Do Explain with Christofer Lövgren

This is part 1 of a series where Christofer investigates the ideas of David Chapman with his friend Jake Orthwein. The material covered is mainly from Chapman's two books: 'Meaningness' (meaningness.com) and 'In the Cells of the Eggplant' (metarationality.com). In the first episode they focus on problematic cognitivist assumptions that undergird much of Deutsch's crit...

Christofer and executive coach Joe Hudson speak about emotional fluidity in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss fishing in Alaska, the value of being impartial in conversation, connection, repressed emotion and physical tension, rationality vs. emotion, improving decision making, cognitive deconstruction, enlightenment, non-duality, the self, depersonalization and zen sickness, and other rela...

Christofer, Walter Veit, Dennis Hackethal, and Matt Guttman speak about whether animals are sentient in this episode of Do Explain. Walter argues "yes", Dennis argues "no" and Matt argues that the hard problem really is hard. They discuss the difference between sentience and consciousness, the special way humans learn, consciousness as a binary jump vs. gradually evolving, anim...

Christofer joins Josh Levent on the Humans podcast (Josh's episode description below):  "Christofer Lövgren calls himself the irrevocably curious dickhead. Born and raised in Sweden, he grew up playing with Legos, Gameboy and Trading Cards. When he was 5 he picked up the guitar from his granddad and fell in love with it. He only gave it up at age 19, when his workout addiction led to ext...

Christofer, Marek Doyle and Dr. Purvi Parikh speak about the COVID-19 vaccines in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss their effectiveness/efficacy, CDC's change in reporting of breakthrough infections, methodological limitations of certain studies, vaccine safety, comparing COVID-19 with the flu, natural immunity, self-reporting, and other related topics. Marek Doyle is a functional nutr...

Christofer joins Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani on the Increments podcast (their episode description below): "Christofer Lövgren, host of the marvelous Do Explain podcast and the world's most famous Swede (second perhaps only to that Alfred fellow with the peace prize), joins us on the pod to teach us how podcasting is really done. And how to pronounce his last name. When we're not all...

Christofer and writer Jake Orthwein speak about the interaction between self and the world in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss Jake's Youtube-channel, the tension behind your face, nonduality, monism and Cartesian dualism, embodiment, the difference between conjectural knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance, representation, existential benefits of CR, and other related topics. Jake O...

Christofer and podcaster Ben Chugg speak about probability and prediction in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss Pascal's mugging, bayesian decision theory, historicism and cliodynamics, AI-risk, immortality, moral cluelessness, and other related topics. Ben Chugg is a research fellow at Stanford law school. He has a background in math and computer science and, along with Vaden Masrani,...

Christofer and podcaster Ben Chugg speak about evolutionary psychology in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss listening to podcasts at faster speed, information addiction, the role of neurobiology, impatience, the fun criterion, universal explainers, the salience of memory/speed in intelligence, and other related topics. Ben Chugg is a research fellow at Stanford law school. He has a backgrou...

Christofer and CEO Mathias Sundin speak about how the world is getting better in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss bitcoin, anti-dancing laws, Starcraft, why Mathias got into politics, bad criticism, human potential, law of Jante, echo chambers, social media, AI, the importance of progress, extreme poverty, colonizing space, idea sex, moral relativism, liberal democracy, fact-based optimism...

Christofer and writer Sarah Fitz-Claridge speak about romantic relationships in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss problems with open relationships, why the standard take on monogamy is mistaken, the importance of commitment, relationship as a knowledge-creating institution, depth vs. breadth of knowledge, sexual connection, cheating, genetic impulses, love and acceptence, non-coercion, boun...

Christofer and writer Jake Orthwein speak about the mind and introspection in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss meditation, empiricism, suffering, the self, dzogchen vs. vipassana, non-duality, free will, perception, computation, logic, correspondence theory of truth, and other related topics. Jake Orthwein is a writer and filmmaker based in Santa Monica, CA. He studied film and cognitive s...

