Very Bad Wizards

Latest Episodes:

Episode 313: The Spontaneous Eruption of Now Jul 29, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) "A New Refutation of Time." What does it mean to be a time skeptic or a time realist for that matter? If you're a Berkeleyan idealist and Humean skeptic about the self, do you have to deny succession and simultaneity? The world, unfortunately, is real; and we, unfortunately, are Very Bad Wizards.

Plus for centuries philosophers insisted that you couldn't measure qualia, but then scientists just went ahead and… measured it!

Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time-It Was Thought To Be Impossible [youtube.com]

Kawakita, G., Zeleznikow-Johnston, A., Takeda, K., Tsuchiya, N., & Oizumi, M. (2025). Is my "red" your "red"?: Evaluating structural correspondences between color similarity judgments using unsupervised alignment. iScience, 28(3).

A New Refutation of Time [wikipedia.org]

A New Refutation of Time by Jorge Luis Borges [pdf from gwern.net]

Episode 312: MechaSkeptic Jul 15, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler return to David Hume's somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Plus speaking of things to be skeptical about, we dive into a recent paper called "Your Brain on ChatGPT" – does neuroscience show that LLM users incur a "cognitive debt"?

MIT study shows ChatGPT reshapes student brain function and reduces creativity when used from the start [edtechinnovationhub.com]

Your brain on ChatGPT [arxiv.org]

People are suffering... [linkedin.com]

David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Hunan Understanding" [wikipedia.org]

Hume's Enquiry Section 12: Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy [davidhume.org]

Episode 311: The Way to Dusty Death (Shakespeare's "Macbeth") Jul 01, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler screw their courage to the sticking place and talk about their first Shakespeare play – The Tragedy of Macbeth. Plus we select 16 topics for our first VBW topic tournament suggested and voted by our beloved Patreon patrons.

Episode 310: Bayes, Brains, and Buddhists Jun 10, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the predictive processing theory of the mind and brain function and talk about a paper that applies the framework to meditation practices. But first a new Psychological Science article expresses skepticism about the existence of people who have no inner voice. So is David a new kind of human or is he just making up this condition to get attention?

Assistant Editor's note: When Tamler says he doesn't talk to his dog "weirdly often," he is lying.

Lind, A. (2024). Are There Really People With No Inner Voice? Commentary on Nedergaard and Lupyan (2024). Psychological Science, 09567976251335583.

Laukkonen, R. E., & Slagter, H. A. (2021). From many to (n) one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 128, 199-217.

Episode 309: Dissolving Into the One May 27, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler heed the call to journey into the realm of Joseph Campbell. What are the unifying elements shared by myths and religions across time and culture? Does myth give us a portal into the hidden cosmic forces of the universe? Can it take us into depths of our unconscious and the nature of our own being? What is the legacy of Campbell's thought today? Plus, three brave scholars of fascism at Yale flee the country to form in a center of resistance at…The University of Toronto.

We're Experts in Fascism. We're Leaving the U.S. | NYT Opinion [youtube.com]

Joseph Campbell [wikipedia.org]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces [wikipedia.org]

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell [amazon.com affiliate link]

Bonus Episode: Va Va Boom (Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly") May 20, 2025

Show notes

We kick off our Bonus "Noir Summer" series with Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" (1956). While the rest of the bonus series will be for Patreon subscribers only, the first is free to all.

Episode 308: The Gray Man who Dreamed (Borges' "Shakespeare's Memory") May 06, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler return to their happy place and talk about two pieces by JL Borges – the story "Shakespeare's Memory" and the [essay/story/poem/literary sketch??] "Everything and Nothing." What would it mean to have the memory of a supreme artist like Shakespeare? Would it help us understand his work, or how he was able to produce masterpiece after masterpiece What does it mean to have our own memories? How does all this connect to our sense of self?

Plus cancel culture comes to Cornell, but don't worry it's about that one thing it's fine to cancel people over.

Cornell President's NYT Op-Ed March 31, 2025 "Universities like the one I run aren't afraid to let people argue"

Kehlani speaks out after Cornell cancels her Slope Day appearance over 'hateful views' [cnycentral.com]

Cornell Musicians Oppose Kehlani's Cancellation [cornellsun.com]

Shakespeare's Memory by Jorge Luis Borges [wikipedia.org]

Everything and Nothing by Jorge Luis Borges [dilipsimeon.blogspot.com]

Episode 307: What's in the BOX? Apr 22, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler talk about two famous puzzles that for different reasons have bedeviled the rationalist community – The Monty Hall Problem and Newcomb's "paradox." Why is it so hard for people to see that a 66% chance of winning a car is better than a 33% chance? Why do famous mathematicians struggle with this problem? And David and Tamler split on the Newcomb case – can you guess which one of us is the one boxer?

Plus since we're basically a TV recap podcast now, some thoughts on White Lotus Season 3.

The White Lotus [imdb.com]

Monty Hall Problem [wikipedia.org]

Numberphile on the Monty Hall Problem [youtube.com]

Newcomb's "Paradox" [wikipedia.org]

Nozick, R. (1969). Newcomb's problem and two principles of choice. In Essays in honor of carl g. hempel: A tribute on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (pp. 114-146). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Episode 306: What to Expect When You're Expecting (David Lynch's "Eraserhead" with Barry Lam) Apr 08, 2025

Show notes

David and Tamler welcome Barry Lam back to the show. In the first segment we violate one of our own rules by talking about his new book "Fewer Rules, Better People", a full frontal attack on David's strict Kantian worldview. Then we dive DEEP into David Lynch's first movie, "Eraserhead," and eventually arrive at a few coherent interpretations of Lynch's "most spiritual film."

Barry Lam [ucr.edu]

Fewer Rules, Better People: The Case for Discretion by Barry Lam [amazon.com affiliate link]

Eraserhead [wikipedia.org]

David Lynch BAFTA interview (Origin of "Eraserhead is my most spiritual film" quote) [youtube.com]

Episode 305: Emile Is the Name of the Goat (with Paul Bloom) Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

VBW favorite Paul Bloom joins us to break down the Severance season finale and season 2 in general. We all agree that it's a much-needed return to form and debate some of the choices and questions the episode raises. Plus, an evolutionary account of the 'ick' and the adaptive trait of graceful ping-pong ball chasing.

Collisson, B., Saunders, E., & Yin, C. (2025). The ick: Disgust sensitivity, narcissism, and perfectionism in mate choice thresholds. Personality and Individual Differences, 238, 113086.

Very Bad Wizards Episode 236: Your Outie is Skilled at Lovemaking (with Paul Bloom)

Paul's Substack Newsletter "Small Potatoes"

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