TEDxHouston - Dr. David Eagleman
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- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Dr. Eagleman holds joint appointments in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at the Baylor College of Medicine. His areas of scientific expertise include time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action, and is the Founder and Director of Baylor College of Medicine's Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. Dr. Eagleman has written several neuroscience books, including Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia (co-authored with Richard Cytowic, MIT Press, 2009) and Dethronement: The Secret Life of the Unconscious Brain (Pantheon, 2010). He has also written an internationally bestselling book of literary fiction, Sum, which was named a Best Book of 2009 by Barnes and Noble, New Scientist, and the Chicago Tribune. Dr. Eagleman has written for the New York Times, Discover Magazine, Slate, and New Scientist, and he appears regularly on National Public Radio to discuss both science and literature.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)
Indeed, It’s an ‘old wine in a new bottle’. Just superb! Being a Professor of Neuroscience myself and intellectually positioned in the center of two extremes, it was easy for me to connect. I would call it an era of reawakening. You, Sam Harris and many more like you, the new generation thought provokers, have arrived not a moment too soon! Reawakening was to take place anyway, but it’s precipitous arrival is set off by the global events of death and destruction in support of Faith. Whilst, America remains the final bastion of religiosity, Europe has rapidly moved toward the secular ideals. And yet, persons of your ilk are there to make the difference. This could only happen in America. Kudos to you guys!
This is so wonderful. David you're a top human.
A light in the darkness of ignorance to be openly discussed - thank you David amazing research and life journey chosen
Reading a book by David Eagleman so it is nice to actually see and hear him speak.
WOW,what a speech,very inspiring.
Seeing the Dr surrounded by stars and planets, I remembered Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's book "The Little Prince" !!! ❤️. I love listening to the Dr with his sense of humor, essential in an intelligent person!
I watch his PBS special over and over again. Always learn something new.
I've read Eagleman's book on neuroscience and enjoyed it greatly. This speech compliments the book's respect for wonder and mystery and the possibilities unravelled by the scientific method. Good work Dave.
The next conversation or talk needs to be about examples of how science discovered all these important things that can now point us in a better direction that will lead us to the next proper discovery; away from stories based on opinions based on assumptions that we would have the gaul and ignorance to use violent acts to defend. Loved this talk and the quality of speaking is tremendous!
Thank you David. Discovered you through Sadhguru. Big respect.
If you're even remotely curious about the mysteries of the human mind and how it influences our daily lives, this video is a must-watch. Eagleman's insights will leave you with a profound appreciation for the incredible organ nestled inside your skull.
The beauty of life lies in its endless possibilities, where the unknown beckons with the promise of discovery and growth. To embrace uncertainty is to celebrate the very essence of being human-the thrill of not knowing what tomorrow holds, yet stepping forward with courage and hope. It’s in these uncertain moments that we find the seeds of opportunity, where imagination blooms and resilience is forged. By praising uncertainty, we acknowledge that not every path is clear, but in the unfolding journey, we find the strength to create, adapt, and thrive. Possibility isn’t just something to be chased; it’s a gift to be cherished, as it keeps our hearts open to the wonders yet to come.
I have had both O.B.E. and transcendental and trans-personal experiences, that have had profound transformational impact on my life, and using specific and precise techniques have repeated those subjective experiences, that have been objectively validated. I speak from my experiences, you can take it or leave it, but I speak from knowledge and understanding, mystical, scientific and acedemic.
I love his smile during the the Talk
Excellent talk about a simply fascinating topic.
Very impressive topic on thinking & deciding!
“… doubt is a uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd position.” - Voltaire
This is amazing talk. Absolutely loved the logic or the possibility of it.
I love Eagleman's brief and matter-of-factly dismissal of all the worlds' religions. That's all the attention they deserve and all that should be needed to convince a rational and open mind that they are indeed absurd.
I've always said the points he makes, but he does it with such charm and humour.
Basic lesson: Be open-minded, think critically, and never reach certainty.
That translates to considering all ideas, EVALUATING all ideas, and accepting ideas in proportion to the evidence that supports that idea, asymptotically approaching certainty, but never getting there.
I think the problems most people have is that they don't evaluate ideas properly (especially their own), and they reach certainty on little evidence. The world would be a much better place if this didn't happen.
Sounds like a phrase I heard once that goes: “Trust, but always verify!” And if you can’t verify then you shouldn’t be expected to trust.
let's make this even more popular!!!
Oh, this is engaging, so much engaging.
You wouldnt believe the rabbit hole that hot me here.. Yet it feels so right
It is both entertaining and fascinating that people post comments here that underscore the perspective Dr. Eagleman is describing without realizing that they are doing so. Oversimplified, he espouses abandoning singular dogmas that attempt to explain creation, or any aspect of life, and commit to remaining open to the truth since all of the overview of what is and how it is structured is beyond being fully described. To limit the possibilities of understanding what is and how it works, is to limit our perspective to only that which someone has dogmatized or that we currently are aware of. He clearly says the most essential attitude in seeking knowledge and awareness is "I don't know", meaning there is more to know than I am currently understand. I believe that gives credence to the widest reception of concepts and information, and as such is the perception with the greatest possibility of being of service to experiencing what is.
So, I agree with David Eagleman, and love the example of the puking up the world theory. It is pretty easy to be a possibilian.... but at some point a comittment at certain levels will be necessary if you need science in your life. Most enjoyable listen/watch though.
A great lecture by a wonderful writer and scientist.
Sam Harris has just released a rebuttal to the Eagleman, specific to this TED talk, on his blog page.
Apparently Eagleman agreed to debate him but never responded to Sam's initial rebuttal. Sam got tired of waiting and published his opening remarks today.
he geeked out?
Brilliant ! you speak on lines with what OSHO spoke in Oregon years back !
Spot on
Best. Video. Ever.
Why do 90% of commenters want to just argue about everything?
The guy's done nothing wrong and is only trying to do good!
@RiCorr typo "100 billion planets each containing over a billion stars" is hardly possible! For 'planets' read 'galaxies'.
Off the charts!
Good speech. See also - Robert Anton Wilson: "Maybe Logic" (which "possibilian" reminds me of). Also, anything by Alan Watts. The RUclipss is teeming with his lectures and clips. I suggest the full lecture: "Our Image of the World". It's roughly an hour-long, but breezes by.
Mr. Eagleman, would you please address the criticisim from sam harris?
just wow, finally theres a position, i can relate to. a couple of years ago, ive read karl popper. poppers idea of critical rationalism coherent with possibilianism perfectly.
Great talk!
Insightful😍
@RiCorr : So glad that someone has made this point--and that it's gotten so many thumbs up!
As a born again Christian, I find this man's logic and honesty quite refreshing! Imagine that, a humble and open neuroscientist! I know he is not saying there is a God, but rather he is admitting that the data being revealed about the universe and the complexity of human beings is so overwhelming that there is obviously a lot that we simply do not know.
A man like this could help a lot of people escape the dogma of the new atheism religion which is deceiving so many.
Dr.E! Underway residing &/or @ your service, sir (reading publication"INCOGNITO" when found this video)!
When you die your dead. Enjoy this life. Don't think you get a second chance. I don't want to spend my time assuming there might be another life.
@TheHardProblem The reason i said 'all' was because throughout human history there have been many ideas that people never considered and were later confirmed, like time and distance being relative instead of absolute. If Einstein thought it was too ridiculous to consider ideas that seemed to go against everything he had experienced, he wouldn't have discovered time dilation and length contraction.
This is why his book SUM was so good.
!!! FINALLY - I have a little more concrete of a reason, but this is the grand idea!
@TheHardProblem Didn't really mean ALL, but virtually all. For example, if someone was to argue that the earth was flat, you could consider this position and it would take you less than a second to evaluate it as incorrect beyond reasonable doubt. So ideas would move along a confidence spectrum with evaluation. In essence, it's all about evaluation of ideas, and the time we spend evaluating certain ideas over others. Part of it is knowing when further evaluation is reasonable and when it isn't.
@moondazed Well moondazed, if you've got another example of a person predicting his death and resurrection, who spent a couple of days in the grave after his execution, who exited the grave though it was guarded by a squadron of Roman guards, I'd be happy to hear all about it. Also, you seem to be a bit confused regarding the methods of execution. Hanging and crucifixion are very different. You might want to check into that. Nobody survived crucifixion.
@TheMidwestsk8ter Not a video, it's on his blog. The name of the article is "Wither Eagleman?".
"I recently posted a TEDx talk by the neuroscientist David Eagleman, author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and the subject of a recent profile in The New Yorker. While I admire much of what Eagleman has to say, I wrote that his espousal of “possibilianism,” in lieu of atheism, was intellectually dishonest. I then invited him to discuss the matter with me on this page."
GC4 I think, though, it is actually *plausibility* that is the key, not *possibility*.
If I flip a coin and hold it hidden, is it possible that it is heads? I would say we don't know if it is possible. The answer has already been determined. It is impossible that the bottom side is up at that moment, but it is plausible. "Plausible" is our mental world -- the only world we perceive. "Possibilianism" is about the non-mental. Plausibilianism is about all the ideas we can imagine and explore.
GC2 The possibilian will try out new beliefs like a suit, while the new atheist maintains uniforms are unneeded. But "belief" is fundamentally morphed in this change. No longer is belief something you hold long-lasting loyalty to. It can no longer keep other plausibilities away. Changing the metaphor, possibilianism is like the desire to wear varying sets of eyeglasses. Sometime, if you're operating from a particular perspective, you might see something no one noticed before. It takes belief.
Refreshing talk on religion, Science, human society and human perception which is always limited. I too became possibillion !
Or possibilian. With one "L" 😂
@@jeu198 LOL
More people need to watch this...especially all those angry Atheists.
I described my self as agnostic before this... I think I've found a better way of describing what I believe now.
science is ever changing but always limits it self by disbelief it cannot explain what it does not know
Alan Watts, Robert Anton Wilson and Terence McKenna have talked about this view a lot before; Except that David now has a name for it.
An opened minded life free from dogma, I'd thumb that up twice, we can dream!
“Beyond the end of the pier”!
Evolution by natural selection is a fact.
Evolution by natural selection is not just a possibility.
Cultures also has and will evolves.
When he said that we are sweeping dark matter under the rug and claiming to know everything, he lost me. The most expensive experiments ever are an effort to explain dark matter, among other things. Dr. Eagleman, if you have a spare $10 billion that you want to sweep under the rug, I promise I can provide a large enough rug.
I find it fascinating that most comments under any media online is overwhelming negative.
A contraction is two words becoming one new word. "Don't" is one word.
Keats called it 'negative capability'. Coleridge called it 'the willing suspension of disbelief'. I call it creative ambivalence.
@justforwatchingcraps "a sentient living thing that created everything" is certainly an interesting hypothesis. I'm quite sure honest doubters everywhere would be thrilled to have evidence confirming the existence of such a being, one who created over 100 billion planets each containing over a billion stars (and over 400,000 species of beetle on earth alone!). It would be the most awesome scientific discovery of all time. But in considering the possible we should not lose sight of the probable.
@discipleoftheteapot He didn't say that he came with this new term up against agnosticism. He said, that many people started seeing agnosticism as an uncertainty between existing dichotomy(ies), so he felt like naming his POV on the matter with a new term.
Anyway, I think eventually this word will just end up being a more precise synonym for atheism and agnosticism for those cases,when you want to be really sure that your opponent gets you right to elim. p. misunderstanding.
Seems like he is quoting or taking ideas from Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Just about everything he discussed is in that book, or in the series if you're that way inclined.
first video I didn't watch in incognito mode and was impressed by...
Didn't this guy answer a Q and A in the 12 Piers theater in Houston after everyone watched Waking Life? Very interesting day that was, I'm almost certain it was him...
Why does this only have 862 views?
How is this anything but a new slab of paint on agnosticism?
It is also false to assume that no possibility is more probable than another.
Awesome
@magnusjsolberg I think you have not understood the same message as me from this video. Eagleman was saying that we should be more comfortable with not knowing, how is this a judgement? Did you watch this till the end?
I think that part of the confusion is a semantic confusion over the word 'atheist'. Dawkins admits to being technically an agnostic and on a scale of 1-7 where 1 represents absolute belief and 7 absolute unbelief, he places himself as a 6 but not a 7. However, he still refers to himself as an atheist because he assigns less probability to the existence of God. Atheism doesn't have to mean a total denial of the possibilty of a God; in fact it seldom does.
@RiCorr I mean that idea isn't mine, I think that's what most people mean when they say "god." losing sight of the probable was never happening, not for me nor for Eagleman. But, according to him (and I agree), losing sight of the possible in light of the probable is something the loudest yet not representative voices of the "honest doubters" do all the time. The result is that a large chunk of "honest doubters" have their thoughts fed to them by these loud voices and become the "neo-atheists."
In the spirit of this video, I would like to point out to you that; it is in fact a possibility and he is not wrong in asserting his suggestion of possibility. There may not be any evidence for it, our universe is huge, to us at least. We may in fact be a universe inside a much larger one, WE will never know.
~Nothing is entirely impossible, but can be highly improbable!~
@rhyfelur Interesting. Can you please give a few specific examples where their attitudes are "arrogant and condescending," Thanks!