Christofer and communicator Brett Hall speak about epistemological misconceptions in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the nature of knowledge, morality, bayesianism, objectivism, free will and the self, meditation and empiricism, the fun criterion, probability, people being equally creative, autism, evolutionary psychology, incrementalism, and other related topics. Brett Hall is the host o...

Christofer and writer Jake Orthwein speak about David Chapman's critiques of rationality and potential problems with Deutschian critical rationalism in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss their common adoration for Sam Harris, meaning, nebulosity and pattern, representational view of mind, concrete activity vs. abstract reasoning, realism, ontology and the world, affordances, and other r...

Christofer and communicator Brett Hall speak about the explanatory power of people in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss Brett's history, the double-slit experiment, wave-particle duality, quantum theory, fungibility and multiverses, computational and explanatory universality, why the brain must be a computer, optimism vs. pessimism, common epistemological mistakes, and other related to...

Christofer and psychiatrist Michael Golding speak about psychiatry in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss psychiatric diagnosis, physiology and psychology, capitalist vs. buddhist antidepressants, faulty error-correction in a mind, if psychiatry is explanationless, misconceptions about the field, effectiveness of different therapies and drugs, panic attacks, fear of dying, the importance of s...

Christofer and researcher Carlos De la Guardia speak about a knowledge-based view of the world and have a silly goose time in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss separating the art from the artist, morality, accents, humor, music, writing, how to think about making plans, memes, machine learning, AGI, and other related topics. Carlos De la Guardia is a researcher and musician, looking to make...

Christofer and motivational coach Matt Goldenberg speak about heaven vs. enlightenment-oriented motivation and demonstrate some emotional processing centered around memory reconsolidation theory in this episode of Do Explain. They also discuss the difference between unconditional and conditional love, and other related topics. Matt Goldenberg is a coach and teacher at http://ProcrastinationPlayboo...

Christofer and motivational coach Matt Goldenberg speak about how to overcome procrastination and build non-coercive motivation systems in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the mechanism of procrastination, coercive vs. non-coercive motivation, why most productivity systems fail, why self-love matters, practical tips and exercises, Memory Reconsolidation Theory, shadowwork, how to stay moti...

Christofer and psychologist Filip Bromberg speak about all things psychedelics in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the history of psychedelics, psychedelic therapy, psychedelic research, ACT and the importance of integration, potential dangers and risk management, set and setting, low vs. high dose, metaphysical pitfalls, the hypothesized mechanism of psychedelics, twitter-questions, and o...

Christofer, Matt Guttman and Sam Kuypers speak about whether it makes sense to talk about free will in a fully deterministic universe in this episode of Do Explain. Matt argues 'no', Sam argues 'yes'. Matt Guttman is a software engineer and analyst in Chicago, Illinois. He holds degrees in philosophy, business management, English literature, and education, and have an active an...

Christofer and software engineer Matt Guttman answer questions from Twitter in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss animal consciousness, the substrate independence of epistemology, morality and sentience, suffering, Panpsychism, Taoism, Buddhism, the illusion of self, how rich is too rich, death, and other related topics.  Matt Guttman is a software engineer and analyst in Chicago, Illinois....

Christofer and software engineer Matt Guttman speak about philosophy of mind and different levels of explanations, in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the hard problem of consciousness, objective morality, determinism and prediction, reductionism, the reality of abstractions, epiphenomenalism, free will, the predictability of the growth knowledge, meaning, and other related topics. Matt Gu...

Christofer and physicist Sam Kuypers speak about the importance of understanding the problem situation when explaining any knowledge creating system in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss determinism and evolution, reductionism, eastern philosophy and enlightenment, phenomenological self-representation, if dinosaurs were people, Pickle Rick, knowledge in the multiverse, Thomas Szasz and menta...

Christofer and psychiatrist Michael Golding speak about the interaction between creativity and physiology, and mental illness, in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss the evolutionary process of the mind, psychiatry, IQ, the analogy between cancer and schizophrenia, the dangers of cannabis, LSD and MDMA, Internal Family Systems (IFS), and other related topics. Michael Golding is a Board Certif...