Tickets for my North America tour are now available for anyone to purchase!

I will be on stage with a good friend (who you may know…) and we will be discussing all things philosophy. We will take your questions (and maybe even your hot takes), and if it is anything like my UK tour earlier this year, it will be a lot of fun.

Get Your Tickets Now:

To get your tickets, click on your city:

Washington D.C. - November 11th

Boston, MA - November 12th

Toronto, ON - November 14th

San Francisco, CA - November 19th

Los Angeles, CA - November 21st

New York, NY - November 27th

See you there!

In today’s episode, I sit down with Dallas Jenkins, creator and director of The Chosen.

If you’re interested in Jesus or Christianity (or even if you’re not), you’ve probably come across this TV series about Jesus and his disciples, which is about to release its sixth season.

I am fascinated by the show, and am especially interested in the difficult creative decision-making entailed by working such a sensitive source material as the gospels. How does a TV show reconcile the different accounts? What about chronology, or locations, when these vary from source to source?

Not only this, but creating a half-decent TV show about Jesus requires putting words into the mouth of the central figure of Christianity which are not from any revelation, but rather the writers room. Is it even advisable to do such a thing at all?

Dallas joined me for over two hours to talk through some of these issues. Even better, he kindly invited us to record the episode on the set of the show. I will also, later today, release a behind-the-scenes look at the set, as I also got a tour on camera. So, look out for that too!

As always, you have it early. I am looking forward as ever to your feedback, and I hope you enjoy the episode!

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - What is The Chosen’s Purpose?
3:40 - Is It Appropriate to Embellish the Story of Jesus?
13:44 - Harmonising the Gospel Accounts
34:57 - Do Actors Sometimes Theologically Disagree?
46:19 - Controversial Additions to the Show
54:31 - Why Didn’t Jesus Heal Little James?
01:13:04 - Depicting Judas Iscariot
01:31:42 - The Women of The Chosen
01:38:54 - Stories Left Out of the Show
01:45:15 - Watching The Chosen As an Agnostic

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I’m doing a small tour of six shows across North America in November 2026!

The show will be me, hosted by a friend you may have heard of, talking about philosophy. God, consciousness, ethics; whatever you want, as there will also be an extensive QnA at every show.

Get Your Tickets Now:

Right now, early access tickets are available to paid Substack subscribers, who will find the presale code at the bottom of this page. The general sale begins on Friday, August 7th at 10am EST/7am PST.

To get your tickets, click on your city below, and enter the presale code at the bottom of this page.

Washington D.C. - November 11th

Boston, MA - November 12th

Toronto, ON - November 14th

San Francisco, CA - November 19th

Los Angeles, CA - November 21st

New York, NY - November 27th

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I’m going on a tour of North America in November, and I want Substack supporters to have the first access to tickets!

It’s just a small one, admittedly. I’m only coming to six cities, but I’ve never done this before and want to test the waters a bit. So, if your city is on the list, or you are near enough to travel, come along and see my first shows in the US and Canada!

Here’s how it will work: tomorrow, August 5th, at 10am ET/7am PST, tickets will go live for paid Substack subscribers. You will get an email (and a Substack post) containing links for each venue, along with a presale code you will need to enter to get early access tickets.

The general sale begins on Friday, August 7th, at 10am ET/7am PST. After this time, anybody can buy tickets without needing a code.

Last year, Ross wrote a book called Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, in which he lays out a case for belief in God, and describes relig…

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It’s been a little while since my last QnA, and what better occasion than hitting two million subscribers on YouTube?

Thanks for sticking with me. Some very exciting things to come soon.

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You may also recognise him as the star of the only music video ever shot somewhere other than Planet Earth.

I wanted to speak with Chris about why some people believe we have lost interest in space travel, and to talk about our reasons for going there in the first place (beyond just going because it is hard). I also wanted to learn about the current state of international cooperation on unearthly affairs. More than this, I want to know how an Air-Force-trained, seasoned pilot of extreme vehicles deals with the fear involved in such a dangerous line of work. Does he feel it? Can it be simply overcome?

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Have We Lost Interest in Space Travel?
3:56 - What Is There To Learn In Space?
12:01 - Is Space Exploration National Or Global?
16:05 - Will Civilians Need Training To Go To Space?
20:40 - The Psychological Challenges of Space Exploration
24:33 - Are Astronauts Thrill Seekers?
32:38 - Writing Fiction As An Astronaut
41:03 - How Chris Became a Novelist
48:37 - The Biggest Risk Chris Has Ever Taken
51:14 - How Chris Tackles Fear

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You may recognise today’s guest, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, as the host of “Closer to Truth”, a fantastic series of interviews with leading experts in philosophy and science, with a particular focus on consciousness.

