Closer to Truth Podcasts

CONSCIOUSNESS — Can art inform the classic mind-body problem? While the relationship between mental activity and physical brain continues to baffle (especially consciousness), can the existence and process of art provide insight?

CONSCIOUSNESS — What is happening in our brains when we perceive and appreciate the arts? What are the neural substrates of artistic sensations, feelings, and emotions? How do diverse arts affect the brain?

CONSCIOUSNESS — What is the nature of art? What makes something “art”, and why should we value it? What are aesthetics and art theory? Can philosophy of art enhance appreciation and practice of the arts?

COSMOS — It’s the ultimate puzzle. It’s the haunting question. Why is there “something” rather than “nothing”? It seems impenetrable, uncrackable, unfathomable. But are there ways?

COSMOS - What’s the ultimate stuff of reality? What’s absolutely fundamental and non-reducible — the fewest number of categories within which every specific thing, of every general kind, can be classified?

MEANING - It’s intended as ultimate purpose: salvation means eternal life with God. For believers, what actually happens, what kind of life? For non-believers, what can we learn about how religion works?

MEANING - Can atonement absolve sin? For believers, how could The Atonement work? What’s the process? For non-believers, what does The Atonement say about the kind of God that supposedly designed it?

MEANING - Why the astonishing claim that Jesus is God? Not like God. Not representing God. But literally God? One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to appreciate the arguments.

COSMOS - Here’s the claim: each level of the scientific hierarchy — physics, chemistry, biology, psychology — has its own special laws that can never be explained by deeper laws (physics). How can this be?

CONSCIOUSNESS - What makes a human being a "person?" What provides our sense of unity and continuity? While most people assume that to be a person is to have a soul, most philosophers-and some theologians-believe that persons are all material.

CONSCIOUSNESS - How does consciousness weave its magical web of inner awareness-appreciating music, enjoying art, feeling love? Even when all mental functions may be explained, the great mystery-what it "feels like" inside-will likely remain.

COSMOS - Here’s the claim: conditions of the universe relate to the presence of observers. Does the Anthropic Principle convey deep insights? Or thwart science? For sure, it’s often misunderstood and controversial.

COSMOS - Here’s the claim: cosmic conditions that allow complex structures — galaxies, stars, planets, people — depend on a few “constants of nature” lying within tight ranges of values. But is fine-tuning valid?

COSMOS - Why do the “constants of nature” — masses of subatomic particles and strengths of forces like gravity and electromagnetism — have the values they do? Does fine-tuning “cry out” for explanation?

COSMOS - We search deepest levels of cosmic reality, the big picture of the puzzle of the universe — beginning, size, structure, future, far future. We seek significance in cosmology, if there’s any to be.

COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about expanding your horizons: you can't imagine what's in store! COSMOS - More than one universe? A ridiculous question no more! How could multiple universes be generated, and can we ever find evidence, one way or another? Talk about expanding your horizons: you can't imagine what's in store!

COSMOS - Is there more than one universe? According to current cosmology, our entire gigantic universe is only one of innumerable universes, each universe like one tiny bubble in a limitless ocean of universes. What could all this mean?

COSMOS - What could be more startling than many universes – multiple universes, innumerable universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes? But does the multiverse really exist?

MEANING - Most people believe that God exists and religion is God's revelation. But some claim that religion needs nothing supernatural; that religion, without God, can flourish because personal psychology and group sociology drive religion.

MEANING - I hope God exists, which is why I listen to atheists and follow their arguments. If hope trumps reason I may be entombed in false belief.

MEANING - Arguments for God, and against God, each call the universe as witness, each count the universe as evidence. God believers invoke the universe's apparent fine-tuning. God deniers envision a vast number of universes, so that anything can happen by accident, including us.

MEANING - Is analytic theology for the better, clarifying beliefs? Or for the worse, undermining faith? How does it compare with philosophy of religion, biblical studies and exegesis, and systematic theology?

MEANING - How can we have confidence in what we know or believe? What is knowledge? What is belief? How is belief justified? And, is justified belief, knowledge? How can we not doubt everything?

MEANING - Can the analytic enrich the theological, sharpening distinctions of doctrine? Can deep questions about God be addressed with methods and practices that are precise and rigorous?

