How Can We Know Our Selves?
The introductory lecture to Eric Oliver’s popular class “The Intelligible Self” that he has been teaching at the University of Chicago for the past 20 years. The class seeks understand what the self is, why it malfunctions, and what we can do to make it work better.
The Science of Conspiracy Theories And Political Polarization With Eric Oliver
“Birthers”, “Pizzagate”, anti-vaxxers—since the election of Donald Trump, it’s seemed that belief in conspiracy theories is on the rise. At the same time, our polarization is worse than ever. People can hardly even maintain a conversation across political or cultural lines. Could the underlying force driving conspiracy theories also be the same one that’s dividing our country?
What Is Life’s Purpose?
Why are we here? What are we supposed to do with this life? Where do we find life’s meaning? In Lecture 2, I’ll discuss how we find our purpose from our function, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the cellular self and function of cells, and what we can do to make our cells thrive.
J. Eric Oliver on Intuitionism vs. Rationalism
What truly divides us politically, beyond just ideology? This discussion proposes that a key dimension is the divide between intuitionism and rationalism. It explores how relying on gut feelings and emotions versus logic and empirical facts shapes political beliefs, susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and views on science, contributing significantly to contemporary political polarization and the behavior of different political movements.
What Am I?
At our deepest essence we are an energy system resisting entropy. I describe the nature of atoms, energy, and entropy and talk about how they are the foundations of the self. I also describe how we can know energy not only through physics but more viscerally through contemplative practices like meditation.
What Is Thinking?
How are we creating these thoughts in our head? How does memory actually work? What exactly is reasoning and imagination? Answers to these questions in more in Lecture 11 of “How to Know Your Self.”