Having now spent years speaking to people with all sorts of views about the nature of consciousness, Robert has taken the time to put together an incredible resource which maps an ever-increasing number of theories (the current number is about 444). Categorised, compared, and explained, this map presents them with unprecedented comprehensiveness interactivity.

I decided to sit down with Robert to talk through the map, and what he has learned about all the different theories within it during his time as an interviewer.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - The Landscape of Consciousness Map
16:32 - Materialism
25:36 - What Counts As Materialism?
43:50 - The Difference Between Panpsychism and Materialism
48:14 - What’s the Difference Between Panpsychism and Idealism?
56:50 - Idealism and Monism
01:02:29 - Do All These “Theories” Really Differ?
01:07:18 - Dualism and Property Dualism
01:19:08 - Are Psychedelic Experiences Significant?
01:30:40 - The “Challenge” Category
01:41:14 - Quantum Theories of Consciousness
01:46:35 - Integrated Information Theory
02:00:31 - Theological Approaches to Consciousness
02:14:11 - How Theory of Mind Brings Us Together

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But… what did he actually think? Why is he so well-regarded? What were his views? What did he write about? I have produced a few podcast episodes which serve as introductions to great thinkers or ideas, and think that one such investigation of the great empiricist is long past due.

I’m joined by John Sellars, a Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, visiting Research Fellow at King's College London, and a Member of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is the author of Aristotle: Understanding the World’s Greatest Philosopher, and joins me today to provide an overview of Aristotelean philosophy.

Being, forms, animals, teleology, God, the soul, logic, ethics… and all in under ninety minutes.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - What’s So Great About Aristotle?
3:06 - Actuality and Potentiality
12:59 - Forms: Aristotle vs Plato
18:18 - The Four Causes
23:33 - Evolution and Final Causation
27:56 - Did Aristotle Believe In God?
30:55 - The Unmoved Mover
37:14 - The Soul (is Not What You Might Think)
47:07 - How Aristotle Invented Formal Logic
54:11 - The Nicomachean Ethics
01:14:12 - Ethics as Descriptive
01:19:21 - Where To Start With Aristotle

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On the face of it, the idea that consciousness is an illusion seems preposterous. Illusions, after all, arise in consciousness. The position seems to imply a complete misunderstanding of what we are even talking about. Galen Strawson has called illusionism “the silliest claim ever made”, and it’s easy to understand why.

But illusionism is not what it might seem. Illusionists do not think that consciousness is itself an illusion, but rather that the way we introspect about consciousness—the belief that we have some special, private, inner world of experience—is an illusion. I still find the position difficult to wrap my head around, and decided it would be useful to speak to one of the current leading thinkers in illusionism to help clear up my understanding.

Keith Frankish is that person, and so he joins me in today’s episode.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Is Consciousness An Illusion?
4:02 - Do We Have a Private World?
10:00 - The Nature of Visual Experience
18:46 - Is Awareness Behavioural?
26:50 - Isn’t Introspection Itself a Private Experience?
31:37 - Philosophical Zombies
41:38 - What Motivates Illusionism?
48:35 - Psychedelics and the Dissolution of the Self
57:56 - Why Are Philosophers Always Categorising?
01:09:04 - Does Alex’s Triangle Exist?
01:20:13 - Is Pain Just a Reaction to Stimulus?
01:47:38 - Is Pain an Emergent Phenomenon?
01:54:25 - What Illusion Is Actually Happening?
01:57:40 - Can AI Be Conscious?

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I’ve got something a little different for you today. As you know, I sometimes collaborate with YouTubers (like Hank Green or Michael Stevens), including those a little outside of my typical philosophical orbit (like Adam Neely). Today, I am speaking with a YouTuber I have admired and enjoyed for years, and it only struck me recently that it might be fun to have him on the show.

Tommy Edison is a blind YouTuber and radio presenter. He got his start online as the “Blind Film Critic”, reviewing movies despite being unable to see them, and thereby offering a unique angle on their storytelling.

He soon pivoted into making general content about living blind, including how he performs basic daily tasks, how he understands what sight might mean, and the benefits and challenges of not being able to see.

Being interested in consciousness and the nature of phenomenal experience, I thought it would be interesting to speak with Tommy about what blindness is really like.