COSMOS - To most physicists, mindless laws generated the universe. A few believe that a supreme being is the creator. But don’t the discoveries of cosmology eliminate the need for supernatural causes?

COSMOS - Don't let the heated argument or the smooth talk fool you: the struggle between science and religion carries deep significance. Meaning and Purpose hang in the balance as battle rages on many fronts.

COSMOS - The relationship between science and theology has easy conflicts and hard harmonies. Is consonance possible? What is consonance in science and religion that we should quest for it?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Parapsychologists are sure ESP is real. Skeptics are sure it is not. But if ESP is real, would ESP need to go beyond physical laws, reaching into unknown non-physical realms?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Extrasensory perception (ESP) probes reality. If ESP does not exist, then today’s physical world may be all there is. If ESP does exist, then reality may go beyond the physical world. But can ESP be tested by science?

CONSCIOUSNESS - If ESP were real, would it transcend space and time? How could our minds know stuff, and do stuff, not only beyond our senses, but also beyond the laws of physics? What are possible mechanisms?

COSMOS - Information is all the rage in science, changing how we think about fundamental questions. Information has many descriptions, some of them surprising. Why is Information so important to scientists and philosophers?

COSMOS - To appreciate Time is to touch the texture of reality. Does Time differ from our common perceptions of it? Is Time fixed or flexible?

COSMOS - Perhaps we cannot know the reason for the universe, if there is any. But is it even possible for the universe to have a reason? If yes, how would natural regularities and rules compare with some kind of goal or God?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Religions offer life after death. Many people are skeptical. Evidence for post-mortem survival? Again, skeptics abound. Can death ever be defeated? Are these possible ways?

MEANING - Whether God exists may depend on whether God is necessary. Even if God exists, would it have been possible for God not to exist? In other words, even if God does exist, could it have been otherwise?

MEANING - The God debate is not a game. Is there a God? If so, what are God's essences and traits? What are all the ways that God could be? Or could not be? We discover different beliefs of different kinds of Gods.

MEANING - How to think about God rationally, logically, profoundly, critically? Have no illusion that metaphysics can find God, but can a kind of progress be made?

MEANING - Where do miracles fit in belief systems that center on God? If God exists, how could God make miracles happen, and what would miracles imply about the way God relates to the world?

MEANING - In searching, striving to know God—if there is a God—we discover contrasting ways that God could be. It is good to wonder about God, see a landscape of possibilities, get the big picture of what God may be like.

COSMOS - What remarkable discoveries are being made in cosmology! Cosmologists now develop credible theories about the beginning and end of our universe and theory-based speculations about vast numbers of multiple universes. But does the cosmos have a reason? Could revolutionary ideas support some kind of 'universal reason'? The bar is set high, and it is OK to say no.

CONSCIOUSNESS - It is standard medicine that mental states can affect physical states. That's how placebos work—when sham drugs improve health, working by inducing the body to generate hormones. But some claim that the mind goes even further in healing the body, operating through consciousness in some nonphysical manner. Can this make sense?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Consciousness is what we know best and explain least. It is the inner subjective experience of what it feels like to see red or smell garlic or hear Beethoven. Consciousness is baffling.

CONSCIOUSNESS - Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of my body changes many times. Yet I sense myself the same-continuous, a unity. How can this be?

COSMOS - The universe works for us because of deep physical laws. But if the values of these laws would much change, then all we see and know could not exist.

COSMOS - Is time the ultimate stage on which all events play? Some physicists and philosophers say No -- time is an Illusion; time is not real. How can that be?

MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam teach the ‘resurrection of the body’, the person brought back to life. But isn’t a ‘body’ out of place in a nonphysical hereafter? Isn’t a body a burden throughout eternity? Moreover, how to resurrect a body?

MEANING - What kind of God would create hell? Does the truth of Christianity, Judaism and Islam depend on the reality of Hell? Does the nature of Hell offer Insight into what that God would be like?

MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam each proclaim a resurrection of the dead, a bodily reconstruction of all people from all time. How would it work? Does it make sense?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Humankind has learned so much, so fast. What are the risks of scientific knowledge? Look to the future. Artificial intelligence. Genetic engineering. Benefits? Dangers?

COSMOS - Scientists split on whether the universe confirms or denies God. Though most leading scientists do not believe in God, some do. What can we learn from the dispute?