Bold Conjectures Podcast

My name is Paras Chopra and in the Bold Conjectures podcast, I interview experts from a variety of fields, asking them about unsolved questions in their field and what’s their conjecture for such open questions.

Listen to the podcast


Why is the podcast called Bold Conjectures?

Conjectures are ideas that are thought to be true but we neither have proof or disproof for them. Karl Popper, the famous philosopher of science, famously wrote the following in his debut book:

“Bold ideas, unjustified anticipations, and speculative thought, are our only means for interpreting nature: our only organon, our only instrument, for grasping her.”

Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery

All new groundbreaking ideas when initially proposed are in the form of a bold hypothesis. I love speculative thought which points to the direction of potential new knowledge. So, this is why I chose to focus on exploring what we don’t yet know for sure (rather what’s already settled consensus). The name Bold Conjectures fits the theme of my conversations perfectly.

List of episodes

#1 Anders Sandberg – We may be alone in the universe

#2 Ian Harris – Most surgeries are ineffective

#3 Donald Hoffman – Reality is an evolved illusion

#4 Kunal Shah – Status drives us

#5 Connor Leahy – Artificial general intelligence is risky by default

#6 Lyn Alden – The US dollar as a bleak future

#7 James Evans – How We Do Science Determines What We Discover

#8 Michael Corballis – Language Evolved Before Humans Did

#9 David Pearce – Technology Can Replace Suffering With Bliss

#10 Kevin Gross – We Should Explore New Ways of Funding Science

#11 Balaji Srinivasan – Crypto is the Future of Our Society

#12 Philip Goff – Everything Is Conscious

#13 José Luis Ricón – Grand Narratives of Progress are Flawed

#14 Michael Levin – Our Body is a Collection of Intelligent Organisms

#15 Gaige Clark – Psychedelic Drugs May Treat Schizophrenia

#16 Lee Cronin – How To Create Life From Scratch

#17 Alpha Lee – Crowdsourcing Discovery of a COVID-19 Drug

#18 Ganesh Bagler – Designing Food Using Machine Learning

#19 Varun Deshpande – Alternative Proteins Can Fix the World

#20 Jeff Booth – Deflation is the Key to Creating a Paradise

#21 Antti Revonsuo – Dreams are a Gateway to Understanding Consciousness

#22 Ethan Perlstein – Decentralized Biology and Indie Scientists

#23 Visakan Veerasamy – Kindness is More Important than Winning

#24 Jamie Harris – How to Expand Our Moral Circle Beyond Humans

#25 Chris Fields – Fundamental Reality Can Never Be Understood

#26 Nick Chater – Mental Depth is an Illusion

#27 Jeff Lichtman – Mapping Human Brain at Nanometer Resolution

#28 Robin Hanson – Aliens Exist and They’re Coming Towards Us

#29 Ladan Jiracek – The Future of Neural Implants

#30 Patrick Mineault – Understanding How Brain Works Via Artificial Neural Networks

#31 Mark Humphries – Most Neurons in Our Brain are Silent

#32 Richard Watson – Evolution Requires More Than Natural Selection

#33 Brian Naughton – Mining Fungi DNA for New Drugs

#34 Gregory Zuckerman – How Covid-19 Vaccine was Made in One Year

#35 Jerry Neumann – Startups Succeed When There’s Uncertainty

#36 Stephan Guyenet – Why We Get Fat

#37 Patri Friedman – How To Start a New City

#38 C. Thi Nguyen – Value Capture by Gamification