Tommy is also widely regarded as one of the nicest and most inspiring YouTubers on the platform. So, as I work away on some bigger projects that are currently making me exceptionally busy, I present my podcast with Tommy, in the hope that you might be interested in something a little outside of our usual programming.

(And yes, I did ask him about Mary’s room.)

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Being a Blind YouTuber2:03 - How Do You Understand Blindness If You Are
Blind From Birth?
4:26 - Being Blind in School
7:20 - Tommy’s Early Life
12:11 - Has Life Become More Accessible For the Blind?
18:00 - How Vision is Embedded in Our Language
20:01 - How Does A Blind Person Watch A Movie?
24:07 - What Does Tommy Know About Colour?
26:17 - Mary’s Room
30:43 - Can A Blind Person Play Video Games?
34:06 - The Questions People Are Too Afraid to Ask
40:09 - How Does A Blind Person Understand Attractiveness?
42:54 - What Can We Make More Accessible?
46:51 - Why Electric Cars Aren’t Best For Everyone
49:58 - Is Offering Help Patronising?
53:02 - What Can Tommy Do That People Think He Can’t?
56:59 - Why Tommy Chooses Joy

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You do not need to agree with the above to know that in every major religious tradition, no matter how much they are resisted, mystical branches have sprung up and flourished. Sufism within Islam, Kabbalah within Judaism, and ecstatic, experiential expressions of Christianity, for example.

Mysticism is usually characterised by its adherents’ desire to experience unity with the divine, or with each other, or the universe. It seeks direct, ineffable access to divinity, and often involves ritualistic, musical, meditative, or otherwise esoteric practices to achieve it.

Those who experience such moments of divine revelation typically favour its insight over that of organised religious authority or even philosophical thinking. Indeed, Thomas Aquinas refused to finish the Summa Theologica after a short religious experience near the end of his life made him see all his writing as “straw” in comparison.

Yet these experiences often inspired ideas and beliefs which were out of accord with traditional doctrine. Ideas which collapse the distinction between creator and creation; ideas about the nature of God; a rejection of doctrinal concerns. Mysticism therefore has a tumultuous history, often suffering from suppression or persecution by clerical authorities.

The heroes and heroins of this history are many, including people such as Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Simone Weil, and Teresa of Ávila. Today, I am joined by Simon Critchley, author of On Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy, to introduce the core ideas of mysticism and the lives of the people who lived by it.

***

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - Is Mysticism Always Religious?
7:52 - What is Mysticism?
17:26 - Unification With the Divine
28:25 - Mysticism and the Self
39:06 - Why Are So Many Mystics Women?
47:08 - The Limits of Language
58:22 - Was Pascal a Mystic?
01:01:48 - Where Does Simon Stand on Mysticism?
01:09:50 - Where Should We Start With Learning About Mysticism?
01:14:03 - Imagery in Simon’s Book

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As some of you may know, I like to make music in my spare time. I’m also quite fond of watching music YouTubers, and Adam Neely is a legend of the space.

Recently, Adam made a lengthy video about Suno, a new artificial intelligence technology which allows users to generate music based on prompts. Suno has caused a scurry of new AI music creation, but interestingly the resulting songs seem mostly and often uniquely listened to by the people who create it. Suno is bringing about a musical environment in which music is AI generated to taste, leaving many people feeling no need to consult any “artists” other than themselves in the pursuit of something interesting or meaningful to listen to.

This is obviously an unsettling development, but just how annoyed—or worried—should we be? It’s common for musicians to accuse AI music tools of plagiarism, since they are trained on music libraries they do not have the rights to. But aren’t all human musicians trained on existing music without the consent of its creators? Isn’t AI music just a mechanised version of what humans are already doing: synthesising other music we have heard into a new creation?

And what’s it got to do with Jazz?

To explore some of these questions, Adam joins me for today’s episode of the podcast.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Music and Philosophy
5:17 - Can You Cheat in Music?
9:07 - What is Suno?
24:02 - Can You Use AI Musically?
31:04 - Is AI Just the New Sampling?
37:23 - AI and Inclusivity
45:04 - Is Music Becoming Narcissistic?
56:09 - Does Great Art Require Ego?
01:05:47 - Are AI Music Tools Inevitable?
01:21:38 - How Would Adam Improve Suno?
01:34:27 - Are We Removing the Humanity From Music?
01:43:02 - Is Jazz the Blueprint?

