The Big Think Interview
- Episodes
- 49
- Released
- weekly
- Latest episode
- Nov 13, 2026
About the podcast
Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos helping you get smarter, faster. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life.
Episodes 49
Life is the most important problem in physics | Adam Frank
Descartes cut open living dogs and insisted their cries were just the noises of a machine. Astrophysicist and astrobiologist Adam Frank, a professor at the University of Rochester and author of The Little Book …
Show notes
Descartes cut open living dogs and insisted their cries were just the noises of a machine. Astrophysicist and astrobiologist Adam Frank, a professor at the University of Rochester and author of The Little Book of Aliens, argues that the same life-as-machine metaphor still shapes how we think about AI, and that it gets life fundamentally wrong. Living things are self-creating, self-repairing systems that decide what matters to them, which is why he calls today’s AI an artificial mimic rather than an intelligence.
The laws of the universe are unable to explain these origin mysteries | Paul Davies
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine, argues that the deepest mystery of life’s origin is how chemistry came to write its own code.Davies traces the question from Aristotle …
Show notes
Physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, author of The Demon in the Machine, argues that the deepest mystery of life’s origin is how chemistry came to write its own code.
Davies traces the question from Aristotle and Schrödinger’s “aperiodic crystal” to Maxwell’s demon, Michael Levin’s two-headed flatworms, and the possibility of a shadow biosphere hiding on Earth.
1 in 6 people are narcissists. Learn to spot them early | Ramani Durvasula
Narcissistic people are often charming at the dinner party and cruel in the car ride home, which tells you they can control it. Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, author of It’s Not You, has studied …
Show notes
Narcissistic people are often charming at the dinner party and cruel in the car ride home, which tells you they can control it. Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula, author of It’s Not You, has studied narcissism since long before it became a buzzword, and she argues that most of what circulates online gets it wrong.
Screens made belonging easy and selfhood nearly impossible | Luke Burgis
In 1936, a shipyard worker in Hamburg kept his arms folded while hundreds of men around him raised theirs for Hitler. Luke Burgis, author of Wanting and The One in the 99, wants to know what it takes to become …
Show notes
In 1936, a shipyard worker in Hamburg kept his arms folded while hundreds of men around him raised theirs for Hitler. Luke Burgis, author of Wanting and The One in the 99, wants to know what it takes to become that person, and he traces the answer back to the family. Drawing on psychiatrist Murray Bowen’s distinction between the solid self and the pseudo self, Burgis shows how anxiety and opinion pass through groups by contagion, and how our screens have multiplied the crowds we have to stand within.
Pantheism: A third way between religion and atheism | Jack Symes
For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. Philosopher Jack Symes was convinced by it, and was 50,000 words into a …
Show notes
For decades, atheists have used one move to dismantle the case for God: swap in an evil one and show that the arguments work just as well. Philosopher Jack Symes was convinced by it, and was 50,000 words into a book defending atheism when he noticed that the exercise kept tipping toward goodness. He threw out the manuscript and started over.
The theory that connects the origin of life to the rise of intelligence | Blaise Aguera
From von Neumann's blueprint, which predated the discovery of DNA, to viral genes that now help form our memories and placentas, Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does …
Show notes
From von Neumann's blueprint, which predated the discovery of DNA, to viral genes that now help form our memories and placentas, Blaise Agüera y Arcas argues that function defines life more than material does, and that AI belongs in the same story. He explains why he thinks AGI is already here, and gives a blueprint for using AI without sacrificing your own mind.
The political philosophy under attack from both the left and the right | Jonathan Rauch
Jonathan Rauch, author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, dives into the philosophy of liberalism, how it has created and transformed our institutions, and the state of truth in a world rife with …
Show notes
Jonathan Rauch, author and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, dives into the philosophy of liberalism, how it has created and transformed our institutions, and the state of truth in a world rife with misinformation.
The minimum viable intervention for a happier life | Tal Ben-Shahar
Most of us can recite the benefits of exercise, gratitude, and patience while doing none of it. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the Knowing-Doing gap, and our typical interventions, like retreats and month-long …
Show notes
Most of us can recite the benefits of exercise, gratitude, and patience while doing none of it. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this the Knowing-Doing gap, and our typical interventions, like retreats and month-long overhauls keep it open.
The lost art of rhetoric, from a 2x debate world champion | Bo Seo
Two-time debate champion Bo Seo breaks down why arguments fail: the 4 bad-faith personas that hijack conversations, a four-question framework for picking fights worth having, and the surprising Cold War …
Show notes
Two-time debate champion Bo Seo breaks down why arguments fail: the 4 bad-faith personas that hijack conversations, a four-question framework for picking fights worth having, and the surprising Cold War standoff between Nixon and Khrushchev that shows what staying composed under pressure actually looks like.
The science, medicine, and mythology of menstruation and menopause | Jen Gunter
OBGYN Jen Gunter unpacks the science, history, and mythology of menstruation and menopause, and offers a guidebook to navigate the modern healthcare landscape.
