The History of Being Human

By special request from a brilliant young listener - an episode about the moon! Be careful what you wish for, because it's all here lol. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-being-human--5806452/support .

How well do you know your future self? How much do you like yout future self? The answer to these two questions has implications for how you plan and provide for that person. Today, we cover the work of Hal Hershfield and others about how well or poorly we identify with Future Us, and what it means for how short- or far-sighted we are in our decision-making. Become a supporter of this podcast: htt...

Recent finds in the Atapuerca site in Spain have confirmed and expanded our understanding of the tates and culinary practices of Homo antecessor.  This species is enigmatic and its place in the evolutionary tree unclear.  But what is very clear is that it was cannibalistic. And on a large scale.  It had a taste for young hominins, probably from competing tribes. How, you ask, could we possibly kno...

Rhys Taylor Lemoine is a postdoctoral researcher in extinction, megafauna, rewilding, and novel ecosystems. Today he speaks to us about the late quaternary extinction.  We discuss what megafauna are, their key roles in ecosystems, and the worldwide number and types that died off during the extinction of the late quaternary period (including the present).  Rhys discusses the two main theories about...

In the late quaternary period, from about 50 to 10 thousand years ago, vast populations of large animals died out.  Among them are some of the most iconic of prehistoric creatures -- mammoths, mastodons, woolly rhinoceri, dire wolves, smilodons, giant sloths, cave bears, and on and on.  In North America, more than 70% of species over 40kg (about 100lb) disappeared. In South America, it was even mo...

In this episode we begin a groundbreaking, never-before-attempted, altogether unprecedented series on the history of being human.   We are going to cover some of the best people who ever lived. Aside from my Dad, that is. Today we cover the "Moral Circle" concept, as a way to introduce just one of the criteria that will be going into deciding who is truly good, and who is truly not in the running....

On this episode we cover the famous, ancient "Ship of Theseus" thought experiment, and then stretch it into relevance for the very modern possibility of tranfering our psyche, and possibly our very identity, to a digital format. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-being-human--5806452/support .

Being Bipedal was a key step in becoming human. Many of our other abilities, and liabilities, began with bipedalism.  On this episode: When bipedalism? Why bipedalism? We dispell some myths and establish some likelihoods about this uhique and pleuripotent trait. See the video of this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZa3WwVyNeo&t=390s Become a supporter of this podcast: https://ww...

Borges wrote: “Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire” Time is the dimension we all inhabit, through which we propelled in only one direction. Why is this? Can we account for time's arrow? Can we reverse it?  Why does time only move in one d...

Most of us have had the feeling that we have experienced something before that we know we could not have expereinced before.  It can vary intensity from a slight familiarity to a sure conviction that we have seen, heard, smelled, or othewise lived through what we know in our mind to be novel. What is this feeling? What does it mean if anything? Is there any point to it? See the Youtube Episode her...

Today we go in depth about the death of John Allen Chau in 2018, including a complete reading of his own personal diary of the terrifying, disturbing events around North Sentinel Island. Events that he willingly waded into.   Was he a hero or a villain?  Selfless or Narcissistic?  Chances are very high the verdict you render will depend greatly on your own temperament, backgorund, and beliefs. In...

Part 1: The most tribal of tribes, the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island We don't know much about them. We don't know what they call themselves, what they think the world or universe is like, what they believe about the rest of humanity.  We don't know how they are organized, what they worship, how they see right and wrong. What we do know is that the North Sentinelese are the most tribal of tr...

Hitler was a failure who achieved the opposite of nearly all of his stated intentions.  But was he insane as well?   His life and legacy might argue he was, but what do the experts say? If he was insane, what was the diagnosis? And if he was not insane, how do you account for his actions? Was he a meth head, dragon chaser, narcissist, psychopath, schizophrenic, oedipal conflicted anal regressive,...

He's one of the most reviled people in Western history -- a man whose cruelty, jealousy, and violence are proverbial. And yet his legacy is much more nuanced, his person more complicated than most of us know. One thing that is not in question is that he died a miserable death; in pain, angry, and resentful. Was it, as Josephus said, divine justice? Was it foul play? Spoiler: as bad as it was, it a...

I have released my first TouTube video and this is the audio -- see the episode here: https://youtu.be/uVfn5Ar1rmg?si=e3TE_6tCWEuQxf7h Schrodinger's Cat Quick and Easy Yes, this is based on a longer podcast episode -- but hey, you've got to start somwhere! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-being-human--5806452/support .

The OG, greatest generation of Human ever! At least if your metric is a dogged determination to keep existing. For 2 million years these prehistoric hominins wandered far and wide, high and low, filling every available lakeshore and riverbed. What can we know about them? Their looks, abilities, traits? Did they use fire? Language? Clothing? Where did they come from and get to? And why, after such...

This week I wander off the topic of Life Extension (more next episode) to take advantage of an opportunity to interview an anthropologist about the White Sands footprints. Not since the Laetoli Australopithecus prints has a set of human footprints rocked the world of paleontology like those found in White Sands, New Mexico. Studies have dated these prints to 21-23,000 year ago, more than 6000 year...

It is time to take a trip to that Undiscovered Country and visit our greatest teacher. How long do we live, how long did we live, and why don't we just keep on going? Never mind that we do the world and our gene pool a great service by only taking up space for a finite time, what are the chances we can extend our time for a while? Indefinitely? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.sprea...

In this episode we cover the underpinnings of the either/or, cause-then-effect, deterministic, distance-separates-things, no-info-travels-faster-than-light, orderly world of classical physics. It is the world inhabited by such luminaries as Newton and Einstein. Then we descend into the merely probabilistic, action-at-a-distance, neither/both world of Quantum Physics to cover the most bafflng and c...

To paraphrase Richard Feynman: If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics. Along the same lines, if you have made sense of Schrödinger's Cat thought experiment, you don't understand it. But that's not to say it can't be explained. Which is exactly what we do in this episode of the history of being human - present one of the most enduring, and most popular...

At Long Last - Pilate's Old Question Will Get an Answer! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-being-human--5806452/support .

In this episode, the massive, rapacious king power lizards of the Cretaceous are finally taken off the board by an asteroid. We trace the origins and progress of the skulking night vermin that are unleashed in their absence. These night vermin, with their whiskers and fur and fancy new brains, become the superpowers of the Cenozoic (our current era). This is the story of the mammals, from a time l...

Continuing with the origins of everything that is, I present the history of planet Earth, from its birth to the age of mammals. Included: How old is the earth? What are the oldest rocks ever found? How old is life itself? When did multicellular organisms arise? When did life leave the sea for land? What percentage of species has survived until the current time? What were the 5 biggest mass extrinc...

In this episode: 9 billion years of prehistory made dangerously accessible The broadest, easily understood, fascinating ideas of the "Big Bang" Mysteries of the Big Bang What can we theorize? Where do our theories fail? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Big Bang model? What are the philosophical and identity implications of Big Bang Cosmology Summary of the development of the universe u...

Attention: This is the episode that started the podcast -- the story of the maxim Know Thysel f, the Prophetess at Delphi, Apollo and the python, Zeus and the omphalos, and the much more ancient Egyptian origins of the injunction. What did it mean to the ancients? Is it still relevant today, or has it cone the way of alchemy and phrenology? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker....