dash

Latest Episodes:

This Insane Productivity Hack Has a Catch | Tiago Forte Aug 11, 2024

Show notes

This productivity hack comes with an asterisk, explains note-taking guru Tiago Forte. What would you learn about yourself if you temporarily stopped using the tools that make your life easier? That’s the main question in this Big Think video with author Tiago Forte, who describes what happened when he changed the way he took digital notes. The utility of note-taking depends on the context, Forte says. During face-to-face conversations, he found that taking notes was helpful for him, but it came at the cost of being less connected to the person in front of him. In contrast, taking notes while he’s by himself — walking around a city, for example — is more beneficial, and often ends up influencing his work in a positive way.

About Tiago Forte: Tiago Forte is one of the world’s foremost experts on productivity. He has taught more than 20,000 people worldwide through his programs and writes and speaks on how technology can help knowledge workers revolutionize their personal effectiveness. Tiago’s online course, Building a Second Brain, has produced more than 5,000 graduates from over 70 countries. The course draws on his experience in academic disciplines such as information science, practical fields such as user experience design, and his work with top organizations and leaders in Silicon Valley. Tiago believes knowledge management is one of the most impactful skills in the world today, and his work is dedicated to making it accessible to individuals for the first time. In a previous life, he worked in microfinance in Latin America, served in the Peace Corps in Ukraine, and consulted for large companies on product development in San Francisco. He lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife Lauren, son Caio, and dog Ximena.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

Listen To This Next:

Adam Grant's #1 phrase to unlock potential

The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

-----------------------------------

Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Your top destination for expert-driven, educational content. Featuring thousands of episodes and insights from renowned figures like Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think accelerates your learning by delving into the pivotal concepts and essential skills shaping knowledge in the 21st century...

Unlock Knowledge, Faster

With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

Remember to Follow the Podcast and Enable Notifications

If you found this episode valuable, Share It

Leave a 5-Star Review!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Sludge": How bureaucracies abuse your time | Cass Sunstein for Big Think Aug 11, 2024

Show notes

"Sludge": How bureaucracies abuse your time, with Cass Sunstein

"Sludge" constitutes the obstacles, such as bureaucratic paperwork, that society puts in place to prevent a person from accomplishing something they want to do.

Sludge can be good when it ensures that people do not behave recklessly or impulsively. But oftentimes, sludge is nothing more than an obstacle to freedom.

Sludge can be found everywhere, from the criminal justice system to acquiring a mortgage. Much of this sludge needs to be eliminated.

To learn even more from the world's biggest thinkers, get Big Think+ for your business: https://bigthink.com/plus/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Cass Sunstein:

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. In 2020, the World Health Organization appointed him as Chair of its technical advisory group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, and after that, he served on the President's Review Board on Intelligence and Communications Technologies and on the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Board. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has advised officials at the United Nations, the European Commission, the World Bank, and many nations on issues of law and public policy. He serves as an adviser to the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™

► Big Think

The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century.

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What Alpha Brainwaves Reveal About Loneliness | Lisa Miller - BIGTHINK Aug 11, 2024

Show notes

Scientists can't define spirituality. But we can study its healing effects, says Columbia professor Lisa Miller.

This interview is an episode from @The-Well our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation .

Clinical psychologist Lisa Miller asserts that we are at epidemic levels of loneliness in modern society, and attributes this to a distorted perception of isolation. All humans are hardwired with neural circuits that allow us to realize our connection to a profound unit of consciousness, she explains — so why aren’t we recognizing it? Regardless of our faith, traditions, or spiritual beliefs, when humans enter spiritual awareness, our brains emit a specific wavelength called high amplitude alpha. This wavelength is known as the Schumann Resonance, the wavelength of nature and all life emitted by the Earth. This shared wavelength between humanity and all nature is a force of oneness that we can tap into through prayer, meditation, and mystical moments. Despite the loneliness we may feel, Miller asserts that in truth, we are interconnected with all beings — each of us a unit in a profound shared consciousness. Embracing spirituality, and practicing it with intention, can have a transformative impact on our lives, helping us to realize in times of difficulty that we are never really alone.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Listen To This Next:

Adam Grant's #1 phrase to unlock potential

The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business-

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Lisa Miller: Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is a professor in the linical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child

-------------------------------------------

Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Unlock Knowledge, Faster

With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

Remember to Follow the Podcast and Enable Notifications

If you found this episode valuable, Share It

Leave a 5-Star Review!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"Collective Illusions": Why false consensus in society is so dangerous | Todd Rose for Big Think Aug 11, 2024

Show notes

"Collective Illusions": Why false consensus in society is so dangerous, with Todd Rose

In a perfect world, the relationship between private opinion and public opinion would be basically like a mirror. At its best, the public opinion holds a mirror to us, and it reflects exactly who we are. But because of collective illusions, that's typically not the case.

Collective illusions lead individuals to make decisions that are contrary to their private values simply because a majority of people in a group believe the majority thinks something that they don't. As a result, the entire group can end up doing something that almost nobody wants, which is fatal to a free society.

