# Ian Gold

Top podcast episodes
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Black Sails White Rabbits: Cancer Was the Easy Part with Kevin A. Hall

Black Sails White Rabbits: Cancer Was the Easy Part with Kevin A. Hall Award-winning Olympic and America’s Cup sailor Kevin A. Hall shares a stunningly candid chronicle of the thrilling highs and devastating lows of living and loving through the rough seas of bipolar disorder. Young sailor and asp…

The Opera Game

In 1858, chess prodigy Paul Morphy played the most famous game in history, in an opera box in Paris, mid-performance. He announced his victory to the crowd before anyone could see how he'd win. Because he could see the board in a way no one else could, he knew for certain he'd already won just a fe…

Suspicious Minds Docuseries: AI Delusions with Dr. Joel Gold & Wondermind

Are chatbots, algorithms, and artificial intelligence rewriting the architecture of human madness? In this special crossover episode, we sit down with the team behind Suspicious Minds, an urgent new docuseries co-produced by Agoric Media and Selena Gomez's mental fitness ecosystem, Wondermind. We a…

Tia Miseria

There’s an old folktale about a woman called Tía Miseria — Aunt Misery. When Death comes for her, she asks him for one last favor: climb her pear tree and pick her some fruit for the journey. But the tree is enchanted. Whatever climbs up cannot climb down. And so Death hangs in the branches, for ye…

The Punishment of Tantalus

Tantalus was a king, and a son of Zeus, and he was invited to eat at the table of the gods, a rare honor. To test whether they were truly all-knowing, he killed his own son, cooked him, and served the body to them as a stew. They knew. For that, Tantalus was sent down to Tartarus, a place Homer des…

The Sleepiest Facts About Life Purpose You_ve Never Heard

🌙 "Purpose isn't just a lofty idea—it's a biological anchor that can improve your sleep and wellbeing."Recent research reveals that having a strong sense of purpose is linked to better sleep quality, more physical activity, and healthier lifestyle choices [citation:2]. But purpose isn't one-size-fi…

Through a Glass, Darkly: Part One

Eight thousand years ago, in a settlement called Çatalhöyük in what is now central Turkey, somebody sat down with a piece of obsidian and began to grind volcanic glass. Black, brittle, sharp enough to cut skin, it doesn’t occur naturally anywhere near there; the closest volcanoes are a hundred and …

The Problem of Other Minds

When Mark Solms was four years old, his older brother fell, hit his head, and woke up as somebody else. Mark has spent the fifty years since asking the question that accident left behind: how does a self come out of a piece of the body? This is part one of a two-part story about the oldest question…

Engineering Consciousness (Part Two)

When Richard Feynman died, a sentence was left on his blackboard at Caltech: “That which I cannot create, I do not understand.” Mark Solms took this as a challenge. A quick word up top about the week AI doom went mainstream, and why this show isn’t about that. Then: part two of a three-part story a…

A Great Loss to the Universe (Part Three)

Content note: this episode includes a brief discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US. Outside the US, you can find a local helpline at https://findahelpline.com. Neuropsychoanalysis pioneer Mark Solms says…