Death: Arguments for Existence of Soul.

This material was created by or adapted from material created by Yale faculty member, Shelly Kagan, Professor of Philosophy.

Death: Arguments for Existence of Soul.

Sartre - The road to freedom.

An excellent documentary about the life and work of the Existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre.

Sartre - The road to freedom.

Schopenhauer on love.

This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life. This time Alain De Botton surveys the 19th Century German thinker Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who believed that love was the most important thing in life because of its powerful impulse towards 'the will-to-life'.

Schopenhauer on love.

Socrates on self-confidence.

Socrates - Why do so many people go along with the crowd and fail to stand up for what they truly believe? Partly because they are too easily swayed by other people's opinions and partly because they don't know when to have confidence in their own.

Socrates on self-confidence.

Lucious Annaeus Seneca on anger.

This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life.

The Roman philosopher Lucious Annaeus Seneca (4BCE-65CE), the most famous and popular philosopher of his day, took the subject of anger seriously enough to dedicate a whole book to the subject. Seneca refused to see anger as an irrational outburst over which we have no control. Instead he saw it as a philosophical problem and amenable to treatment by philosophical argument. He thought anger arose from certain rationally held ideas about the world, and the problem with these ideas is that they are far too optimistic. Certain things are a predictable feature of life, and to get angry about them is to have unrealistic expectations.

Lucious Annaeus Seneca on anger.

David Deutsch: - What is our place in the cosmos?

In this rare (and delightfully engaging) public appearance, legendary physicist David Deutsch weaves a complex and captivating argument placing the study of physics at the center of our species' survival. Deutsch is author of "The Fabric of Reality" and the leading proponent of the multiverse intrepretation of quantum theory - the astounding idea that our universe is constantly spawning countless numbers of parallel worlds.

David Deutsch - What is our place in the cosmos?

Infinite secrets of Archimedes.

Archimedes of Syracuse (Greek: Άρχιμήδης) (c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, astronomer and engineer.

Although little is known of his life, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics and the explanation of the principle of the lever. His early use of calculus included the first known summation of an infinite series with a method that is still used today. He is also credited with designing innovative machines, including weapons and the screw pump that bears his name. He is best known for allegedly exclaiming "Eureka!" after discovering what is known today as Archimedes' principle.

Infinite secrets of Archimedes.

The Indian rope trick.

There are different accounts of the Indian rope trick in circulation, but apart from minor changes in the settings and the participants, the basic trick remained the same as described below.

In the simplest version of the trick, the magician would hurl a rope into the air. The rope would not fall but stand erect. His boy assistant would climb the rope and then descend.

A more elaborate version of the trick would find the magician (or his assistant) disappearing after reaching the top of the rope, then reappearing at ground level.
The "classic" version of the trick, however, was even more detailed: the rope would seem to rise high into the skies, even disappearing from view. The boy assistant would climb the rope, and soon be lost to view. The magician would call back his boy assistant, and on hearing no response, would become furious. The magician then armed himself with a knife or sword, and he would also climb the rope and disappear in the thin air. An argument would be heard, and then human limbs would start falling on the ground, presumably cut from the assistant by the magician. When all the parts of the body, including the torso, landed on the ground, the magician would be seen climbing down from the erect rope. He would collect the limbs and put them in a basket, or simply collect all the limbs in one place and then cover them with a cape or blanket. Soon the magician’s boy assistant would appear, miraculously restored.

Descartes originally claimed that consciousness involves an immaterial soul, which observes a representation of the world in the pineal gland of the brain. Under this notion, the soul plays the role of a homunculus, a creature with self-directed will power.

Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where the homunculus, now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands. And all that is left is a Cartesian Theater. Who's driving the car?

Professor Daniel Dennett's - Lecture on consciousness.

Aldous Huxley - Gravity of light.

Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts.

Huxley was a humanist but was also interested towards the end of his life in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank. He was also well known for advocating and taking LSD, including on his death bed.

In this documentary, visionary and prophet Aldous Huxley speaks on a range of subjects from "Brave New World" to LSD.

Aldous Huxley - Gravity of light.

Mathematical infinity and human destiny.

There are two approaches to mathematical infinity. It can be seen as defining limiting cases that can never be realized or as existing in some philosophical sense. These mathematical approaches parallel approaches to meaning and value that we can call absolutist and evolutionary. The absolutist sees ultimate meaning as something that exists most commonly in the form of an all powerful infinite god.

The evolutionary sees life and all of a creation as an ever expanding journey with no ultimate or final goal. There is only the journey. There is no destination. This video argues for an evolutionary view in our sense of meaning and values and in our mathematical understanding. There is a deep connection between the two with profound implications for the evolution of consciousness and human destiny.

Mathematical infinity and human destiny.

The holographic universe - Beyond matter.

A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the help of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears. The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

So the hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This movie explains the working of our senses in relation with our mind.

The holographic universe - Beyond matter.

Human all too human - Friedrich Nietzsche.

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers.

Human all too human - Friedrich Nietzsche.


Nietzsche's thought extended a deep influence during the 20th century, especially in Continental Europe. In English-speaking countries, his positive reception has been less resonant. During the last decade of Nietzsche's life and the first decade of the 20th century, his thought was particularly attractive to avant-garde artists who saw themselves on the periphery of established social fashion and practice. Here, Nietzsche's advocacy of new, healthy beginnings, and of creative artistry in general stood forth.

His tendency to seek explanations for commonly-accepted values and outlooks in the less-elevated realms of sheer animal instinct was also crucial to Sigmund Freud's development of psychoanalysis. Later, during the 1930's, aspects of Nietzsche's thought were espoused by the Nazis and Italian Fascists, partly due to the encouragement of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche through her associations with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. It was possible for the Nazi interpreters to assemble, quite selectively, various passages from Nietzsche's writings whose juxtaposition appeared to justify war, aggression and domination for the sake of nationalistic and racial self-glorification. Until the 1960's in France, Nietzsche appealed mainly to writers and artists, since the academic philosophical climate was dominated by G.W.F. Hegel's, Edmund Husserl's and Martin Heidegger's thought, along with the structuralist movement of the 1950's.

Nietzsche became especially influential in French philosophical circles during the 1960's-1980's, when his “God is dead” declaration, his perspectivism, and his emphasis upon power as the real motivator and explanation for people's actions revealed new ways to challenge established authority and launch effective social critique.

Montaigne on self-esteem.

This time the popular British philosopher Alain de Botton looks at the problem of self-esteem from the perspective of Michel de Montaigne (16th Century), the French philosopher who singled out three main reasons for feeling bad about oneself - sexual inadequecy, failure to live up to social norms, and intellectual inferiority - and then offered practical solutions for overcoming them.

Montaigne on self-esteem.

Nietzsche on hardship,

The British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche's (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.

Nietzsche on hardship.

Epicurus on happiness.

The British philosopher Alain De Botton discusses the personal implications of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270BCE) who was no epicurean glutton or wanton consumerist,but an advocate of "friends, freedom and thought" as the path to happiness.

Epicurus on Happiness