A collection of online video lectures (feel free to add your own)
In my free time I like to watch online video lectures by various academics. Over the years I've come across quite a few really good ones. I thought I would post some of those here in the thread, along with a very brief description, for you all to enjoy as well. It would be nice if you all could contribute some of your favorites as well, and if we could use this thread to discuss some of the videos others have posted. If the discussion for a particular video looks like it's becoming substantial, we can break it off into a new thread.
These are obviously going to be biased towards reflecting my own personal academic interests, and thus tend to be by psychologists, philosophers, biologists, and economists (more or less in that order). However, there is no reason that we need to stick to these topics, so feel free to post lectures related to whatever interests you. I'd prefer lecture videos to documentaries, but if the documentary is good enough I suppose that's okay. I've omitted TED talks on the assumption that most of us are familiar with those.
Doug Hofstadter - It’s Like This Other Thing
Doug Hofstadter (of Godel, Escher, Bach fame) is a cognitive scientist who also dabbles in philosophy. One of his primary interests is in the psychology of analogy and metaphor. This highly entertaining talk covers some of his basic views on the subject. (I should also add that this features the longest introduction to a speaker ever... Doug finally takes the stage at about 13:40)
Marc Hauser on Our Moral Intuitions
Really interesting talk that looks at, among other things, systematic patterns in peoples' responses to moral dilemmas. Hauser also does research on Capuchin monkeys so he brings a comparative/evolutionary perspective to the topic as well.
Conversation with Daniel Gilbert
I think you have to download some sort of Veoh Web Player to view this one. But it's free and I've been using it for a few years without any problems (like ads and etc.). Anyway, this is an interesting if somewhat unfocused extended interview (or "conversation") between Marc Hauser (from above) and Dan Gilbert, both Harvard psychologists.
Steven Pinker on his book "The Blank Slate"
Steven Pinker on his book "The Stuff Of Thought"
Richard Dawkins interviews Steven Pinker
Some good videos of/by Pinker. The first is on some of the interesting cultural and intellectual remnants of the "nature vs. nurture debate," the second is on natural grammar and what that allows us to infer about basic cognition, and the third is a conversation about evolutionary psychology.
Dan Dennett - Brains, Computers, and Minds (day 1) (day 2) (day 3)
Dan Dennet - Is Science Showing That We Don't Have Free Will?
Dan Dennett - Breaking The Spell: Religion As A Natural Phenomenon (lecture) (interview)
Dan Dennett on theology
Richard Dawkins interviews Dan Dennett
Quite a few videos by Dennett. Clearly I enjoy his talks. The first is a series of talks on what he's best known for talking about, namely consciousness and artificial intelligence. The second is about his views on free will. The third and fourth are, generally speaking, about religion. And the last is about Darwin and the idea of natural selection.
Alex Rosenberg & David Levine - Economics as Science
An interesting and somewhat tense discussion between philosopher of science Alex Rosenberg and economist David Levine. It is on the strengths and shortcomings (mostly shortcomings) of economics and its status as a scientific discipline.
David Chalmers & John Horgan - Consciousness Explained, kind of
Horgan and Chalmers discuss Chalmers's general views on consciousness.
Bert Hölldobler & E.O. Wilson - The Superorganism
On the eusocial ("true social") insects. They focus on ants, but also briefly discuss wasps, bees, and termites.
Daniel Kahneman on intuition and cognitive illusions
Daniel Kahneman on well-being
Daniel Kahneman is a renowned psychologist and 2002 Nobel laureate in economics. He and his late collaborator Amos Tversky began an ongoing research tradition known as the "heuristics and biases" approach to judgment & decision-making. In more recent years his research has focused on well-being and hedonic psychology.
Gerg Gigerenzer - The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Gerg Gigerenzer on "fast and frugal heuristics" and bounded rationality. Gigerenzer's work is on behavioral decision theory and he is well known for being highly critical of the work by Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky (from above).
Shane Frederick - How Much Do We Differ From Others and When Do We Know it?
Shane Frederick - When I’m 64: Discounting, Time Preference, and Personal Identity
It's been a while since I've seen these two. The second is about the phenomenon of time discounting in decision making. I don't remember much about the first but I seem to recall it as being interesting. Shane Frederick has collaborated with Danny Kahneman in the past, so his work is in a broadly similar vein.
Conversation with Paul Ekman
Dacher Keltner & Paul Ekman - Does Darwin Illuminate Emotion & Spirituality?
Paul Ekman is the psychologist who is the basis for the main character in the show "Lie To Me." The first talk here is about his research on the universality of emotions and his Facial Action Coding System (FACS). The second is about the evolution of emotion.
Sam Gosling - What Your Stuff Says About You
A somewhat unfocused but entertaining talk by Sam Gosling on his recent research, wherein he examines peoples' living spaces and looks for patterns and correlations with personality characteristics.
Phil Tetlock - Expert Forecasting
Phil Tetlock on the general inadequacy of expert forecasting, why it tends to be inadequate, and what to do about it.
Richard Thaler - Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Thaler, along with Kahneman and Tversky (from above), was one of the earliest proponents of what has become known as behavioral economics. Here he talks about his book, which advocates using behavioral principles from this field for the common good of society.
Christopher Dye - Are Humans Still Evolving?
Pretty self-explanatory I think...
The State of Cognitive Neuroscience: Accomplishments and Prospects
From the Harvard website: "How have advances in the brain sciences informed the mind sciences, and how well has cognitive neuroscience fared and where is it going? Moderated by Marc Hauser. Speakers included Alfonoso Caramazza, Stephen Kosslyn, and Daniel Schacter."
John Searle on free will
An interesting talk, even if I'm still not totally clear on what his overall view is.
Human, All Too Human - Jean Paul Sartre
Human, All Too Human - Martin Heidegger
Human, All Too Human - Friedrich Nietzsche
These are the only documentaries I've chosen to post. It is a series of biographies on three of the most influential continental philosophers.