The invisible forces that create talent and elite performance | Daniel Coyle
Talent isn’t a gift we're born with – it’s a signal we’ve been reading completely wrong. Author Daniel Coyle breaks down the common traits shared by successful people, and why environment, not innate ability …
Show notes
Talent isn’t a gift we're born with – it’s a signal we’ve been reading completely wrong. Author Daniel Coyle breaks down the common traits shared by successful people, and why environment, not innate ability, is the variable that ties them all together.
The world's greatest mathematician explains 6 essential concepts of math | Terence Tao
Terence Tao has spent decades solving problems most people can't even state, and he says he's never had a single eureka moment. In this conversation, the UCLA mathematician and Fields Medalist breaks math down …
Show notes
Terence Tao has spent decades solving problems most people can't even state, and he says he's never had a single eureka moment. In this conversation, the UCLA mathematician and Fields Medalist breaks math down to six essential ideas: numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis, and dynamics.
The #1 predictor of relationships that are doomed to fail | Julie & John Gottman
Every marriage’s disintegration is marked by the same four warning signs that researchers John and Julie Gottman can spot before a couple even finishes their first sentence.The founders of the Gottman Institute …
Show notes
Every marriage’s disintegration is marked by the same four warning signs that researchers John and Julie Gottman can spot before a couple even finishes their first sentence.
The founders of the Gottman Institute break down decades of lab research on why relationships collapse, and what to look for in a partner so they can make it 50 years by your side.
Psychologist: The blueprint for developing a healthy relationship with your emotions | Lisa Damour
Stress has a branding problem. Clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour argues that most of us have the wrong relationship with discomfort entirely, treating stress like a malfunction instead of what it actually …
Show notes
Stress has a branding problem. Clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Damour argues that most of us have the wrong relationship with discomfort entirely, treating stress like a malfunction instead of what it actually is: a signal that we're growing.
Young people say their lives feel fake. Here’s why | Arthur Brooks
Arthur Brooks studies happiness for a living, and he says the epidemic of depression and anxiety among young adults comes down to one culprit: a meaning crisis.Brooks walks through the biology of falling in …
Show notes
Arthur Brooks studies happiness for a living, and he says the epidemic of depression and anxiety among young adults comes down to one culprit: a meaning crisis.
Brooks walks through the biology of falling in love, the real formula behind human suffering, and why a Harvard study spanning 85 years found deep relationships to be the single strongest predictor of a happy old age.
Giulia Enders: The old-fashioned mindset that gets in the way of our healing
Physician Giulia Enders spent years studying the gut before realizing no organ works alone. Here, she walks through 5 body parts — the lung, the immune system, the skin, the muscles, and the brain — and what …
Show notes
Physician Giulia Enders spent years studying the gut before realizing no organ works alone. Here, she walks through 5 body parts — the lung, the immune system, the skin, the muscles, and the brain — and what each one reveals about how we work, heal, and recover.
A philosopher's guide to escaping your own echo chamber
Philosopher Jonny Thomson walks through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 3 conditions for the kind of stupidity that destroys societies: outsourcing your thinking to an authority, willful ignorance, and conformity. He …
Show notes
Philosopher Jonny Thomson walks through Dietrich Bonhoeffer's 3 conditions for the kind of stupidity that destroys societies: outsourcing your thinking to an authority, willful ignorance, and conformity.
He shows how each one shows up today, from AI answering our moral questions to political parties enforcing loyalty over conviction.
Paul Bloom: The psychology of morality, perversion, and revenge
Psychologist Paul Bloom has spent his career studying the parts of human nature we often feel uncomfortable examining: why loneliness feels like starvation, why people are drawn to behaving poorly, why revenge …
Show notes
Psychologist Paul Bloom has spent his career studying the parts of human nature we often feel uncomfortable examining: why loneliness feels like starvation, why people are drawn to behaving poorly, why revenge feels righteous until it destroys everything.
Bloom argues that the US doesn't actually have a loneliness epidemic, it has a solitude epidemic, one being accelerated by AI companionship.
The myth of the cult of genius, in 48 minutes
A philosopher who walked away from an elite academic career to spend 3 years washing dishes in a monastery says that intellectual life has nothing to do with degrees. Zena Hitz argues that the real philosophers …
Show notes
A philosopher who walked away from an elite academic career to spend 3 years washing dishes in a monastery says that intellectual life has nothing to do with degrees.
Zena Hitz argues that the real philosophers are taxi drivers, office clerks, prisoners: Everyday people who exist outside the cult of academia.
250 million years of dinosaur history, in 104 minutes
Steve Brusatte, the paleontologist behind Jurassic World's science and author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Story of Birds, walks through what fossils actually prove versus what Hollywood …
Show notes
Steve Brusatte, the paleontologist behind Jurassic World's science and author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Story of Birds, walks through what fossils actually prove versus what Hollywood invented.
Brusatte traces dinosaurs back to footprints smaller than a house cat, found in Poland just after the worst mass extinction in Earth's history, and explains why those early survivors spent millions of years as background characters next to car-sized salamanders and armored crocodiles.