By the way, the highest level of epistemic development, according to William Perry, is Relativism. This is where one actually commits to an argument and can back it up with sound and robust reasoning.
Eagleman seems to encourage us to do think the way he does: never commit to an idea if you can not have "certainty". He is forever stuck in Scepticism.
Science is about committing (Law of Gravity). Even though there is no certainty in this law, we commit to it so we may move forward.
I'm now a possibilian. :)
@RiCorr if these new atheist authors say with confidence that there is no god, which would be what makes them atheist, then David Eagleman's description of them is just caricatured, but still accurate. His main argument is that they are the polar opposite of those who subscribe to any one particular religion because they say with confidence that there is no god.
basically, Eagleman is saying he isn't ready to say there is no god, but he can definitely say that organized religion is false.
@mobart I disagree. I think there are certain things we DO know that can make one possibility much, much less likely than another. Take the knowledge you have available to you. When we gain new knowledge and it proves something is highly improbable, we should accept that and look for new theories. Admitting you don't know, but you're pretty sure it's not x is not an absurd stance.
Please sir upload video about law of attraction
Sir Eagleman, how does the human [fore]skin, when it is painfully or pleasantly provoked, communicate with the mind of the brain?
great!
Sam Harris is gonna annihilate this guy. What a ponce.
You realize that a possibility in the possibility space is that science is flawed.
@2LegHumanist Where can i find this? is it a video?
@kevingrr if these new atheist authors say with confidence that there is no god, which would be what makes them atheist, then David Eagleman's description of them is just caricatured, but still accurate. His main argument is that they are the polar opposite of those who subscribe to any one particular religion because they say with confidence that there is no god.
basically, Eagleman is saying he isn't ready to say there is no god, but he can definitely say that organized religion is false.
Dr. Eagleman, you certainly have the gift of eloquence but I think you still need some time and study to let your thoughts crystallize out. I suggest reading Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Stenger, Dennett et alii a little bit more attentively.
Possibilianism is a philosophy which rejects both the diverse claims of traditional theism and the positions of certainty in strong atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.
Wikipedia › wiki › Possibilianism
what happens if you put toast on a cat's back and drop it, would it land with the cat on its feet or the toast butter side down.
Its a piece of performance art that appeals to those who find honest intellectual debate tedious and boring. Google "whither eagleman" to see Sam Harris's response.
finaly somone who thinks like me :)
Most easily amused audience ever.
He is true original from of DNA
@HomuncuIus It's not a position, it's a belief more justly validated then any religion one could believe in based on evidence at hand.
How are there dislikes??
I can just imagine what those people that sent him emails were all about - unfortunately I've probably stumbled across most of them on t'interent. They are the ones when you correct their misunderstanding of a principle in physics, they accuse you of scientism
@ThisOneIsTaken I think Harris' only disagreement with Eagleman is the way the latter represents the views of the former in talks like this. At 4:45, Eagleman is essentially calling the new atheists' attitude to science close-minded and unimaginative. I agree with Sam that this is a severe misrepresentation. I think you're right that Eagleman's attitude is more "positive" - as I said, he quickly dismisses religion to move on to other subjects - but that isn't what Sam's objection is about.
@RiCorr I guess I shouldn't really say that its a "criticism" that I have, I see their oppositional role in the discussion as completely necessary, but I think at some point it will also be necessary to breech the gap, in a way that gives young people a path, that doesn't require them to carry on the superstitious malarkey on one side, or alienate their entire family on the other. Atheists should be the first to welcome any attempt in that direction, instead of immediately trashing it, imo.
@DannyPhantomBeast but I don't define myself entirely by my atheism - only when the question of religious belief comes up - it makes sense when religion is the dominant force in society - in the same way that when there was conflict over slavery it made sense to call oneself an abolitionist even if that is defining yourself in opposition to something.
"The certainty on topics that one cannot possibly be certain on." -- To be an atheist one need not prove there is no God. You only need to understand that the evidence for God is on par with the evidence for werewolves.
I don't know what you accomplish by assigning atheists a position we do not hold, and then presenting the position we do like it's a new thing you just invented. But my fuck-off reflex is kicking in.
He should have read, rather than just shown interest in those books.
@RiCorr i'm not talking about the god of judeo-christian-islamic traditions necessarily, and i'm sure neither is Eagleman because he says people who subscribe to those ideas are obviously not even looking for evidence. I guess the idea of god in the sense of a sentient living thing that created everything. Although an atheist, who is confident that the universe gave rise to itself , is willing to accept evidence for that type of living thing, it would be more reluctantly accepted.