The economics of beard popularity in the US
AdultsEconomyPhilosophySocietyCultureWe may have reached "peak beard."
This Giant Neuron Could Explain Where Consciousness Comes From
AdultsBiologyNeuroscienceSelfSciencePhilosophyAfter uncovering three giant neurons, scientists could be one step closer to pinpointing where consciousness lives in the brain.
Would you sacrifice one person to save five?
AdultsLifePhilosophySocietyImagine you're watching a runaway trolley barreling down the tracks, straight towards five workers. You happen to be standing next to a switch that will divert the trolley onto a second track.
Post-Truth: Why Facts Don't Matter Anymore
AdultsPhilosophySocietyPoliticsMediaWhy we can't seem to agree on what's true when it's easier than ever to check.
Plato's best (and worst) ideas
AdultsHistoryPhilosophyFew individuals have influenced the world and many of today's thinkers like Plato. He created the first Western university and was teacher to Ancient Greece's greatest minds, including Aristotle.
The Illusion of Truth
AdultsPhilosophyPsychologyHumorIf you repeat something enough times, it comes to feel good and true.
What Is Something?
AdultsPhysicsSpacePhilosophyScienceWhat is something? On the most fundamental level thinkable, what are things? Why are things? And why do things behave the way they do?
Is life a video game? | Elon Musk | Code Conference 2016
AdultsGamingLifePsychologyPhilosophyTechnologyIs our life a simulation? Elon Musk has thought about this a lot.
What Are You?
AdultsBiologyHumanSelfPhilosophyPsychologySo. Are you your body? And if so, how exactly does this work? Lets explore lots of confusing questions.
Did The Past Really Happen? Vsauce
AdultsHistoryWorldPhilosophyGreece is full of wonderful new things and wonderful old things. But when WE become old things, will our ruins also be tourist attractions?
What is Random?
AdultsInternet CultureMathPhilosophyScienceFutureIs the future of the universe already determined?
How To Count Past Infinity
AdultsMathSciencePhilosophyI'm very grateful to mathematician Hugh Woodin, Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Harvard, for taking the time on multiple occasions to discuss this topic with me and help me wrap my (finite) head around it.
4 Logical Paradoxes!!
AdultsInternet CulturePhilosophyScience4 Logical Paradoxes That Will Boggle Your Mind
How a Bout of Depression Led to Dwayne Johnson's Career-Defining Moment
AdultsPhilosophyPsychologySportsAfter playing football for four years at the University of Miami, Dwayne Johnson was passed over by the NFL. While he played for the Canadian Football League for a short time, he was ultimately cut from his team, the Calgary Stampeders, and sent packing. At 23, Dwayne found himself living in his parents' small apartment, battling depression
How do you know you exist?
AdultsLifePhilosophyArtHow do you know you're real? Is existence all just a big dream? Has some mad scientist duped us into simply believing that we exist? James Zucker investigates all of these questions (and more) in this mind-boggling tribute to Rene Descartes's "Meditations on First Philosophy."
The famously difficult green-eyed logic puzzle
AdultsCreativityPhilosophyOne hundred green-eyed logicians have been imprisoned on an island by a mad dictator. Their only hope for freedom lies in the answer to one famously difficult logic puzzle. Can you solve it? Alex Gendler walks us through this green-eyed riddle.
What makes a hero?
AdultsLifePhilosophyPsychologyWhat trials unite not only Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins but many of literature's most interesting heroes? And what do ordinary people have in common with these literary heroes? Matthew Winkler takes us step-by-step through the crucial events that make or break a hero.
How to build a fictional world
AdultsCreativityPhilosophyBooksWritingWhy is J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy so compelling? How about The Matrix or Harry Potter? What makes these disparate worlds come alive are clear, consistent rules for how people, societies -- and even the laws of physics -- function in these fictional universes. Author Kate Messner offers a few tricks for you, too, to create a world worth exploring in your own words.