We’re talking about science. But not just any science...
Each episode, journalist Jo Marchant meets researchers who are doing things differently: challenging our assumptions, stretching our minds, and changing how we see the world.
We’ll be pushing boundaries from cosmology and quantum physics to neuroscience, archaeology, ecology… Jo’s guests are asking deep questions, chasing outrageous dreams, and exploring the world in completely new ways.
As well as learning about their pioneering ideas, we’ll hear their personal stories: what inspires their leaps of imagination; how they keep going despite the obstacles; the importance of thinking differently; and why we need creativity to survive. But most of all, Where The Wild Thoughts Are is about the wonder of peeking past supposed limits. Come into the wild with us, for a glimpse of what’s beyond…
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
We’re talking about science. But not just any science...
Each episode, journalist Jo Marchant meets researchers who are doing things differently: challenging our assumptions, stretching our minds, and changing how we see the world.
We’ll be pushing boundaries from cosmology and quantum physics to neuroscience, archaeology, ecology… Jo’s guests are asking deep questions, chasing outrageous dreams, and exploring the world in completely new ways.
As well as learning about their pioneering ideas, we’ll hear their personal stories: what inspires their leaps of imagination; how they keep going despite the obstacles; the importance of thinking differently; and why we need creativity to survive. But most of all, Where The Wild Thoughts Are is about the wonder of peeking past supposed limits. Come into the wild with us, for a glimpse of what’s beyond…
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thinkers don’t come much wilder than Albert Einstein. His out-of-the-box physics transformed how we think about the universe: with his famous equation E=mc2 he showed that energy and matter are one and the same; through his theory of relativity he joined space and time into one malleable fabric that can morph according to your point of view.
But we’re talking about a very different side to Einstein. My guest is Kieran Fox, a physician and neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, all-round spiritual explorer, and author of a fascinating book called I am a Part of Infinity. Kieran argues that Einstein didn’t confine his revolutionary thoughts to the physical world. The physicist was also deeply spiritual: he followed what he called a “cosmic religion”, that he hoped would unify science and religion; mind and matter; us and the cosmos.
Biographers and historians have tended to skate over this aspect of Einstein’s life… maybe they felt it wasn’t a suitably rational topic for such a hero of physics. But Kieran has pieced together Einstein’s religious thinking and traced influences from Pythagoras and Spinoza to the Tao Te Ching. He argues that Einstein’s spirituality wasn’t a minor sideshow, and it didn’t just co-exist with his physics, it was central, his ultimate motivation for wanting to understand the nature of reality in the first place.
What was this sacred path - and is it still relevant today? I asked Kieran to tell me all about it.
Kieran's home page
http://kieranfox.net/about.html
Kieran's book: I am a part of infinity
https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/kieran-fox/i-am-a-part-of-infinity/9781541603578/
Some of Einstein's writings on science and religion
https://www.silene.ong/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/AEinstein-Religion-and-Science_1930.pdf
Quantum Questions, ed. by Ken Wilber
https://archive.org/details/quantumquestions0000unse_n5j0
Some of Kieran's neuroscience papers - on meditation, cognition, creativity and whales
http://kieranfox.net/research.html
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https://jomarchant.com
Produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada:
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.