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

Addiction Ageing and death Childhood and adolescence Cognition and intelligence Consciousness and altered states Family life Gender and identity Language and linguistics Life stages Love and friendship Mental health Mood and emotion Neurodiversity Neuroscience Personality Pleasure and pain Psychiatry and psychotherapy Self-improvement Sex and sexuality Sleep and dreams Social psychology Spirituality Teaching and learning Technology and the self Wellbeing

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Illustration of interconnected neurons with red, spiky dendrites on a blurred orange background.

essayNeuroscience

The empty brain

Your brain does not process information, retrieve knowledge or store memories. In short: your brain is not a computer

Robert Epstein

Medieval painting depicting a battle scene with knights on horseback wearing armour and helmets against a colourful backdrop.

essayLanguage and linguistics

English is not normal

No, English isn’t uniquely vibrant or mighty or adaptable. But it really is weirder than pretty much every other language

John McWhorter

A person stands with arms crossed, looking into the distance on a dune in a vast, foggy desert. The image is in black and white.

essayMeaning and the good life

Indifference is a power

As legions of warriors and prisoners can attest, Stoicism is not grim resolve but a way to wrest happiness from adversity

Lary Wallace

Two children playing with a dog in a green field with yellow flowers, a goalpost and a yellow field in the background.

essayChildhood and adolescence

The play deficit

Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play they will never grow up

Peter Gray

A scanning electron microscope image showing pollen tubes in vivid pink growing from pollen grains of cucumber on the stigma.

essayHuman reproduction

The macho sperm myth

The idea that millions of sperm are on an Olympian race to reach the egg is yet another male fantasy of human reproduction

Robert D Martin

A man lying on a blue mat on grass with a book covering his face, hands clasped, shoes beside him.

essayConsciousness and altered states

Night school

New evidence suggests that we can learn while we sleep, but do we really want to put our hours of rest to work?

Kenneth Miller

A large group of people in bikinis and swimwear, body-painted in bright colours, posing and flexing muscles outdoors.

essayGender and identity

Gender is not a spectrum

The idea that ‘gender is a spectrum’ is supposed to set us free. But it is both illogical and politically troubling

Rebecca Reilly-Cooper

A child in a pink top and striped leggings sitting on the floor picking up pieces of a broken white plate with bare feet.

essayChildhood and adolescence

Childhood, disrupted

Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults

Donna Jackson Nakazawa

Close-up photo of a woman’s freckled face focusing on green eyes and blonde hair strands.

essayPhilosophy of mind

The problem of mindfulness

Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos

Sahanika Ratnayake

Illustration of a man in a shirt, tie and braces pointing with both hands, showing a crooked smile, set against a red background

essayEthics

A theory of jerks

Are you surrounded by fools? Are you the only reasonable person around? Then maybe you’re the one with the jerkitude

Eric Schwitzgebel

Photo of an empty playground with a slide, swings and climbing frame on a foggy, frosty morning, creating an eerie atmosphere.

essayEthics

Kids? Just say no

You don’t have to dislike children to see the harms done by having them. There is a moral case against procreation

David Benatar

A newborn baby in soft warm lighting, cradled in someone’s arms with a peaceful expression and eyes closed.

essayEvolution

War in the womb

A ferocious biological struggle between mother and baby belies any sentimental ideas we might have about pregnancy

Suzanne Sadedin

Black and white photo of an outstretched arm with self-harm scars, against a dimly lit background.

essayAddiction

Why self-harm?

Cutting brings relief because emotion and pain criss-cross in the brain. Can we untangle the circuits and stop self-harm?

Carrie Arnold

Painting showing three characters: a poor man, a child holding a newspaper and a rich man in a car smoking a pipe, industrial backdrop.

ideaPersonality

The bad news on human nature, in 10 findings from psychology

Christian Jarrett

Black and white photo of a lively gathering, people laughing and conversing around a table with wine bottles and glasses.

essayMeaning and the good life

The meanings of life

Happiness is not the same as a sense of meaning. How do we go about finding a meaningful life, not just a happy one?

Roy F Baumeister

A naked woman in a bed with a man partially visible, in a room with red walls and a wooden bed frame, clothes on the floor and a light fixture on the wall.

essaySex and sexuality

Pornucopia

Critics say that porn degrades women, dulls sexual pleasure, and ruins authentic relationships – are they right?

Maria Konnikova

Abstract painting of a face with two red eyes, geometric shapes in pastel colours and a textured orange background.

essayPhilosophy of mind

I am not a story

Some find it comforting to think of life as a story. Others find that absurd. So are you a Narrative or a non-Narrative?

Galen Strawson

A lively Asian street at night with neon signs. Two women are in the foreground; one is smiling while the other looks down.

essaySex and sexuality

Kept women

Mistresses are big business in China, where no official is a real man without his own ernai. What’s in it for the girls?

James Palmer

A woman working on a laptop indoors at night viewed from outside through a window, with dark curtains and a dimly lit room.

essaySleep and dreams

Broken sleep

People once woke up halfway through the night to think, write or make love. What have we lost by sleeping straight through?

Karen Emslie

A vibrant abstract painting depicting chaos and movement with swirling colours, figures, and shapes blending together dynamically.

essayNeuroscience

The real problem

It looks like scientists and philosophers might have made consciousness far more mysterious than it needs to be

Anil K Seth

Painting of a person in dark clothing holding an open book, with a desk scattered with papers, flowers and a lizard.

essayCognition and intelligence

Master of many trades

Our age reveres the specialist but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things

Robert Twigger

Sepia-toned artistic photo of a woman with arms crossed in ecstasy over her face against a dark background.

essayPleasure and pain

The orgasm cure

What if we could expand ecstasy, reduce stress and lift depression, all by delaying and extending orgasm?

Peter von Ziegesar

Medieval manuscript depicting a nude woman riding a green, phallic-shaped animal, surrounded by Latin text.

essayHistory

The salacious Middle Ages

Medieval people feared death by celibacy as much as venereal disease, and practiced complex sexual health regimens

Katherine Harvey

Black and white photo of a silhouetted person pressing their hands against curtains with light filtering through from behind.

essayConsciousness and altered states

Hallucinogenic nights

Sleep paralysis has tormented me since childhood. But now it’s my portal to out-of-body travel and lucid dreams

Karen Emslie