🎙️#12 Dr. Erik Goodwyn: Who Creates the Dream? The Invisible Storyteller

Peter Ulric Tse is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, currently on sabbatical as a visiting professor at Cambridge and a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall. A Guggenheim and Humboldt Fellow, he studies attention, visual consciousness and volition, and has spent over fifteen years building a naturalistic case for libertarian free will, beginning with The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation (MIT, 2013). He is now two volumes into a trilogy: A Neurophilosophy of Libertarian Free Will and Free Imagination (both OUP, 2024), with Re-enlightenment to follow. In this conversation, I sit down with Peter to explore the idea at the heart of Free Imagination: that what makes humans free is not intelligence but imagination, our capacity to model what is not, has never been, and could not be. We start with bonobos sitting miserably in the rain and the Löwenmensch, a 40,000-year-old carving of a lion-headed man, and trace how tool-making may have forged an internal virtual avatar that lets us act in imagination long before we act in the world. Peter takes apart the Libet experiments and the case against free will made by Sapolsky and Gazzaniga, arguing that the real action lies not in split-second choices but in distal, deliberative imagining. We explore the brain's planning and willpower systems, efference copy and schizophrenia, Kundalini yoga, and why lobotomised patients simply stopped acting. Then the conversation turns to culture: whether our imaginations are sovereign, Edward Bernays and The Century of the Self, why some stories grip us from beneath, and Peter Singer's expanding circle. This is a conversation for anyone who suspects the imagination is both our greatest tool and our greatest weapon, and wants to know whether we can learn to wield it freely. 🔗 Links - Website: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/peter/ - Free MOOC: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBZk0Jl545845TCxtkEbJQ7bTJTqi_HrF ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro - Free will, imagination and the crack in the animal mind 00:47 What can we learn from bonobos sitting in the rain? 04:37 Defining imagination: our internal virtual reality 07:47 The Default Mode Network, daydreaming and the ego 11:08 From mental workspace to the Löwenmensch 14:27 Hand axes, Homo erectus and the slow birth of imagination 17:19 Our greatest tool and our greatest weapon: escaping the reptilian trap 22:14 Free Imagination: the internal avatar and the evolution of tool-making 24:54 Has neuroscience been barking up the wrong tree? 26:54 Libet, the readiness potential and the case against free will 32:31 Distal decisions: where free will really lives 34:34 Baseball, Sapolsky and learning Spanish: why past imagining still counts 38:27 Why volitional attention needs consciousness 39:59 Split brains, Gazzaniga and the interpreter 43:34 Efference copy and schizophrenia: did I do that? 47:14 Planning, priorities and the neuroscience of willpower 52:18 Lobotomies, akinetic mutism and the fire in the belly 55:57 Ritual, Jung and the gods and madness of the imagination 57:52 Breath, Kundalini yoga and training the will 1:00:30 Is your imagination sovereign? 1:01:56 Edward Bernays, The Century of the Self and propaganda 1:04:42 Why do some stories capture us? 1:07:49 Peter Singer's expanding circle 1:12:24 New religions for an expanding circle 1:16:12 The unconscious and the elves in the basement 1:18:59 Emotions, desires and cybernetic beings 1:21:31 Anagnorisis, storytelling and why Harari is wrong 1:24:19 Globalism and the merging of the world's religions 1:27:26 Peter's guest recommendations: Carolyn Dicey Jennings and Eddy Nahmias 1:28:23 Where to find Peter

Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer, psychologist and mythologist whose work sits at the junction of depth psychology, mythology and ecology. Coming from a background in behavioural psychology and neuroscience, she has spent over two decades reinstating imagination and intuition as ways of knowing. She is the author of seven books, including the internationally bestselling If Women Rose Rooted and Hagitude, which reframed midlife and elderhood as alchemical rather than diminishing. Her latest, Ripening: Why Women Need Fairy Tales Now, was published in May 2026. She writes the global-bestselling Substack The Art of Enchantment (60,000+ readers), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and an Honorary Member of the Association of Jungian Analysts, and recently founded the Nostos Institute, which aims to build a living Western spiritual path out of ancient philosophy and depth psychology. ________________ In this conversation, I sit down with Sharon to explore what it might mean to re-enchant a disenchanted world. We begin with her winding path: from a fiercely behaviourist psychology department, to a PhD in the neuroscience of anxiety, and finally to the imaginal, mythic heart of depth psychology. Sharon gives a crash course in Neoplatonism (the One, the Nous and the World Soul) and traces how James Hillman and Henri Corbin drew on it to describe the imaginal world: a real, intermediary realm where images, dreams and synchronicities live. We dig into the difference between enchantment and magical thinking, why so much Jungian thought stops short of the metaphysics, and how big dreams and synchronicities tend to convert people rather than arguments. We talk about Plato's Myth of Er and the guardian daimon, why Sharon has focused on reclaiming women's stories and the archetypes of the older woman (the Hagitude project), and what her new Nostos Institute is trying to build. Along the way: fairy tales as the antidote to alienation, why young people are turning to Christianity, and whether a screen-bound, precarious, increasingly mechanised world can find its way back to community and the more-than-human world. This is a conversation for anyone who feels the pull of meaning and belonging but can't quite find the door. ________________ 🔗 Links - Website: https://sharonblackie.net/ - Substack (The Art of Enchantment): https://sharonblackie.substack.com/ ________________ ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro - Reinstating imagination as a way of knowing 01:01 From behaviourist neuroscience to the imaginal: Sharon's winding path 05:59 A crash course in Neoplatonism: the One, the Nous and the World Soul 08:55 "Platonism for the masses": Christianity and the problem of institutionalisation 12:52 Iamblichus, theurgy and the imaginal world 15:51 Soul vs. spirit: the missing piece 19:20 Enchantment vs. alienation: Studebaker, Don Quixote and "to sing into" 25:41 Magical thinking vs. enchantment: fantasy or participation? 29:20 The metaphysics Hillman and Jung left out 31:47 What actually converts you: big dreams and the angel cards 33:36 Plato's Myth of Er and the guardian daimon 36:06 Are women more porous to the imaginal? 38:55 Reclaiming women's stories: from Native American writers to Celtic myth 43:32 Beyond the hero's journey: Hagitude and the archetypes of the older woman 48:41 Inside the Nostos Institute: a Western spiritual path 57:47 What "feeling fully alive" actually looks like 1:01:11 Why young people are turning to Christianity: precarity and meaning 1:11:19 Sharon's guest recommendation: David Abram 1:13:16 Where to find Sharon's work

Benjamin Studebaker is a political theorist with a PhD from Cambridge whose work cuts against the grain of almost every revolutionary and reformist story on offer. He is the author of The Chronic Crisis of American Democracy: The Way Is Shut (2023) and Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies (2024). His central claim is that the Western democracies have become "embedded democracies" — systems in which citizens can no longer imagine an alternative worth sacrificing for, and so remain trapped in a low, stable, and deeply frustrating equilibrium. ________________ In this conversation, I sit down with Benjamin to explore his diagnosis of the chronic crisis at the heart of liberal democracy. We begin with the idea of the "embedded democracy" and the restricted imaginarium left behind by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, before working through why the culture war functions as a manageable — even useful — form of disagreement, one that dissipates energy rather than threatening the order. Benjamin unpacks his distinction between personal and impersonal hypocrisy, his four levels of legitimacy (perfect, full, minimal and liminal), and the concept of "enclavism": the retreat into faith, family, fandoms and futurism when politics feels futile. We range across Don Quixote and quixotic socialism, the Lord of the Rings image behind his book's subtitle, the problem of capital mobility, NATO defence spending and the Americanisation of European politics, and why a networked, nuclear-armed, drone-fought world makes the old theories of revolutionary change look obsolete. It's a sobering, clarifying conversation for anyone trying to understand why our politics feels simultaneously so turbulent and so stuck. ________________ You can find Benjamin's work at: Website: https://benjaminstudebaker.com About / all links: https://benjaminstudebaker.com/about Substack: https://bmstudebaker.substack.com/ ________________ ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 1:29 What is an "embedded democracy"? Why revolution is off the table 3:10 Other kinds of democracy: Poland, Hungary and living memory 6:31 Is China a viable alternative? The restricted imaginarium 9:55 Ironism: why public culture can't take anything seriously 12:12 The culture war as manufactured, manageable disagreement 14:52 Fusionism, fragmentation and the collapse of coalitions 21:06 Personal vs impersonal hypocrisy in US politics 28:25 The material drivers: universities, consumers and producers 35:14 "The way is shut": the Lord of the Rings reference explained 37:07 Quixotic socialism: acting out a politics without stakes 43:14 Enclavism and the four Fs: faith, family, fandoms, futurism 46:16 Perfect, full, minimal, liminal: the four levels of legitimacy 51:35 Can things get better? The New Deal, the 70s and why we can't go back 54:29 Capital mobility: the unsolved problem at the heart of the crisis 1:00:00 NATO, defence spending and the Americanisation of Europe 1:07:53 In defence of the Westminster system: order over fairness 1:11:03 Why reform stalls: lost threats and "middle capitalism" 1:19:49 Immiseration and the shrinking sense of the possible 1:24:25 Can revolution even happen now? Nukes, drones and integrated economies 1:28:11 Where to find Benjamin's work 1:28:48 Benjamin's guest recommendations