But if society creates a space where people feel comfortable expressing views they believe might deviate from the group, you'll find out pretty quickly whether your impression of the group is correct or not. Even when we fundamentally end up disagreeing, a truthful disagreement is always better than a collective illusion.

Up next ►► Sam Harris: The self is an illusion • Sam Harris: The Self is an Illusion |...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collective Illusions is a 9-part series brought to you by Stand Together: a community of changemakers tackling our biggest challenges

For more stories, ideas, and advice from changemakers, subscribe to Stand Together ► / standtogethercc

Watch the entire Collective Illusions playlist ► • Collective Illusions

And visit Stand Together’s website to learn more ► https://standtogether.org/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Todd Rose:

Todd Rose is the co-founder and president of Populace, a think tank committed to ensuring that all people have the opportunity to pursue fulfilling lives in a thriving society. Prior to Populace, he was a faculty member at Harvard University where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality and directed the Mind, Brain, and Education program. Todd is the best selling author of Collective Illusions, Dark Horse, and The End of Average. He lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™

► Big Think

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the Metaverse a Future Dystopia? | Matthew Ball - BIGTHINK Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

Two-thirds of our days are spent alone. The Metaverse will bring us together, argues leading Metaverse thinker Matthew Ball.

Will the metaverse lean more toward dystopia or utopia? If you base your answer solely on Hollywood’s vision of the future, you might say the former, considering that blockbusters like “The Matrix” and “Blade Runner” paint an ominous future where technology has helped fuel massive inequality and human suffering.

But that’s just one vision. In many ways, humans have been exploring metaverse-like worlds for decades, through text-based role-playing games to “Second Life” to the consumer-grade VR systems that have become popular over the past decade — and we’ve done it all without ushering in a dystopia.

The metaverse will soon enable immersive, collaborative, and social experiences that could change not only leisure, but also learning. For young students, the technology could replace paper mache models of volcanoes with something very much like “The Magic School Bus.”

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate concerns about the metaverse, especially when it comes to questions about who owns what in this emerging world. Matthew Ball, author of “The Metaverse,” explains more in this interview with Big Think.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Matthew Ball:

Matthew Ball is the CEO of Epyllion, a diversified holding company which makes angel investments, provides advisory services, and produces television, films, and video games. Ball is also a Venture Partner at Makers Fund, Senior Advisor to KKR, Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Company, and sits on the board of numerous start-ups. His first book, “The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything”, was published in July 2022 and became an instant national and international bestseller. Ball is also an “Occasional Contributor” to The Economist, holds bylines at Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and wrote the August 8, 2022 cover story for Time Magazine.

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

----------------------------------

Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Unlock Knowledge, Faster

With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

Remember to Follow the Podcast and Enable Notifications

If you found this episode valuable, Share It

Leave a 5-Star Review!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"How I reversed my unhappiness" | Tal Ben-Shahar for Big Think Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

“How I reversed my unhappiness,” with Tal Ben-Shahar

We were told from a very young age, whether explicitly or implicitly, that happiness stems from success. It's all about the attainment of the next goal. And yet, more often than not, achieving these goals does not bring us to a happier place, certainly not in the long-term.

One of the issues that people have with the pursuit of happiness is that it's a selfish endeavor. But is it? When we pursue happiness, oftentimes, we are in a much better place to also help others. The problem though, doesn't lie in the pursuit of happiness but rather in our concepts.

So is the pursuit of happiness selfish or selfless? According to Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar, it's neither and both. It's self-full. Selfulness synthesizes the best of both worlds of selfishness and selflessness. The two work together reinforcing one another in an upward spiral of generosity and benevolence.

Up next ►► Don’t chase happiness. Become antifragile • Don’t chase happiness. Become antifra...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Tal Ben-Shahar:

Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is an internationally renowned teacher and author in the fields of happiness and leadership. After graduating from Harvard with a BA in Philosophy and Psychology and a PhD in Organizational Behavior, Tal taught two of the most popular courses in Harvard’s history: Positive Psychology and The Psychology of Leadership. He then taught Happiness Studies at Columbia University. A prolific writer, Tal's books have appeared on best-sellers lists around the world and have been translated into more than 30 languages.

Tal Ben-Shahar consults and lectures to executives in multinational corporations, educational institutions, and the general public. Topics include leadership, education, ethics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting and mindfulness. Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar is also the co-founder of the Happiness Studies Academy. Learn more here: https://www.happinessstudies.academy/

Tal is an avid sportsman and a certified yoga instructor whose work bridges Eastern and Western traditions, ancient wisdom and modern technology, science and art.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™

► Big Think

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Science of the "Self" Explained by Biologist Michael Levin | BIGTHINK Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

How do “you” emerge from a collection of cells? A biologist explains.

This interview is an episode from @The-Well our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation .

The concept of the “self” has long been considered philosophically significant: a foundation for exploring who we are and why we’re here. But where does the self begin? Developmental biologist Michael Levin explores this question, explaining how the “self” is constantly being constructed and created, starting in the early moments of embryogenesis. Levin argues against binary categorizations of selfhood, emphasizing that it is a continuous phenomenon with no sharp lines between different stages of development. Using the example of self-organizing cells in the formation of the embryo, Levin also asserts that the self is not a singular entity — rather, it is a collection of structures working together toward a specific goal.

