What Is Mind? with William Gadea – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, I talk with Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz, neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine and author of Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery. We discuss what it’s like to operate under extreme pressure, the controversial legacy of Dr. William Scoville (the surgeon who operated on H.M. — and on my father), and what modern neuroscience tells us about free will, brain-computer interfaces, and the mystery of consciousness itself. Does a purely physical view of the mind make our experience less sacred — or more profound?

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• Buy Dr. Schwartz's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Gray-Matters-Biography-Brain-Surgery/dp/B0CPTDCCLX/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
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#Neuroscience #Neurosurgery #FreeWill #BrainSurgery #TheodoreSchwartz #GrayMatters

I was named after the neurosurgeon who operated on H.M., history’s most famous amnesiac. In this episode, I trace Henry Molaison’s case, the discoveries it unlocked about memory, and a parallel story from my own family that began in the same Hartford hospital.

What you’ll learn (without spoilers):

• How H.M.’s case helped separate short-term vs long-term memory
• Why declarative and procedural memory are different (mirror-drawing!)
• The promise and perils of mid-century psychosurgery
• A personal tale of diagnosis, risk, recovery… and unintended consequences

RELATED LINKS:

• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Follow the YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/@whatismind-williamgadea
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You can support the podcast by purchasing from the affiliate links above, at no additional cost to you.

#Memory #HM #BrendaMilner #WilliamScoville #Neurosurgery

What if the “Self” you take for granted isn’t what it seems? Neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy suggest that some of our deepest assumptions about who we are might be illusions. In this video, we’ll look at three powerful ways our sense of self misleads us—and why seeing through these illusions can change how we live, think, and connect with others. Along the way, we’ll explore groundbreaking experiments and ideas that challenge our everyday experience of being “me.”

RELATED LINKS:

• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Subscribe to the YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/@whatismind-williamgadea
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#Self #Philosophy #Neuroscience #WhatIsMind

Is religion a cultural parasite, a spandrel, an evolutionary adaptation – or evidence of God? In this video, we explore the main scientific and philosophical theories about the origins of religion.

RELATED LINKS:

• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Follow the YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/@whatismind-williamgadea
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#Religion #Evolution #Neuroscience

In this episode, I’m joined by futurist and author Richard Yonck. We talk about his new sci-fi novel Mindstock, and how fiction can help us imagine the future of human and machine minds. We also dive into his earlier work on emotions and machines—a topic at the frontier of AI, robotics, and human–computer interaction.

LINKS:

• Buy Richard Yonck's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Mindstock-Novel-Richard-Yonck-ebook/dp/B0FHG18378/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Subscribe to What Is Mind? on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@whatismind-williamgadea
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You can support the channel by purchasing from the affiliate links above, at no additional cost to you.

#RichardYonck #Futurism #Mindstock #AI #EmotionsAndMachines

Is the brain a single, unified system—or a collection of specialized parts working in concert? In this episode, William Gadea explores the case for modularity of mind, from Paul Broca’s 19th-century discovery in a patient named Louis Victor Leborgne, to the insights of modern neuroimaging.

What does it mean that speech, memory, face recognition, and even morality may live in different parts of the brain? And how does this relate to our experience of the self?

LINKS:

• Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/
• Purchase his book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20
• Follow the YouTube channel — https://www.youtube.com/@whatismind-williamgadea
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You can support the channel by purchasing from the affiliate links above, at no additional cost to you.

#Religion #Consciousness #Evolution #Neuroscience

This is a solo episode.

Philosopher David Chalmers is the leading advocate of modern dualism. He thinks we should face the fact that consciousness is a hard problem. I summarize and take a critical look at his views.

RELATED LINKS:

Learn more about the creator — https://www.williamgadea.com/

Purchase William Gadea's book here — https://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Power-Poison-William-Gadea/dp/B0FD94LW5G/ref=nosim?tag=williamgadea-20

Follow us on X — https://x.com/willgadea

You can support the channel by purchasing from the affiliate links above, at no additional cost to you.

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