Georg Northoff is Canada Research Chair in Mind, Brain, Imaging, and Neuroethics at the University of Ottawa's Institute of Mental Health Research, a practising psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and philosopher, and one of the founders of neurophilosophy. Over two decades his work has reframed the brain's resting spontaneous activity — the Default Mode Network — as the primary architect of consciousness and selfhood. He is the author of The Spontaneous Brain, alongside more accessible introductions including NeuroWaves: Brain, Time, and Consciousness (2023) and NeuroPsychoAnalysis (2023). ________________ In this conversation, I sit down with Georg to explore his spatial-temporal neuroscience — a framework that replaces the mind-body problem with the world-brain relationship. We begin with AI consciousness, move into the Default Mode Network and why depression is a brain running too slowly, his non-dual awareness study with meditators, his critique of Heidegger as still anthropocentric, and Whitehead's process ontology. A conversation that starts with ChatGPT and ends near the edge of what it means to exist. ________________ 🔗 Links Website: https://www.georgnorthoff.com NeuroWaves: Brain, Time, and Consciousness (2023): https://www.mqup.ca/Books/N/Neurowaves2 NeuroPsychoAnalysis (2023): https://www.amazon.com/Neuropsychoanalysis-Contemporary-Introduction-Introductions-Psychoanalysis/dp/0367678047 The Spontaneous Brain: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262038072/the-spontaneous-brain/ ________________ ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 Intro — Georg Northoff and the spontaneous brain 01:15 Can AI be conscious? The case of temporal synchronisation 03:21 OpenClaw, heartbeats, and whether AI is moving towards experience 06:00 Temporal windows: how the brain processes a word, a sentence, and a self 10:12 The spontaneous brain — why background activity is the game changer 13:56 A short history of the Default Mode Network 16:29 Time is everything: depression, anxiety, and the speed of neural flow 22:07 Self as continuity — why the DMN has the longest timescales 29:57 The paradigm shift: from cognitive to temporal neuroscience 38:03 Where does self emerge from temporal structure? 42:33 Self is more basic than consciousness 44:55 Jung, Freud, and cultural imprints in spontaneous brain activity 49:11 Non-dual awareness: the meditation study and what it shows 51:05 The World-Brain problem — replacing mind-body with a new question 56:22 Heidegger and Dasein: existential time, but still anthropocentric 1:00:23 The tango: self at the seam of inner and outer time 1:02:29 Whitehead's process ontology and the Copernican reversal 1:04:37 Why this work resonates more in China and Iran than in the West 1:09:13 Guest recommendation: Federico Zilio 1:09:59 Where to find Georg's work

Keegan Kjeldsen hosts The Nietzsche Podcast and the Untimely Reflections (essentialsalts) YouTube channel — a deep four-year project working through Nietzsche, his forerunners back to the ancient world, and his afterlives in 20th- and 21st-century thought. He’s also a doom metal guitarist with Destroyer of Light and Slumbering Sun, and the author of The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll, a memoir-meets-aesthetics inquiry written on the road through Europe. ________________ I sat down with Keegan to work through his concept of übermodernism — what’s “over and above” modernism, in the same Nietzschean spirit as the Übermensch is over and above man. We trace the history of “the modern” all the way back to Petrarch in the 14th century, work through Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his critique of the genealogical fallacy, and ask where the next modernism is meant to come from. A conversation for anyone tired of fighting over whether Nietzsche belongs to the right, the left, or the postmodernists. 📚 I’m hosting the Interintellect book club this Sunday 10th May to work through the third and final essay of Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality. Tickets: https://interintellect.com/salons/what-is-the-meaning-of-ascetic-ideals-friedrich-nietzsche-on-the-genealogy-of-morality ________________ 🔗 Links 🎙️ Untimely Reflections (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@untimelyreflections 🎧 The Nietzsche Podcast (Apple): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nietzsche-podcast/id1573808070 ☕ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/untimelyreflections 📖 The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll: https://www.blackrosewriting.com/biographymemoir/p/theritualmadnessofrockandroll ________________ ⏳ Timestamps: 00:00 James’s Intro 01:59 Welcome and opening with Keegan 02:41 What is übermodernism? Going over and above modernism 05:03 Nietzsche’s perspectivism and the death of objective truth 08:14 Nietzsche as the canary in the 20th-century coalmine 11:47 When did “the modern” begin? Antiqua, nova and the first modernists 13:07 Rousseau’s letter and the first use of “modernist” as a pejorative 19:00 Genealogies, lineage and the string of pearls fallacy 28:42 Reading Nietzsche on the utility of an organ vs. its origin 34:29 Heidegger, Descartes and the “where it all went wrong” move 39:59 Nietzsche’s lectures on rhetoric: language is rhetoric, not information 43:59 Plato’s win over the Sophists as a sophist’s own move 48:59 We Philologists: the Greeks weren’t who you think they were 55:59 Petrarch and the birth of “the modern” as an age 58:29 Toledo and the Muslim transmission of the ancient texts 1:04:29 McGilchrist and the right-and-left hemisphere narrative 1:09:59 Machiavelli, humanism and man as the actor of history 1:15:29 Beyond correctness: value-for-life as the new test of truth 1:22:12 Are we übermodern yet? Great politics vs. petty politics 1:29:49 Keegan’s guest recommendations: Studebaker and Möller 1:31:29 Where to find Keegan and his next book on Nietzsche’s Hellenism