Life after Life with philosopher Alva Noë

Alva Noë is Professor of Philosophy, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Center for New Media, and the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences.

In this flowing conversation, Andrea and Alva engage in an enlightening journey together through the realms of philosophy, neuroscience, and the arts, opening the work Noë has done and exploring its themes of self-awareness, identity, action and perception. With insights from influential thinkers and doers like Vico, Dreyfus, Cezanne, Merleau-Ponty, and Noë himself, this conversation delves into the profound connections between love, work, and personal development and becomes a poetic meditation on meaning and connection.

Per usual in Love and Philosophy, we find the motif of the loop that never quite returns to where it started, the dynamic entanglement of life, and how this gets conveyed through writing and language. Alva and Andrea explore the complexities of presence, the role of habits and societal structures, and the evolving understanding of vision and perception. The conversation also shows how interdisciplinary approaches and transformative literature shape our identities and consciousness from childhood on, and ultimately offers a balanced, holistic view of the human experience as difficult but worth it. Tune in for a thought-provoking discourse on the power of performance and the representation of self, including what tricky words like 'representation' and 'agency' might really be pointing at within the intricate dance of art and philosophy.