Joseph LeDoux
The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence M. Krauss
4.4 • 592 Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2020
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lawrence joins neuroscientist and author Joseph LeDoux in his office at New York University to discuss human consciousness (including its evolutionary development), the difficulties of distinguishing behavior from emotions, his latest book The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains, and more.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Origins Podcast is now a part of the Origins Project Foundation. Please consider supporting the podcast and the foundation by going to www.orgensprojectfoundation.org. |
| 0:15.8 | Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. In this week's episode, |
| 0:23.8 | I have a conversation with the fascinating American neuroscientist Joseph Ladeau. He has been one of the |
| 0:30.1 | leaders in trying to understand the nature of consciousness, in particular emotions, and among the |
| 0:36.1 | emotions, fear, which he's become well known for. |
| 0:39.7 | And his evolving view of that relationship between emotion and consciousness and the different parts of human brain, |
| 0:46.7 | he discusses in an interesting recent book called The Deep History of Ourselves, |
| 0:50.7 | the four billion year story of how we got our conscious brains. And that caused me to |
| 0:55.6 | want to have a discussion with him. It's a perfect topic for our origins podcast. I've been aware of |
| 1:00.3 | his work for some time and a fan of it and a fan of his books. Also, what I particularly like is |
| 1:05.6 | he again continues our own efforts to connect science and culture in unusual new ways. |
| 1:11.6 | In his case, not only did he come into science in a rather unusual way, as you'll hear, |
| 1:16.6 | but he also has a history in music, and he's actually the lead singer and songwriter for the band, the Amygdaloids. |
| 1:23.6 | So he's the second rock star scientist we've had a discussion with on the Origins podcast, the first being Brian May. |
| 1:30.8 | We focused on how our view of the brain has changed over time and how we're understanding the brain is much more complex than we may have thought. |
| 1:39.8 | We have to be very wary when we look at brain responses and emotions to try not to assume |
| 1:45.6 | a kind of chicken and egg relationship, which comes first. |
| 1:49.1 | The bodily response of fear, for example, and then the conscious awareness of fear or |
| 1:53.8 | the other way around. |
| 1:55.5 | So I hope you'll enjoy this fascinating conversation with a fascinating scientist. |
| 1:59.7 | And with no further ado, Joseph Ladoo. |
| 2:02.6 | Well, thank you very much for letting us into your office, Joe, and I'm really looking forward to talking about consciousness, |
... |
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