Very Bad Wizards

Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
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Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.

  1. 2D AGO

    Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

    David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from normal grief, and arrives at some ideas that laid the groundwork for his later theory of normal human development. Plus, another blind ranking segment--this time Tamler gives David a list of rappers to rank blindly. Finally, in between segments we make an announcement about the topic of our next bonus series (it's gonna be epic).  Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" [wikipedia.org]  Link to PDF [sas.upenn.edu] The Odyssey (translated by Emily Wilson) [amazon.com affiliate link]

    1h 35m

  2. OCT 14

    Episode 318: A PTA Meeting

    David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many connections between the two movies - Pynchon adaptations, shadowy forces, snitches who abandon their families, the blend of comedy and political fatalism, and the intrinsic and external forces that threaten relationships and resistance to power.  [Note: some spoilers to OBAA in the opening segment but we note where they begin, and of course full spoilers to Inherent Vice.] A really fun discussion about maybe the best filmmaker working today.   One Battle After Another [wikipedia.org] Inherent Vice [wikipedia.org]

    1h 49m

  3. SEP 30

    Episode 317: For Shame

    What is the psychology of shame? Is the experience of shame a human universal? How can we investigate the nature of shame across cultures? David and Tamler dive into Richard Shweder's "Towards a Deep Cultural Psychology of Shame." We talk about the methodological challenges of studying shame in other contexts and languages, the virtues of ethnographic approaches, studying literature, and more. Plus, bloody hell are the Brits starting queues at pubs? Bollocks! Queueing in pubs disgraces Britain by Will Dunn [newstatesmen.com] Shweder, R. A. (2003). Toward a deep cultural psychology of shame. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 70(4), 1100-1129. [muse.jhu.edu]

    1h 24m

  4. SEP 16

    Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")

    David and Tamler go big game hunting and explore their first Hemingway short story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." We dig into his characteristic themes of courage, cowardice, shifting power dynamics in marriages, and what it truly means to live a happy life. Plus, neuroscience may be complex, but can these AI generated neuroscience jokes tickle David's funny bone? And a super timely discussion of an urgent issue: The Cracker Barrel logo. Cracker Barrel Redesign Controversy [apnews.com] 200+ Neuroscience Jokes to Tickle Your Brain and Boost Your Mood [punsify.com] The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber by Ernest Hemingway [wikipedia.org]

    1h 33m

  5. SEP 2

    Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)

    David and Tamler tackle the topic chosen by our beloved Patreon supporters in the first VBW madness tournament – Schopenhauer. We discuss his essays "On the Sufferings of the World" and "The Vanity of Existence," their strikingly modern perspectives on human life and behavior and the influences Schopenhauer took from Eastern thought. Plus, David has Tamler do a blind ranking of movie directors.  Arthur Schopenhauer [plato.stanford.edu] Arther Schopenhauer [iep.utm.edu] The Essays of Schopenhauer: Studies in Pessimism [full-text from gutenberg.org]

    1h 30m

  6. AUG 12

    Episode 314: The In-Betweeny Place

    David and Tamler go long on McDonagh's 2008 masterpiece "In Bruges." We talk about the terrific performances and all the weighty themes - sin, guilt, redemption, honor, language, and very inappropriate jokes. Plus philosophers talk about "sex within the discipline" and Tamler can't handle it. To Philosophers of Easy Virtue by Alex Rails [dailynous.com] In Bruges (2008) [wikipedia.org]

    1h 59m

  7. JUL 29

    Episode 313: The Spontaneous Eruption of Now

    David and Tamler try to wrap their heads around the metaphysics of past and future via the Borges essay(s) "A New Refutation of Time." What does it mean to be a time skeptic or a time realist for that matter? If you're a Berkeleyan idealist and Humean skeptic about the self, do you have to deny succession and simultaneity? The world, unfortunately, is real; and we, unfortunately, are Very Bad Wizards.  Plus for centuries philosophers insisted that you couldn't measure qualia, but then scientists just went ahead and… measured it!   Scientists Measure Qualia for First Time-It Was Thought To Be Impossible [youtube.com] Kawakita, G., Zeleznikow-Johnston, A., Takeda, K., Tsuchiya, N., & Oizumi, M. (2025). Is my "red" your "red"?: Evaluating structural correspondences between color similarity judgments using unsupervised alignment. iScience, 28(3). A New Refutation of Time [wikipedia.org] A New Refutation of Time by Jorge Luis Borges [pdf from gwern.net]

    1h 16m

  8. JUL 15

    Episode 312: MechaSkeptic

    David and Tamler return to David Hume's somewhat slippery brand of skepticism, this time focusing Chapter 12 of his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Plus speaking of things to be skeptical about, we dive into a recent paper called "Your Brain on ChatGPT" – does neuroscience show that LLM users incur a "cognitive debt"? MIT study shows ChatGPT reshapes student brain function and reduces creativity when used from the start [edtechinnovationhub.com] Your brain on ChatGPT [arxiv.org] People are suffering... [linkedin.com] David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Hunan Understanding" [wikipedia.org] Hume's Enquiry Section 12: Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy [davidhume.org]

    1h 16m
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Hosts & Guests

4.8
out of 5
2,642 Ratings

About

Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.

Information

  • Creator
    Tamler Sommers & David Pizarro
  • Years Active
    2012 - 2025
  • Episodes
    324
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Tamler Sommers and David Pizarro
  • Show Website
    Very Bad Wizards

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