258: Shankar Vedantam: Hidden Brain (Best of NSE)

No Small Endeavor with Lee C. Camp

Lee Camp

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 555 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We all like to believe that we live our lives rationally, deliberately, and consciously. But what if our conscious decision-making is just the tip of the iceberg? “ I feel like I have a full picture of what's happening inside my own mind,” says Shankar Vedantam. But it turns out “there is a large portion of our mind that's working outside of our conscious awareness.” Shankar founded Hidden Brain Media in order to teach people what science has uncovered about our brains. In this episode, he discusses why we’re not as autonomous as we think we are, and the profound implications for the ways we act, think, and live. ⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Shankar Vedantam⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Join NSE+⁠⁠⁠⁠ — our subscriber-only community — for ad-free listening, member-only bonus content, and early access to live show tickets. Your membership helps make No Small Endeavor sustainable. No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, religion and spirituality, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠@nosmallendeavor⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Lee C. Camp and this is no small endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.
0:08.0	Many of us have made resolutions at the beginning of January and find by the time we reach the beginning of February that those resolutions have fallen by the wayside.
0:19.0	And an interesting question is why this happens.
0:21.9	That's Shankar Vedantam, host of the Hidden Brain podcast and radio show.
0:26.0	He's known for his work on the ways our unconscious brains play significant unseen roles in our lives.
0:31.8	We seem to think that willpower and conscious intention are everything.
0:35.7	Well, in fact, they might be only 10% of the equation.
0:38.7	Shankar's work gives insight about the ways our brains dictate or at least inform our behavior
0:43.8	in ways unknown to us and has led him to tackle some of humanity's biggest and oldest questions,
0:49.4	even those posed by philosophy, ethics, and religion.
0:52.9	Scientific questions involving the mind and human behavior are the most fascinating questions
0:57.8	that are.
0:58.9	All coming right up.
1:00.1	Across the globe, researchers are finding that increased social media use is affecting
1:04.9	people's happiness.
1:06.1	So, why do so many of us feel like we can't log off, even when we want to?
1:11.3	The Happiness Lab podcast is going straight to the source.
1:15.0	Host Dr. Laurie Santos sits down with the authors of the 2026 World Happiness Report
1:20.3	to unpack this year's most significant and surprising findings.
1:24.7	From global trends in young people's well-being to the social pressures that
1:28.9	keep the rest of us glued to our feeds, Dr. Santos breaks down the science in ways that could
1:34.5	change how you use these platforms. I'm a long-time fan of the work of Professor Laurie Santos,
	...

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