-----------------------------------------

Go Deeper with Big Think:-

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

Get Smarter, Faster....

With Episodes From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers. Follow The Podcast And Turn On The Notifications!!

Share This Episode If You Found It Valuable

Leave A 5 Star Review

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Michael Levin: Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor and serves as director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. Prior to college, Michael Levin worked as a software engineer and independent contractor in the field of scientific computing. He attended Tufts University, interested in artificial intelligence and unconventional computation. To explore the algorithms by which the biological world implemented complex adaptive behavior, he got dual B.S. degrees, in CS and in Biology and then received a PhD from Harvard University. He led an independent laboratory from 2000 to 2007 at Forsyth Institute, Harvard. Now, his lab at Tufts studies anatomical and behavioral decision-making at multiple scales of biological, artificial, and hybrid systems

------------------------------------------------------

Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Unlock Knowledge, Faster

With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

Remember to Follow the Podcast and Enable Notifications

If you found this episode valuable, Share It

Leave a 5-Star Review!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The US is falling behind in higher education. Can we turn the tide? | Courtney Brown for Big Think Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

Higher education is broken. Can we make it affordable for everyone?, with Courtney Brown

Who are today's higher education students? They might not be exactly who you think. About 40% of today’s students work full time, while another 40% are at least 25 years old, with many coming from low-income families.

Today’s complex world of work increasingly calls for advanced skills and education. As a society, we have to help more people obtain quality learning that’s available to all. What does that mean, exactly? Lumina Foundation has an idea, embracing a national goal that by 2025, 60% of working-age adults will have a college degree, industry-recognized certification or other credential of value. Right now, we are at just over 50 percent, and we need to better understand who has access to higher education and who is succeeding in this system.

As Lumina's Courtney Brown notes, the organization’s mission is to help more people get this vital post-high school education, understanding that this learning remains a powerful force in addressing income and racial inequality, keeping America competitive in the fast-changing world economy.

This video was created in partnership with the Lumina Foundation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Courtney Brown:

Courtney Brown, Ph.D, is vice president of impact and planning for Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. As the chief data and research officer, Brown oversees the foundation’s efforts in the areas of strategic planning, learning, impact, and effectiveness. She also leads Lumina’s international engagement.

Up next ►► College is absurdly expensive. Can a radical new model change that? • College is absurdly expensive. Can a ...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Big Think | Smarter Faster™

► Big Think

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why Americans don’t trust each other | Todd Rose for Big Think Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

Why Americans don’t trust each other, with Todd Rose

Up next ►► "Collective Illusions": Why false consensus in society is so dangerous • "Collective Illusions": Why false con...

Should we trust people to make choices for themselves, or control those choices for them?

As a free people in a free society, it is unacceptable that public institutions treat people as distrustful. If we continue to use the top-down control model, the consequences in terms of social trust will be too damaging.

What we need to do is trust communities to make decisions for themselves, trust families to make decisions for themselves, and trust people, too. If you want a trusting society, you have to work to dislodge this top-down view of our institutions and give more power to people. We must insist that our institutions treat the public with trust.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Collective Illusions is a 9-part series brought to you by Stand Together: a community of changemakers tackling our biggest challenges

For more stories, ideas, and advice from changemakers, subscribe to Stand Together ► / standtogethercc

Watch the entire Collective Illusions playlist ► • Collective Illusions

And visit Stand Together’s website to learn more ► https://standtogether.org/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About Todd Rose:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Issue with the Theory of Everything | Janna Levin - BIGTHINK Aug 10, 2024

Show notes

The hunt for the theory of everything continues — but we won’t find it without understanding quantum gravity first.

This interview is an episode from @The-Well, our publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go Deeper with Big Think:

►Become a Big Think Member

Get exclusive access to full interviews, early access to new releases, Big Think merch and more

►Get Big Think+ for Business

Guide, inspire and accelerate leaders at all levels of your company with the biggest minds in business

Listen To This Next:

Adam Grant's #1 phrase to unlock potential

The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

---------------------------------

There’s a pursuit of simplicity and unification in theoretical physics, aiming for a single mathematical law to unify quantum mechanics and gravity: a theory of everything. But while other forces have been successfully unified, gravity resists integration — casting doubt on the likelihood of ever unlocking the theory of all theories. As physicist Janna Levin explains, black holes, with their strong space-time curvature, provide insights into this challenge. Levin draws parallels to mathematicians' incompleteness theorems, noting the inherent limitations in such an overarching theory. Acknowledging the complexity of the endeavor, Levin emphasizes the need to embrace and explore gravity's enigmatic nature fully. In doing so, the pursuit of unification might still yield profound insights, even if a comprehensive theory of everything remains elusive.

-----------------------------------------

Discover Big Think | Smarter Faster™

Unlock Knowledge, Faster

With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

Remember to Follow the Podcast and Enable Notifications

If you found this episode valuable, Share It

Leave a 5-Star Review!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices