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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
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video

Values and beliefs

A Zen Buddhist priest voices the deep matters he usually ponders in silence

5 minutes

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essay

Animals and humans

An animal myself

When we imagine ourselves as another creature, we become more attuned to the world around us – and better at being human

Erica Berry

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video

Film and visual culture

Stop-motion origami unfurls in a playful exploration of how senses overlap

3 minutes

A crab is seen on a sandy beach. In the background and out of focus is a woman in a swimsuit
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essay

Philosophy of mind

What is it like to be a crab?

Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals

Kristin Andrews

A yellow orchid flower in a vase is lit by sunlight from a side window in a living room. The background is out of focus
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essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Psychosis and psychedelics

In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis

Phoebe Friesen

A Panama hat rests on a bed bathed in afternoon light filtering through gauze curtains. There is a slight motion blur
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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Déjà vu

Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival

Anne Cleary

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video

Meaning and the good life

The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor

16 minutes

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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Animal, vegetable, mineral

Cruel and unscientific, the ‘vegetative state’ diagnosis stems from a hierarchical and bigoted view of all living things

Ben Platts-Mills

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essay

Metaphysics

Are coincidences real?

I am an unequivocal rationalist and yet I still want to see something strange and wonderful in life’s weird coincidences

Paul Broks

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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Stuck with the soul

The idea of the soul is obviously a nonsense, yet its immaterial mysterious nature has deep hooks in the human psyche

David P Barash

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video

Art

At 95, an artist paints swiftly to capture the fugitive light

6 minutes

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video

Evolution

Why making if-then connections might be the key to consciousness

5 minutes

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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Seeing and somethingness

An evolutionary approach to consciousness can resolve the ‘hard problem’ – with radical implications for animal sentience

Nicholas Humphrey

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video

Film and visual culture

With human help, AIs are generating a new aesthetics. The results are trippy

9 minutes

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video

Neuroscience

The brain repurposed our sense of physical distance to understand social closeness

5 minutes

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essay

Knowledge

Imaginology

We need a new kind of approach to learning that shifts imagination from the periphery to the foundation of all knowledge

Stephen T Asma

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video

Consciousness and altered states

You need to make friends with pain to run through the Grand Canyon and back

5 minutes

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video

Wellbeing

A tender poem doubles as a guide to sitting comfortably in one’s own company

3 minutes

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video

Beauty and aesthetics

For Ruskin, words couldn’t capture nature’s palette. So here it is in black and white

6 minutes

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video

Neurodiversity

Autistic children and adults sketch out the look and feel of their sensory world

11 minutes

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essay

Philosophy of mind

The philosopher’s zombie

The infamous thought experiment, flawed as it is, does demonstrate one thing: physics alone can’t explain consciousness

Dan Falk

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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Pivotal mental states

Spiritual highs and mental breakdowns are both products of the same evolved brain system granting us the power to transform

Ari Brouwer

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video

Work

What is it like to clean the world for tomorrow while the rest of a city sleeps?

7 minutes

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video

Consciousness and altered states

‘Meditation without meditating’ might be possible. Can it also be made ethical?

9 minutes