Big Think

Big Think

@bigthink · 9.1M subscribers · 10,236 videos · English

Big Think exists to make you smarter, faster. Through conversations with the world’s brightest thinkers, we bring you the ideas shaping the future of science, philosophy, culture, and the human mind. Our library of thousands of videos distills complex insight into clear, actionable wisdom for how to think, work, and live in a changing world. Meet legendary teachers like philosopher Daniel Dennett, physicist Brian Cox, classicist Mary Beard, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, political scientist Ian Bremmer, anthropologist Helen Fisher, and hundreds more — all sharing the ideas that define our t

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1:19:08

What makes life different from everything else in the universe | Adam Frank: Full Interview

27K views · today · 1:19:08

Up next, Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality | Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: The physics of agency · Why the brain in a vat doesn’t work · Autonomous agents and relevance realization · Autopoiesis: Life as self-creation · Chapter 2: A possible solution to our quantum conundrum · The many-worlds interpretation

▶️ Mentioned videos: Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality Full Interview

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8:35

The body keeps exposing how much we don’t understand | Matthew Nurse

32K views · 1d ago · 8:35

Guest: Matthew Nurse

We created this video in partnership with Nike. “We have so much opportunity still and so much room to grow. Science is never done.” Inside the Nike Sport Research Lab, Chief Science Officer Matthew Nurse and his team chase the questions that hold athletes back. Drawing on biomechanics, physiology and neuroscience, they start with the problems every athlete knows: fatigue, injury, the moment the body gives out.

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1:20

What is panpsychism? | Jack Symes

21K views · 4d ago · 1:20

Guest: Jack Symes

What is panpsychism? | Jack Symes Jack Symes is a philosopher at Durham University and the host of The Panpsycast podcast. In this clip from our full interview, he explains panpsychism, the idea that consciousness is a basic feature of the universe.

▶️ Mentioned videos: Watch the full interview

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5:25

Who you are fluctuates every single second | Lisa Feldman Barrett

98K views · 4d ago · 5:25

Guest: Lisa Feldman Barrett

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators ► Ask five people who you are. You might get five different — and equally true — answers. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that traits like introvert, extrovert, dismissive, or engaged aren't fixed properties sitting inside a person — they're descriptions of a relationship.

📖 Mentioned book: Book on Amazon

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1:02:06

The laws of the universe are unable to explain these origin mysteries | Paul Davies: Full Interview

487K views · 7d ago · 1:02:06

Up next, Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality | Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: What is life? Definition and information · Cooking up life in the lab · Life beyond the genome · Chapter 2: Life, entropy, and the laws we're missing · Does life defy the second law? · Maxwell's demon and information as fuel

📖 Mentioned book: The Goldilocks Enigma

▶️ Mentioned videos: Brian Cox: The quantum roots of reality Full Interview

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1:13

What is life? | Paul Davies

14K views · 11d ago · 1:13

Guest: Paul Davies

Paul Davies is a physicist at Arizona State University and the author of What's Eating the Universe? In this clip from our full interview, he takes on the question of what life actually is.

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6:52

The absurd power of shared belief | Lisa Feldman Barrett

84K views · 11d ago · 6:52

Guest: Lisa Feldman Barrett

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators ► Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett explains how collective belief creates the things we treat as fact, and how fast that belief can collapse. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues much of what feels like objective reality — color, money, even the idea of a "president" — is social reality: built through collective agreement, not discovered as fact.

📖 Mentioned book: Book on Amazon

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2:19:28

1 in 6 people are narcissists. Learn to spot them early | Ramani Durvasula: Full Interview

386K views · 14d ago · 2:19:28

Up next, Finding and protecting selfhood in the age of social contagion | Luke Burgis: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: How to identify narcissism · Why narcissism is having its moment · The C-suite traits that help narcissists hide · The 5 types of narcissism · Why codependency is the wrong lens · Chapter 2: Signs you are in a narcissistic relationship

▶️ Mentioned videos: Finding and protecting selfhood in the age of social contagion Luke Burgis: Full Interview

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6:22

The science of how your past contributes to your present | Lisa Feldman Barrett

158K views · 18d ago · 6:22

Guest: Lisa Feldman Barrett

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators ► Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett on how the way we perceive emotions is based on patterns in our culture, not universal signals. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues even color isn't fixed biologically — a four-coned visual system would make today's "objective" red look wrong, the way colorblindness already does for some people and animals.

