“If you’re interested in human performance, what you want is something that’s reliable and repeatable, and thus you want neurobiology because neurobiology gives you mechanism.”

How can the brain — a piece of matter — love? Physics and chemistry explain the material world, but they can’t explain why it feels like something to be alive. This is the mystery of consciousness, according to these experts.

Free speech may be messy, but censorship is deadly. Founder of The Future of Free Speech Jacob Mchangama explains.

“We can have that fight for a 1,000 years, but we could have a shot at figuring out what we both need and noticing when there’s opportunities to make that happen.”

“The sexual excitation system is the accelerator or the gas pedal, and it notices all the sex-related information in the environment.”

A physician, a psychologist, and a mindfulness teacher explain what stress does to your body and mind, and how to use it to get smarter and stronger.

Modern culture has made us feel like there’s no time to be patient. Sarah Schnitker’s lab at Baylor University is researching how this often-forgotten virtue could improve our overall well-being.

“There’s research showing that people who are curious, who ask questions, are not just happier, they’re not just more successful, they also live longer.”

“Fraud is a trillion dollar problem, about $5 trillion today with that number increasingly rising annually.”

Everything you experience is filtered through your brain, and everyone’s brain is different. Neuroscientist Christof Koch explains how understanding this can deepen your connection to the world around you.

Biologist Tyler Volk PhD, psychiatrist Bruce Greyson MD, and palliative care physician BJ Miller MD, reveal how confronting mortality can improve the way we live.

Free speech can amplify hatred, but it also protects the fight against it. Founder of The Future of Free Speech Jacob Mchangama explains.

“A lot of the trends in the economy, in family life have just been much harder for working class men.”

“We’re stuck at type zero. But what would it take to move between universes? What would it take to enter a black hole? What would it take to break the light barrier?”

“If you ask a computer, it will say, most of the time you want to either be raising or folding, right? You want to take an aggressive action or quit. I think this is a great metaphor for lots of things in real life, too.”

A neuroscientist, a psychologist, and a psychotherapist discuss how emotions are stories built from old experiences.

What separates a disciplined life from a virtuous one? Psychologist Sarah Schnitker says the answer lies in your purpose.

“Nothing about human behavior makes sense except in the light of culture and in anthropology, and we need to understand the cultural component to our behaviors as well.”

“The idea of evolution by natural selection is, for me, probably the most beautiful idea in biology.”

Happiness researchers Robert Waldinger MD, Tal Ben-Shahar PhD, and Peter Baumann explain why the happiest people aren’t happy all the time.

Virtue is hard to attain, and that’s the point. Sarah Schnitker explains why self-help shortcuts miss the mark.

“I like to say that physics is hard because physics is easy, by which I mean we actually think about physics as students.”

“You can be aware of sadness from a point of view that is not merely sad, and you can be aware of fear from a point of view that’s not merely afraid.”

Humans have always had religion. What does this say about our minds? Reza Aslan PhD, Lisa Miller PhD, and Rob Bell MDiv explain.

Many of us rely on emotional advice that doesn’t actually work. Psychologist Ethan Kross offers a smarter, science-backed approach to managing emotions with flexibility and perspective.

“There’s a very pervasive belief that human nature is fundamentally selfish, but I know for a fact that that can’t be true in part because my life was saved by a stranger a long time ago when I was 19.”

“Because of the efficiency worship that we have developed in our industrial age, we are now seeing procrastination as a character flaw rather than what it is, a signal that is worth listening to.”

What happens when the boundaries of “you” disappear? James Fadiman, PhD, Jamie Wheal, and Matthew Johnson, PhD explore how supported experiences with psychoactive drugs can dissolve identity and reveal a deeper reality.

“All information technologies up to the 21st century were organic networks based on our organic brain.”

Astrobiologist Betül Kaçar on why the simple act of asking questions (without needing a reason) is one of the most powerful things a human can do.