A neuroscientist’s guide to protecting your brain, in 58 minutes
A retired Japanese engineer once memorized pi to over 111,000 digits using nothing but storytelling and visualization. He also forgot his wife's birthday that same year. Neuroscientist Lisa Genova uses this …
Show notes
A retired Japanese engineer once memorized pi to over 111,000 digits using nothing but storytelling and visualization. He also forgot his wife's birthday that same year.
Neuroscientist Lisa Genova uses this contradiction to dispel a persistent collective fear: that ordinary forgetting is an early warning sign of Alzheimer's.
Tim Spector: The science of the gut microbiome and chronic inflammation
Could depression, dementia, and poor oral health all have one uniting link? The gut microbiome contains 200 more genes than human cells, and research shows its strong impact on mental illness, brain health, and …
Show notes
Could depression, dementia, and poor oral health all have one uniting link? The gut microbiome contains 200 more genes than human cells, and research shows its strong impact on mental illness, brain health, and chronic inflammation.
Professor of epidemiology at King's College London Tim Spector breaks down the science of how gut microbes produce the chemicals that shape your mood, your immune system, and your cognitive health, and why the standard Western diet has been systematically destroying them for 50 years.
The 3-part habit loop your brain is running 40% of the time | Charles Duhigg
About 40% of everything you do today is a habit your brain automated, and the neural loop driving it doesn't distinguish between good and bad habits.Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and …
Show notes
About 40% of everything you do today is a habit your brain automated, and the neural loop driving it doesn't distinguish between good and bad habits.
Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators, explains why trying to eliminate a bad habit is neurologically futile and why the habit that scares you most irrationally is probably the one change that rewires everything else.Vanessa Van Edwards: 7 cues that make you instantly more likable
You only have a few seconds to make a first impression, and the non-verbal cues you’re sending may be silently working against any kindness your words communicate. Charisma is learned, not innate, and even if …
Show notes
You only have a few seconds to make a first impression, and the non-verbal cues you’re sending may be silently working against any kindness your words communicate. Charisma is learned, not innate, and even if you consider yourself an “awkward” person, you can still hack positive reception.
Body language expert Vanessa van Edwards shares a genius formula to create a lasting first impression while debunking body-language myths and these mistakes you’re probably making in social situations.
The difference between creative people and you: Tolerance for useful restriction | David Epstein
David Epstein, author of Range and Inside the Box, walks through decades of research exploring why constraints, not freedom, are the engine behind creativity, focus, and breakthrough.
The quantum realm, the cosmological realm, and the multiverse, in 69 minutes
Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi takes us from the quantum realm to the cosmological and out to the multiverse, answering physics’ underexplored questions. He digs through the actual nature of electrons, why your …
Show notes
Astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi takes us from the quantum realm to the cosmological and out to the multiverse, answering physics’ underexplored questions.
He digs through the actual nature of electrons, why your speed through space is always borrowed from your speed through time,and why the Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye, yet almost no one has looked for it.
Bessel van der Kolk: The body’s silent record of trauma
Trauma doesn’t vanish when danger does. According to psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, the body acts as an archive, holding fear, pain, and survival instincts long after the moment passes. Van der Kolk explains …
Show notes
Trauma doesn’t vanish when danger does. According to psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, the body acts as an archive, holding fear, pain, and survival instincts long after the moment passes.
Van der Kolk explains why conventional treatments for trauma fall short, and the promising new pathways to healing that science is revealing.
Michael Spitzer: How music rewires the brain
Music is at least a million years older than language, yet we still see it solely through the lens of entertainment. Professor Michael Spitzer argues it's something closer to a biological system, one that was …
Show notes
Music is at least a million years older than language, yet we still see it solely through the lens of entertainment. Professor Michael Spitzer argues it's something closer to a biological system, one that was shaping the human body long before we had words for what we were feeling.
Why does a chord you've never heard before make you want to cry? Why do babies respond to rhythm before they've heard a single song? Why does the same part of your brain that processes mortal danger also process musical beauty? The answers reach back 4 million years, and forward into a future where music may be prescribed like medicine.
Nicole LePera: The child who learned to disappear is still running your adult relationships
Dr. Nicole LePera, the holistic psychologist and NYT bestselling author behind Reparenting the Inner Child, breaks down the 6 archetypes of childhood trauma.LePera explains why insight alone never produces …
Show notes
Dr. Nicole LePera, the holistic psychologist and NYT bestselling author behind Reparenting the Inner Child, breaks down the 6 archetypes of childhood trauma.
LePera explains why insight alone never produces lasting change and walks through the science of reparenting: The practice of stepping in as the adult presence you may never have had.
Mark Manson: How to pull yourself out of a cheap dopamine spiral
Most people are trying to solve the wrong problem, optimizing for happiness when happiness isn't actually a goal, it's a byproduct. Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, argues that the …
Show notes
Most people are trying to solve the wrong problem, optimizing for happiness when happiness isn't actually a goal, it's a byproduct.
Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, argues that the entire self-help industry has been selling ephemeral highs: affirmations, visualizations, the relentless pursuit of feeling good. The research doesn't support it, and more importantly, neither does lived experience.
These are the latest 40 of 49 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
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