All posts by Barry Daniel

About Barry Daniel

I live in the Lake District in the UK where I run a guesthouse with my partner Kate and my cat Manuel. I enjoy painting, hillwalking, reading, visiting and entertaining friends, T’ai Chi and playing the guitar. I’m engaged to a certain degree in the local community, as a volunteer with Samaritans and I’m a fairly active member of the local Green party. I’ve had a relatively intuitive sense of the Middle Way most of my adult life but it found a greater articulation and a practical direction through joining the society. It’s also been interesting and great fun engaging with other people with a similar outlook. My main contribution to the society is conducting the podcast interviews, something that gives me a lot of satisfaction and that I’ve learnt a lot from.

The MWS Podcast 110: Guy Claxton on Intelligence in the Flesh

Education, Science, The Body, ,

Our guest today is Guy Claxton. an internationally renowned writer, consultant and academic specialising in creativity, education and the mind.He is the author of more than twenty books including the best selling Building Learning Power. He’s going to talk to us today about his latest book: Intelligence in the flesh: Why your mind needs your body much more than it thinks. In the discussion we explore some of the potential implications and ramifications of this perspective with regard to the role of the brain, emotions, the theory of embodied meaning, education and the arts as well as challenging dualisms such as reason and emotion, subjectivity and objectivity and facts and values.


MWS Podcast 110: Guy Claxton as audio only: Audio Player


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The MWS Podcast 109: Chuck Klosterman on But What If We’re Wrong?

Culture, Current Affairs, The Arts,

We are joined today by the author and essayist Chuck Klosterman who has written books and essays focused on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote “The Ethicist” column for The New York Times Magazine. Chuck is the author of eight books including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He talks to us today about his latest book But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking about The Present as if it were the Past as well as other aspects of having a sceptical mind-set.


MWS Podcast 109: Chuck Klosterman as audio only: Audio Player


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The MWS Podcast 108: Roderick Tweedy on the God of the Left Hemisphere

Brain, Podcast, ,

We are joined today by the author and book editor Roderick Tweedy who’s here to talk to us about his book ‘The God of the Left Hemisphere. The book explores the remarkable connections between the activities and functions of the human brain that writer William Blake termed ‘Urizen’ and the powerful complex of rationalising and ordering processes which modern neuroscience identifies as ‘left hemisphere’ brain activity. Blake’s prescient insight into the nature and origins of this arguably dominant force within the brain allows him to radically reinterpret the psychological basis of the entity commonly referred to as ‘God’.


MWS Podcast 108: Roderick_Tweedy as audio only: Audio Player


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The MWS Podcast 107: Krista Tippett on Becoming Wise

Podcast, spirituality, ,

Our guest today is the journalist and best-selling author Krista Tippett. Krista has her own series of podcasts from her On Being radio programme on NPR in the US, that stretches back 15 years. In that time Krista has interviewed a diverse array of inspirational people including scientists, theologians and artists. I talk to her about her experience of this and about her book “Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living” which draws on the wisdom of many of the people she has interviewed and is also interwoven with the story of her own spiritual journey. We discuss this through the five key topics in her book which are Words, Flesh, Love, Faith and Hope. Finally, we discuss the Middle Way and how this relates to her work.


MWS Podcast 107: Krista Tippett as audio only: Audio Player


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Podcast with Dan Kahan

Community, Culture, Psychology, ,

I’ve removed the podcast I posted the other day with Dan Kahan on science curiosity due to the poor sound quality of the audio. On reflection, I succumbed to a certain degree of wishful thinking about it’s acceptability, however I’ve had some feedback that’s it’s very difficult to understand. Fortunately, Dan has very generously agreed to do the podcast again at some stage, so watch this space!

Barry