elucidations

A podcast is like a radio show, except pre-recorded and distributed through the internet rather than over the airwaves. Every month on my podcast, I sit down with a contemporary philosopher of note and talk to them about the issues that grab their interest.

this month

In this episode, we talk to Gaurav Venkataraman (Trisk Bio) about whether memory can be stored outside the brain. In the 1950s, some scientists were looking at planarian flatworms, an animal that has an incredible ability to regenerate: that is, when you cut a planarian flatworm in half, both halves grow back, resulting in two new worms. There were some indications that when this happened, the new worm that grew back from the "bottom half" (i.e. the half with no brain) could retain some of the memories of the original worm. That research was controversial and eventually discredited on the grounds that the experiments weren't rigorously designed, but recently there has been wave of new work into the question that has replicated some of the original findings using today's standards for behavioral experimental design. It makes you wonder: can memories be stored outside the brain, in an organism's RNA? Our guest argues that this hypothesis could also explain a lot of what's happening in the brain, because the brain does contain a lot of RNA and we don't know yet exactly what its function is, if anything.

You can download the episode here, and you can also play it directly in the player below.

topics

Not sure where to start? Here are a few quick links to some episodes dealing with major areas of philosophy:

No idea what any of the above means? Feel free to get in touch with any questions you may have.

about elucidations

Elucidations was founded in 2008 by myself and Mark Hopwood.

The idea for Elucidations came about during our first year as PhD students at the University of Chicago. One of this university's striking characteristics is how many lectures, conferences, courses, and reading groups there are to attend. A wealth of groundbreaking philosophical ideas were being shared among members of the academic community, but were too often put back into the filing cabinet afterwards, never again to see the light of day. We felt the urge to capture some of these discussions and release them into the world at large.

No one who hasn't taken several years worth of mathematics courses can attend a lecture in that field and even understand its principal claims, let alone why they might be interesting. But philosophy isn't like that at all; anyone can leaf through the major journals in the field and immediately feel like they have a stake in the questions under discussion—questions like what a number is, or whether there's such a thing as moral luck, or whether people from different cultures think in a fundamentally different way. The best work being done in philosophy right now is of interest to professionals and laymen alike.

Our podcast aims to reach both of these audiences at once, with content that's freely available for anyone to download or stream. We present the latest work from the top minds in the field, with an emphasis on clear exposition in plain English, ideally with little to none of the intimidating jargon that alienates so many newcomers. Philosophy is unique in its ability to facilitate this kind of rapprochement because its most innovative ideas can be expressed in simple, commonsense terms without any danger of being watered down.

It is our hope that through such efforts as this, the discipline can begin to recultivate the relationship with the broader culture which, although once quite strong, has fallen by the wayside in recent years. At many points in history—for example, in nineteenth century Germany—the philosophical state of the art was matter of deep cultural pride. But these days, a college graduate stopped at random and asked what philosophers do all day won't have the slightest idea what to say. As professional academics, we have done an excellent job of making our work known to each other. Now is the time to share our discoveries with everyone else.

Since the podcast was first launched in 2009, we have done our best to cover the field of philosophy in its entirety. We of course have yet to cover many important areas, but the hope is that as our catalogue expands, we come progressively closer to the ideal of complete coverage. Many of the world's most prominent philosophers have made an appearance on our program. And our following spans all (inhabited) continents, including listeners from Chile, Morocco, France, Germany, Sweden, China, Australia, and India.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think!