A podcast on the human condition
We don’t need more information. We need to reconnect knowledge with meaning.
The Six Pillars
Thematic arcs the show keeps returning to
I
Neuroscience of Lived Experience
How does a physical brain give rise to a subjective world? The hard problem of consciousness; from neurons to narratives, from mechanisms to lived experience.
II
Human Florishing & Healthspan
What does it mean to live well across the lifespan? Pursuing health beyond the absence of disease, toward human flourishing as the full realization of human potential through the harmonious development of body, mind, relationships, character and purpose, within systems that support both individual and collective wellbeing.
III
Intelligences & Human Futures
How can emerging intelligences be developed and governed in ways that serve human flourishing? Exploring Human–technology relationships and the future of humanity.
IV
Systems of Health
Exploring human-society-environment relationships. Understanding health as an emergent property of interconnected systems, and what this translates into for policy and for other sciences.
V
Restoring the Human Whole
We built a culture that crowned the human being as its own measure, yet left us more lost to ourselves than ever. What if what we mistook for weakness — our vulnerability, our need for one another — is exactly where our humanity, and perhaps the sacred, begins? An open inquiry into meaning, vulnerability and the place of the sacred.
VI
The Renaissance Project
How can a better understanding of the human condition guide progress? Learning to think across disciplines: Tools, frameworks and ways of thinking for a human-centred future.
The Manifesto
The first scientific revolution introduced a new concept of knowledge based on the experimental method. Science would deal with how things happen, not with why they happen. Science would be concerned with how phenomena occurred, not with their final causes. By transforming nature into a mechanistic system, and by changing the human being’s position in the universe from being the scope to being the observer, this revolution unlocked enormous potentialities and hugely increased our capacity to manipulate nature itself.
However, it seems to us that the increase in technological capability which has arisen from scientific success is not directly translating into human flourishing. Modern science has produced unprecedented explanatory power, but not necessarily an equally deep understanding of human well-being; and the speed of development and the intrinsic power of new technologies escalate this divergence.
In this show, we will try to propose a new framework to catch up with this cultural lag and reconnect explanations with meaning across different sciences and dimensions of life. The scope is to regain some agency. The baricenter of our discourse will be health, because health is our privileged lens, but also because it keeps us grounded in one of those key dimensions of life that can be acted upon individually and societally, and that is crucial to enable a flourishing life for each of us. Neuroscience, defined as the science that studies the brain as the active interface between our external and internal world, re-positions the human being at the centre of inquiry, and has the potential to enlighten and become the reference for the development of all other social sciences and the arts.
This will be the gist of the podcast: neuroscience as a tool to analyse complex systems and overcome the parcelization of knowledge; and humanism as guiding principle, as the integral flourishing of the human person within their social and ecological community.
We hope everyone interested in health, but sometimes disappointed by traditional medicine and sceptical of wellness culture, will find a home here. Our guiding assumption is that health is not just the absence of disease, but a state of full well-being which cannot be disconnected from meaning, and which emerges from interacting biological, psychological, relational and societal systems. Our strategic intent is to help us all move from being passive consumers of health information to becoming systemic thinkers.
Yes, we believe this is the time for a new revolution; better, for a new renaissance; one that can reconcile mechanism with meaning, and restore the human whole to the centre of science and technology.
The Method
Two formats. One Renaissance method.
Format One
Solo monologue
A 45–60 minute essay-in-voice. The Renaissance practice of solitary reflection. Where Elisabetta thinks through a single idea, slowly, in front of you.
Format Two
Expert interview
A 45–60 minute long-form conversation with a researcher, clinician or thinker. The Renaissance practice of dialogue. Two minds in real time, with one of them committed to translating it back into meaning.
Start Here
Press play. The Renaissance can begin again.
One episode, every two weeks. Audio and video. Wherever you listen — or right here.