Explore every episode of the podcast What Is Mind? with William Gadea
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Conversation with Neurosurgeon Theodore Schwartz about Scoville, Freud, Free Will, and more | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:47:42 | |
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? RELATED LINKS:
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| H.M., Dr. William Scoville, and Me: The Strange Intersection between My Life and Henry Molaison's | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:32:36 | |
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):
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| The Three Illusions of Self | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:21:26 | |
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:
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| Is Religion Hard Wired in Us? Evaluating Theories on the Evolutionary Basis of Religion | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:11:55 | |
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.
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| Emotions and Machines: A Conversation with Futurist Richard Yonck | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:35:01 | |
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:
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| Modularity of Mind: The Evidence from Paul Broca to Brain Imaging | 15 Oct 2025 | 00:18:03 | |
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:
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| Is Consciousness a Hard Problem? The Dualism of David Chalmers | 14 Oct 2025 | 00:10:24 | |
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. If questions about mind and consciousness fascinate you, please consider subscribing! | |||