How far in the past do you live? Why are live television shows not actually live? What does any of this have to do with nuclear bombs, car accidents, plane crashes, volcanos, or the last episode of the Sopranos? Join Eagleman in a mind-bending dive into the neuroscience of time and what it could mean for your last moment.

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

"Will you perceive the event that kills you?"

Can a blind person come to see through her tongue? What would it be like to smell with the nose of a dog? How can we perceive streams of information that are normally invisible to us? And what does any of this have to do with pilots or Westworld or tinnitus or friendly fire or a wristband with vibratory motors? We don't detect most of the action going on in the world around us... and today we'll explore how technology might change that.

"Can we create new senses for humans?"

Why are some of the best musicians blind? Can blind people learn how to echolocate, like a bat? What do your nightly dreams have to do with the rotation of the planet? Once we find alien life on other planets, should we expect that aliens have dreams at night? Find out why dreaming might be the strange lovechild of brain plasticity.

"What does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet?"

What do charlatans have to understand about human perception? Why are you so bad at recognizing a real penny among fakes? What did Eagleman have to do with the redesign of the Euro, and why did he campaign to the European Central Bank that all their bills should be blank with a single hologram in the middle? In this episode, explore the crossroads of perception and deception. Brief appearance from special guest Adam Savage. 

"Why is it so hard to spot a counterfeit bill?"

We all have goals, and we all face temptations that get in the way. So what's happening in the brain when we act in a manner that isn't in accordance with who we want to be? Computers don’t have these problems, but being human can be tough. In the previous two episodes we exposed the rivaling networks battling it out under the surface. Today we’re going to talk about the gap between what you intend to do and what you actually do when temptation is there. 

"What does eating that cookie have to do with the hero of the Trojan war?"

What’s happening when you stand in the supermarket aisle and stare at the shelf full of options? It may not look like there’s much going on from the outside, but inside there’s a war of networks raging. How is your brain's decision-making influenced by price, emotions, and your group of friends? How would you choose between a nice candle and a chocolate bar in the shape of a computer keyboard? And what does any of this have to do with Starbucks or Tiger Woods or Burger King? 

How does your brain decide what to buy?

Modern AI is blowing everyone’s mind. But is it intelligent like humans, or is it just playing impressive statistical games? Could AI reach or exceed our level of intelligence, and how would we know when it gets there? Traditional tests for intelligence (Turing test, Lovelace test, etc) have long been surpassed, so Eagleman proposes a new kind of test. 

"Is AI truly intelligent? How would we know if it got there?"

Will writers, artists, and musicians find themselves unemployed by AI? What are the new capabilities we’re seeing and what does it all mean for human creativity? And what does this have to do with diamonds, Westworld, effort, Frankenstein, photography, Beethoven, and the Stark family in Game of Thrones?

"What will AI mean for artists?"

Would you kill one person to save the lives of five others? Why do you find yourself on the horns of a dilemma when someone offers you a chocolate cake? How can you believe different things at once? Find out what's running under the hood in this first episode of a three-parter about our decision making -- and how a little knowledge of neuroscience can allow us to make better decisions.

"How is your brain like a team of rivals?"

Do you see blue the same way I do on the inside? Why do some people think the northern lights make noise? Why do you think the low note on the piano is larger, and the high note brighter? Join Eagleman on a wild ride into the world of synesthesia, a topic his neuroscience laboratory has pioneered for years. 

"Do people experience different realities?"

What is intelligence? Why don’t gophers write novels? Why didn't crows invent the internet? And what does any of this have to do with brain algorithms, finding aliens on earth, and why World War 5 could involve species besides Homo sapiens?

"Could animals learn to speak human?"

How is it possible for a dog to become a champion surfer? Why does the world’s best archer have no arms? Why might someone come to believe that her leg doesn’t belong to her? How can we build robots that simply figure themselves out? In this episode, Eagleman unmasks mysteries about the brain's shocking flexibility -- revealing how it comes to drive whatever body it finds itself in, how it determines what the "self" is, and what this tells us about our future as humans.

"What would you do with robotic wings? (or How to get a better body)"

When he was a child, Eagleman fell off a roof and time seemed to run in slow motion. When he became a neuroscientist, he grew curious about the experience and collected hundreds of similar stories from others. But is it true that your brain can actually see in slow motion, like Neo in the Matrix? And how would you test that? Hear how he dropped volunteers from a tower to put the science to the test, and what the answer reveals about our perception, memory, and experience of the world.

"Does time really slow down when you're in fear for your life?"

Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman discusses how our brain interprets the world and what that means for us. Through storytelling, research, interviews, and experiments, David Eagleman tackles wild questions that illuminate new facets of our lives and our realities.

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Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

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