Being in the World

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli undertake a critique of pure criticism...what is the role of criticism in art, culture and psychology? When are and aren't critics useful?

Lucy in the Studio with Diamonds

Dr. Patrick House and Tao Ruspoli spend an hour chatting to Lucy Walker, an English film director. She has directed the documentaries Devil's Playground (2002), Blindsight (2006), Waste Land (2010), Countdown to Zero (2010), and The Crash Reel (2013). She has also directed the short films The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011) and The Lion's Mouth Opens (2014) and fifteen episodes of Nickelodeo...

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss boundaries...in science, in relationships, and in the world at large.

Dr. Patrick House and Tao Ruspoli discuss consciousness: is it fundamental? how mysterious is it? Might it useful to think of it as a "dimension"?

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss our complex relationship to behaviors that have the potential for abuse and addiction, from sex to drugs to social media.

Nastasia Celeste joins Dr. Patrick house and Tao Ruspoli (her primary partner,) in a frank, fun, and intimate discussion of the ups and downs of polyamory.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss what home means (plus beards, discipline, fire, destruction, rebirth, and more.)

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss Britney Spears, mental health and how it is weaponized against women, death, darkness, Prince, Schopenhauer, pessimism, boredom, the need for an audience (or lack thereof,) and Viking funerals.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss mirrors, disfluencies, narcissism, seduction, Instagram, Tinder, "textual chemistry", and violations of expectati...

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss violence, the importance of hierarchy in different domains, from creativity to health care to politics, & in different species, repressed homosexuality, breaking down boundaries, Bernardo Bertollucci, Bertrand Russell, fighting, and a host of other topics in this rather packed hour.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss whether music, color, or gut feelings happen to you or because of you. Is there such a thing as raw sensory data without interpretation and learning?

Dr. Patrick House and Tao Ruspoli debate the concepts of social class, hierarchy, imitation and "elegance".

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss the rules of the game (and what brains and cultures have to do with them.)

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss absent/mythologized fathers, daddy issues, ecstatic truths, and the male gaze. (oh, and Tao's own father's surreal orgies with Salvador Dali.)

Jenna and Jordan talk sibling rivalry (or lack thereof,) metal organic frameworks, breakups, and what not to do on a first date.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli on ritual, addiction, tools, forgery, & the roles we play.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss the tension of attention.

Dr. Patrick House and Tao Ruspoli discuss superstition, fate, and our need for connectivity, causality and narrative.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss the issue of translation...would the world be a better place if there were only one language?

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss dreams and the possibility of rationally interpreting them.

Dr. Patrick House and Tao Ruspoli discuss narrative, truth, pornography, perception, editing, temporality, Sisyphus, The Decameron, the Bubonic Plague, and...you'll see:

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss breaks, brakes, boats, rivers, metaphors, rituals, relationships, and radiators.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss politics, polytheism, pain, progress, polarization, morning, mourning, heartbreak, death, and rebirth.

Dr. Patrick House & Tao Ruspoli discuss Leonard Cohen, eloquence, language as a musical instrument, what can we learn about an artist from their artistic output, what it mean to have a style, drawings from patients in 19th century insane asylums, simulation theory, neurons as puppet strings, and how the fire of the mind agitates the atmosphere (among other things.)