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For the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, however, pleasure is not just a happy byproduct of certain behaviours and experiences; pleasure is the ultimate aim. We should seek our own pleasure, and doing so is the same thing as living a good life.

At first glance, this seems indulgent and irresponsible. Indeed, the word “epicurean” has come to mean something akin to these adjectives: if you are a lazy glutton, you may find the word thrown at you by detractors who wish to sound a little sophisticated.

But, and of course, it is not as simple as that. Epicurus had a particular view of pleasure, with some surprising implications (such as his dislike of sex), as well as a very particular metaphysical background. He was an atomist materialist, and was, in the words of today’s guest, godless but not atheistic.

Jonny Thomson is the founder of Philosophy Minis, which explains philosophical ideas in an accessible manner to a wide audience of almost one million followers. He is also the author of the forthcoming book, The Art of Enough: The Ancient Epicurean Philosophy of Finding – and Keeping – Happiness.

Jonny joins me in this episode to introduce Epicureanism and discuss its plausibility.

***

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Are Epicureans Selfish?
5:30 - Why Epicureanism?
10:31 - Who Was Epicurus?
16:42 - Godless But Not Atheistic
22:10 - Epicurus’ Metaphysics
26:13 - Why Focus on Pleasure?
34:18 - Epicureanism vs Utilitarianism
47:48 - What About Immoral Pleasures?
51:51 - Could AI be Epicurean?
59:39 - The Experience Machine
01:10:07 - Why Epicurus Didn’t Like Sex
01:15:12 - Are Influencers Watering Down Ancient Philosophy?
01:18:55 - Are You In Control of Your Happiness?
01:25:22 - Epicureanism vs Stoicism
01:31:25 - Epicurus on Death
01:35:31 - Do We Have a Happiness Crisis?

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They are talking about superhuman artificial intelligence. And it is no joke. We do not even understand how these systems function. We do not even build them, really; we grow them, organically and without monitoring every step. We trust them with information that could be used to harm us. We have repeatedly caught them lying to us, and pretending to be less sophisticated than they really are.

Artificial intelligence of this kind is a scary prospect, and Soares and Yudkowsky offer a solemn warning: if such systems achieve superintelligence, we will all die. They are not exaggerating, nor hypothesising a remote possibility. They firmly believe that if anyone, anywhere in the world, builds it, everyone dies.

But why? How can they be so certain? What even is superintelligence? Isn’t it inevitable? Why would it want to kill us?

To answer these questions and more, one of the authors, Nate Soares, joins me for today’s episode of Within Reason. Do let me know what you think.

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Is This an Exaggeration?
4:31 - What Is Unique About the Threat of AI?
11:28 - What is Superintelligence?
20:09 - From Chess Computers to Murderous Machines
26:38 - What Really Drives AI Systems?
43:13 - Evidence AI Is Already Turning Against Us
54:49 - How We Are Helping AI Take Over
01:00:05 - Why Would AI Seek Power or Control?
01:06:26 - Some Worst-Case AI Scenarios
01:17:22 - What Do We Do About This Now?
01:31:37 - How Has AI Changed in the Last Six Months?

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Anil Seth is a neuroscientist and professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex. He recently wrote an award-winning essay, “The Mythology of Conscious AI”, arguing that consciousness is “more likely a property of life than of computation”, and that AI might simply not have the relevant capabilities for conscious thought.

For example, some neurons in our brains specifically interact with metabolism. Therefore, to completely simulate a human brain, we would also have to simulate metabolism, and perhaps that is just something that silicon can’t really do.

Anil is a materialist, and believes consciousness to be what he calls a “controlled hallucination”. This is his second appearance on Within Reason, this time to discuss his essay, and the notion of consciousness as unique to biological life.

I am looking forward, as always, to your early feedback.

TIMESTAMPS:

0:00 - The Difference Between Intelligence and Consciousness
3:55 - What’s Stopping the Replication of Consciousness in AI?
15:52 - Can You Separate What the Brain Is From What It Does?
21:11 - Is Conscious Experience Just Predictions From the Brain?
25:39 - Why Do We Project Consciousness Onto LLMs?
36:18 - Can Consciousness Exist Without a Body?
41:16 - Why We Liken the Brain to a Computer
51:02 - Is There An Evolutionary Reason For Consciousness?
55:20 - Studying Unconscious Perception?
01:00:12 - Is Consciousness Unified? Split-Brain Patients
01:14:01 - Attention and Consciousness
01:17:55 - What Would a Conscious Chatbot Even Look Like?
01:24:04 - Consciousness as a Controlled Hallucination
01:33:10 - Do Scientists Actually Study “Consciousness” At All?

