Episode 333: P-hacking the Mind
Very Bad Wizards
Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
David and Tamler do another tier ranking--this time on philosophical thought experiments, so as not to further alienate our chemistry-adjacent listeners. We hit most of the big ones: Pascal's wager, Pascal's mugging, Mary the color scientist, the Ring of Gyges, Jarvis Thomson's violinist, the experience machine, the utility monster, and a lot more. Can you guess our grade for the trolley dilemma?
- The Chinese Room (Searle) [wikipedia.org]
- Descartes' Evil Demon (Descartes) [wikipedia.org]
- The Experience Machine (Nozick) [wikipedia.org]
- Mary the Color Scientist (F. Jackson) [wikipedia.org]
- Pascal's Mugging (Yudkowsky/Bostrom) [wikipedia.org]
- Pascal's Wager (Pascal) [wikipedia.org]
- The Ring of Gyges (Plato) [wikipedia.org]
- The Shallow Pond (Singer) [wikipedia.org]
- The Ship of Theseus (Hobbes) [wikipedia.org]
- The Trolley Problem (Philippa Foot/J.J. Thomson) [wikipedia.org]
- The Utility Monster (Nozick) [wikipedia.org]
- The Veil of Ignorance (Rawls) [wikipedia.org]
- The Violinist (J.J. Thomson) [wikipedia.org]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Vizarro, |
| 0:06.0 | having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. |
| 0:09.4 | Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, |
| 0:13.6 | and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. |
| 0:17.2 | I'm dealing with this the same way I dealt with my own alcoholism and drug addiction, with lies and delusion. |
| 0:23.6 | The maiden boss has spoken. |
| 0:30.6 | Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you? |
| 0:41.3 | Who are you? |
| 0:43.3 | Who are you? |
| 0:45.3 | I'm a very bad man. I'm a very good man. |
| 0:47.3 | Good man. |
| 0:51.3 | They think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. |
| 0:55.7 | May no attention tonight, man. |
| 1:01.5 | Anybody can have a brain? |
| 1:05.4 | You're a very bad man. |
| 1:08.1 | I'm a very good man. |
| 1:09.7 | Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. |
| 1:12.6 | Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. |
| 1:14.5 | I'm Tamler Summers from the University of Houston. |
| 1:17.6 | Dave, New Jersey Congressman Thomas Keene has been missing from Capitol Hill for over two months. |
| 1:26.6 | Not only that, there are no photos of him existing |
| 1:30.0 | during that period of time. His chief of staff released a statement that said, there's no cameras |
... |
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