Send us Fan Mail This interview is a bit different from other episodes. I sit down with Dr. Jennifer A. Frey, the former Dean of the University of Tulsa’s Honors College. If you’ve been following the Lessons for Interesting People podcast on Substack, you will know I wrote an article about Tulsa’s honors college recently. I committed to UTulsa because the university seemed to have accomplished the impossible: combine a computer science college filled with research opportunities with an Honors...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your world crumbles? When all the things you hold dear are snatched away from you? Most of us would give up and despair. And, yet, though he awaited an unjust execution, Roman senator and philosopher Boethius penned these hopeful words: “The world in constant change maintains a harmony. And elements keep peace whose nature is to war.” Faced with his coming death, Boethius reflected upon his life of contemplation and philosophy, writing one of the greatest wo...

Send us Fan Mail With the development of artificial intelligence on the rise, we are at a crossroads. How will we continue our innovations and regulations of this new technology? But, this is more than a technological question. As my guest, Verity Harding states, “AI needs you.” In this episode, I sit down with Verity Harding to discuss her book, AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own. How we apply AI is a multi-disciplinary issue. We need everyone, from tech peopl...

Send us Fan Mail What's the meaning of life? Why is there pain and suffering? How do you balance justice and love? These "accursed questions" have haunted humanity for centuries. Fyodor Dostoevsky sought to answer these questions through his characters' lives. His answers are prophetic for our time. In this episode, I sit down with Northwestern University professor of Russian literature Gary Saul Morson. We discuss what Dostoevsky reveals about developing intellectual honesty, how to deal wit...

Send us Fan Mail As we enter a world of artificial intelligence, the question of what should be automated looms before us. Models need clear, objective metrics to train on. But, can jobs really be distilled to data points? In her book, The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World, Prof. Allison Pugh asserts many jobs have a relational component that can’t be caught in the metrics. In this episode, Prof. Pugh warns that devaluing connective labor leads to automation...

Send us Fan Mail When we think of history of books, we often neglect the people who created them. We think of history as a figment of facts, connected together by time and advances in technology. But sometimes we overlook the humanity, the souls, the fingerprints in the ink-stained margins of long-forgotten tomes. In this episode, I sit down with Oxford's Prof. Adam Smyth to discuss his The Book-Makers: A History of the Book in Eighteen Lives. How a book was made tells us about the people who...

Send us Fan Mail For the past few centuries, we have philosophically operated under Newtonian physics where questions of experience and of the soul were seen as subjective, with no connection to the numerical certainty of science. However, then came quantum physics. In his new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith, classicist Dr. Spencer Klavan retells the history of science and highlights the philosophical implications of each era. He argues that qua...

Send us Fan Mail A multifaceted understanding of wisdom is essential for a functioning society. Only with this broad understanding can we humbly dialogue with those who disagree with us and piece by piece build a culture of conversation. In this episode, I sit down with geneticist and physician Dr. Francis Collins to discuss his latest book, The Road to Wisdom. Dr. Collins argues that we must return to the four core sources of judgment and clear thinking: truth, science, faith, and trus...

Send us Fan Mail In his book, The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers, award-winning journalist Eric Weiner describes how to live well. He argues that our technologically advanced societies have mistaken knowledge for wisdom. In this episode, we discuss how philosophy affects our every action, whether we recognize it or not. Philosophy allows us to make sense of our lives, to find our place in world, and to see the beauty within it. Listen in to this wonderful c...

Send us Fan Mail The Internet has become an integral part of our world. It connects all kinds of technologies from sports streaming to stock trading to selfie posting. But, in the grand history of technology, it’s not all that old. How did the Internet become so expansive in so little time? There are two major components in the rise of the Internet. 1) The creation of modular networking that allowed for fast growth. 2) The culture of self-governance and collaboration that fueled the early i...