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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
Animal, vegetable, mineral | Aeon
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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

Are coincidences real? | Aeon
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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

Stuck with the soul | Aeon
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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

The immediate present | Aeon
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video

Art

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

6 minutes

Why did consciousness evolve? | Aeon
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Evolution

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

5 minutes

Seeing and somethingness | Aeon
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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

Ghosts | Aeon
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video

Film and visual culture

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

9 minutes

Thalia Wheatley: social neuroscience | Aeon
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video

Neuroscience

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

5 minutes

Imaginology | Aeon
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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

The middle of the world | Aeon
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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

How to be alone | Aeon
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video

Wellbeing

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

3 minutes

John Ruskin: in awe of nature | Aeon
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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

A is for autism | Aeon
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video

Neurodiversity

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

11 minutes

The philosopher’s zombie | Aeon
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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

Pivotal mental states | Aeon
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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

While you were sleeping | Aeon
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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

Hacking enlightenment | Aeon
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video

Consciousness and altered states

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

9 minutes

Around is around | Aeon
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video

Film and visual culture

A series of animated illusions illustrates how we project depth on to flat surfaces

8 minutes

Nightmares becalmed | Aeon
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essay

Sleep and dreams

Nightmares becalmed

I’m a dream engineer. Through touch, scent and sound, we help people rescript the dramas of their sleeping lives

Michelle Carr

Brain wifi | Aeon
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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Brain wifi

Instead of a code encrypted in the wiring of our neurons, could consciousness reside in the brain’s electromagnetic field?

Johnjoe McFadden

Phantasia | Aeon
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Dance and theatre

Phantasia

Imagination is a powerful tool, a sixth sense, a weapon. We must be careful how we use it, in life as on stage or screen

Paul Giamatti & Stephen T Asma

2020: a space odyssey | Aeon
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video

Space exploration

Spacewalks above, pandemic below – how one ISS crew member experienced 2020

15 minutes

Nyctophobia | Aeon
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video

Mental health

The dark side of ego loss – what it’s like to disappear into depersonalisation

9 minutes

In exile from the dreamscape | Aeon
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essay

Sleep and dreams

In exile from the dreamscape

We live in a wake-centric world that devalues dreaming, yet we need to experience dreams to be our authentic selves

Rubin Naiman