consciousness now available everywhere books are sold...Get it, read it, give it, talk about it, post about it, and let us know what you think.   Thanks everyone!

Tao sits down with his old friend James Fox, a British journalist best known for his book White Mischief , and for co-authoring Life , the best-selling memoir of Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards . *There was a 2 minute interruption in the conversation due to a technical difficulty when Tao asks about cultural appropriation. Our apologies.

We go deeper.

Tao and artist James Ostrer delve into murky waters of colonialism, white privilege, art, gentrification, addiction, and commodification. See James' brilliant work at www.jamesostrer.com

Adam Freeland is an old friend, desert neighbor, and brilliant music producer and DJ. Adam & Tao wax philosophical about the nature of music and the music of nature.

Samir Tabar helps run one of the world’s largest publicly listed Bitcoin miners, Bit Digital. Before that he helped established one of the world’s first psychedelic venture capital funds, Noetic. Before that he was co-founder of Fluidity, a company extensively featured in the Harvard Business Review as being the first to tokenize New York real estate. He was also Head of Capital Strategy for Bank...

Dr. Patrick House and Tao discuss the last 8 days spent on the island of San Servolo, (former monastery, leper colony and insane asylum,) where they attended a conference on the neuroscience of consciousness.

Christof Koch is a German-American neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. From 1986 until 2013, he was a professor at the California Institute of Technology.   Tao and Christof sit down at the tail end of an 8 day conference on...