Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let’s learn from them. Welcome to The Well, a publication by the John Templeton Foundation and Big Think.
Featured Interviews
“We know that when people imbue their goals or relationships with sacred meaning, that they exert more effort and they benefit more from those relationships.”
Jacob Mchangama is a lawyer, human-rights advocate, author, podcast host, and founder and executive director of the think tank Justitia. He has written about free speech and human rights in[…]
▸
3 min
—
with
Ethan Kross is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor and bestselling author in the University of Michigan’s top ranked psychology department and[…]
▸
3 min
—
with
Jacob Mchangama is a lawyer, human-rights advocate, author, podcast host, and founder and executive director of the think tank Justitia. He has written about free speech and human rights in[…]
▸
2 min
—
with
Featured Article
Sikh American scholar and historian Simran Jeet Singh on helping kids imagine — and create — a more empathetic world.
“Empathy doesn’t just fully appear on its own. In large part, it has to be nurtured, and ages 1 to 6 is a prime window. While temperament plays a role, so does a child’s environment, including the people and stories they’re exposed to.”
All Stories
Thanks to time-traveling telescopes, we can see more about the Big Bang.
▸
with
Astronaut Chris Hadfield shares how living in space has bettered his life on Earth.
▸
with
Philosophers have been making the claim that free will is an illusion for hundreds of years. Dr. Uri Maoz shares what modern neuroscience has to say about it.
▸
6 min
—
with
According to Zena Hitz, the idea of the intellectual has become distorted. She believes “the real thing is something more extraordinary but also more available to us.”
▸
5 min
—
with
James Gleick, the author of biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman, discusses what they and other geniuses have in common.
▸
3 min
—
with