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The last time I had John Lennox on my show, one particular moment caught the particular attention of the internet and was clipped into oblivion. It was Lennox’s response to the problem of evil.

It coming near the end of our time together, we didn’t investigate his thoughts much. The conversation as a whole was also very received, and so I decided to invite Dr Lennox back on the show to talk more about evil, divine hiddenness, science, and faith.

Dr Lennox also has a history of debates with famous new atheists—like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens—under his belt, which are interesting to revisit now, a few decades since they occurred. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

***

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - How Pressure Can Produce the Best Work
2:29 - Does the Incarnation Make Sense?
6:22 - John’s Richard Dawkins Debate
13:25 - What Did the New Atheists Get Wrong About God?
25:07 - Science Cannot Explain Everything
30:08 - What Did the New Atheists Get Right?
34:04 - Why Does God Hide From So Many People?
43:23 - Why Does God Allow Arbitrary Suffering?
55:11 - Is Faith “Belief Without Evidence”?
59:19 - How Could God Punish a Mere Lack of Faith?
01:07:00 - How Christopher Hitchens Agreed with Jesus
01:11:49 - Does Christianity Cause Evil?

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Perhaps you are sick to death of all this talk about consciousness and panpsychism by now. If so, fair enough. But for some of you it may because you think materialism is true, and that ideas like panpsychism sound an awful lot like immaterial “woo”.

Consider today’s episode something of a middle ground. Galen Strawson is a British analytic p…

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Sometimes posited as a kind of atheist answer to C.S. Lewis, Pullman’s fantasy is a far cry from the Christian world of Narnia. Critiquing Lewis’ obsession with childhood innocence, Pullman intentionally celebrates maturity, and critiques organised religious structures.

The mysterious “dust” of his novels is also connected to consciousness, and more fully fleshed out in The Book of Dust, described as not a sequel or prequel but an “equel” to His Dark Materials. The influence of ideas in the philosophy of mind to construct this important motif of his series is clear, provides a philosophical tone to the story.

Philip joins me to discuss his opposition to Lewis (whose ideas he describes as a “filthy lie”), the musicality of fiction, how we might have improved the story of Jesus, and the influence of atheism and philosophy over his writing.

-

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - C.S. Lewis Tells Filthy Lies
5:12 - Childhood Innocence is Overrated
10:09 - Religion in Philip’s Novels
20:27 - How to Improve the Story of Jesus and the Gospels
26:44 - The Connection Between Music and Fiction
35:25 - Books vs Movies
42:39 - Consciousness in The Book of Dust
49:06 - Should Novelists Go Back and Update Their Books?
55:12 - The Omniscient Narrator
59:13 - How Movies Changed Novels
01:04:50 - Why Subtitles Are So Popular Now
01:09:57 - The Role of Philosophy in Philip’s Novels
01:12:28 - Philip’s Writing Process
01:19:12 - The Fear of AI in Creative Industries

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Yet Pascal is also well-known for his religious faith, and particularly for a collection of writings known together as his Pensées (“thoughts”). These contain a great number of aphoristic and fragmentary reflections never fully organised by the author. Yet they remain influential to this day, including providing the basis for what has come to be known as “Pascal’s wager”.

I am joined in this episode by Graham Tomlin, a recent biographer of Pascal and former Bishop of the Church of England. We discuss Pascal’s life, accreditations, philosophy, and wager, as well as his so-called “night of fire” in 1654, when he had a religious experience which caused him to reject what he called “the God of the philosophers” in favour of the God he had directly encountered.

For Pascal, a recurring theme of importance seems to be that religion is something not rational, nor irrational, but perhaps arational.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 - Can Blaise Pascal Be Categorised?
3:05 - Who Was Blaise Pascal?
11:12 - Pascal’s First Conversion
17:19 - Pascal’s “Night of Fire”
20:50 - Did Pascal Reject Reason?
30:36 - Pascal’s War With Descartes
41:22 - Did Pascal Invent the Bus?
44:33 - The Heart Has Its Reasons, Of Which Reason Knows Nothing
48:54 - How Pascal Invented Probability Theory
51:20 - Pascal’s Wager
1:14:26 - The Pensées
01:17:21 - Pascal’s “Two Minds”
01:21:30 - The Importance of Boredom
01:25:49 - Why Should Atheists Read Pascal?
01:30:25 - What Would Graham Ask Pascal?

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