📖 Mentioned book: Book on Amazon

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1:17:55

Finding and protecting selfhood in the age of social contagion | Luke Burgis: Full Interview

191K views · 21d ago · 1:17:55

Up next, The blueprint for becoming an emotionally mature adult, in 68 minutes | Mark Manson: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: Distinguishing a solid self and a pseudo-self · What makes a tribe unhealthy · How anxiety spreads through families · The man who refused to salute Hitler · Chapter 2: The three temptations of the screen · Dunbar’s number and the limits of connection

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com

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7:24

The famous tree-falling thought experiment has a new answer | Lisa Feldman Barrett

191K views · 25d ago · 7:24

Guest: Lisa Feldman Barrett

We created this video in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators ► Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett argues that reality is built, not found, and that changes everything about how we interact with each other. Some people believe reality is objective – that the world exists separate from us – while others believe it is subjective – dependent on our own points of view. Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett makes the case that it's not quite that simple.

📖 Mentioned book: Book on Amazon

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1:05:58

The next stage of the God debate | Jack Symes

149K views · 28d ago · 1:05:58

Guest: Jack Symes

Up next, The strongest arguments for and against the existence of God | Alex O'Connor: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: Defeating the Evil-God challenge · The atheist argument that seemed unbeatable · Why I scrapped 50,000 words defending atheism · From atheist to agnostic · Chapter 2: Multiverse pantheism: A unified answer to life's biggest questions · The odds against us being here

▶️ Mentioned videos: The strongest arguments for and against the existence of God Alex O'Connor: Full Interview

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1:24:57

The theory that connects the origin of life to the rise of intelligence | Blaise Aguera y Arcas

184K views · 1mo ago · 1:24:57

Up next, Science’s difficult journey to try to understand consciousness | Annaka Harris: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: Defining life: Computation & symbiogenesis · Von Neumann cracked life’s code · Viruses helped write your DNA · Is AI alive? · Chapter 2: Why life requires function · The brain of Theseus

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com

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1:30:17

The political philosophy that changed the world | Jonathan Rauch: Full Interview

340K views · 1mo ago · 1:30:17

Up next, Arguing is a constructive skill: The blueprint to build yours | Bo Seo: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: Liberalism: Humanity’s greatest technology · What makes liberalism unique and what it delivers · Who decides what’s true? · Chapter 2: The global backlash of liberalism · Two threats: Cancel culture and “firehose of falsehood” · The fascism question

▶️ Mentioned videos: Arguing is a constructive skill: The blueprint to build yours Bo Seo: Full Interview

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1:22:33

How tiny actions grow into sustained happiness | Tal Ben-Shahar: Full Interview

324K views · 1mo ago · 1:22:33

Up next, The blueprint for becoming an emotionally mature adult, in 68 minutes | Mark Manson: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: How to stop procrastinating when you’re overwhelmed · Build one-minute happy habits · Kickstart your upward spiral · Beat procrastination in five minutes · Chapter 2: The essential elements of happiness · Find meaning in one minute

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com

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1:11:24

Arguing is a constructive skill: The blueprint to build yours | Bo Seo: Full Interview

362K views · 1mo ago · 1:11:24

Up next, The blueprint for becoming an emotionally mature adult, in 68 minutes | Mark Manson: Full Interview ► 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.

Topics: Chapter 1: How good arguments work · Lessons from the Malcolm X debates · Finding a voice through debate · Pick your battles: the RISA framework · Chapter 2: Why arguments break down · Why social media can’t fix this

▶️ Mentioned videos: Video on youtube.com

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