Very Bad Wizards

David and Tamler talk about Jorge Luis Borges' disorienting short story "The Other." A 70-year-old Borges sits on a bench by the Charles River and who should he encounter but himself as a 19-year-old, by the Rhône River in 1918 Geneva. Is this a dream? Who is dreaming it? What does the Heraclitean river metaphor reveal about this impossible meeting? (Stick around after the closing music, David reads the story in English and in Spanish.)
 
Plus Richard Dawkins has a memorable encounter of his own, but with his AI Claudia (née Claude). If you think AI isn't conscious then how do you explain Claudia's rapturous and penetrating insight into Dawkins' unpublished novel?
 
When Dawkins met Claude: Could this AI be conscious? (paywalled) [unherd.com]
Unpaywalled at archive.org 
The Other by Jorge Luis Borges [wikipedia.org]
The Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges trans. by Andrew Hurley [amazon.com affiliate link]

In another Back 2 Basics episode, David and Tamler talk about Plato's "Crito," a dialogue that takes place two days before Socrates' death by hemlock. His friend Crito wants him to escape, but Socrates will only agree if they judge that it's the right thing to do. One imagined debate between him and the Laws of Athens later, Socrates decides to accept his punishment.
Plus we open with "Contrarian Corner" (Cinema Edition), in which we list our top 3 movies where we just don't understand all the love.    
Crito (Plato's Dialogue) [wikipedia.org]

David and Tamler return to the strange world of Nikolai Gogol and discuss his absurdist masterpiece "The Overcoat," a story that both calls for and steadfastly resists interpretation. But first we discuss a forthcoming Phil Studies article "Philosophy as Fact-Based Discipline: 200 Philosophical Facts." Wait until you hear what they are.
Frances, B. (2026). Philosophy as fact-based discipline: 200 philosophical facts. Philosophical Studies, 183(2), 551-581. [springer.com]
The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol [wikipedia.org]

David and Tamler return to the work of Richard Shweder and colleagues, focusing this time on his foundational paper "The "Big Three" of Morality (Autonomy, Community, Divinity) and the "Big Three" Explanations of Suffering. What are the various ways that people explain suffering and illness across cultures? What do we lose when we only emphasize biomedical explanations? Why can't social psychology be more like this?
Plus a new Chalmers (not that one) paper argues that monogamy is impermissible. Hello ladies!

Join at the right Patreon tier and vote on an episode topic!  [patreon.com]
Chalmers, H. (2019).  Is monogamy morally permissible?. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 53(2), 225-241.
Harry Chalmers' Substack post on Monogamy 
Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The "big three" of morality (autonomy, community, and divinity) and the "big three" explanations of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health (pp. 119–169). Routledge.

David and Tamler cross the border into Denis Villeneuve's taut and propulsive thriller Sicario, the story of an FBI agent who gets pulled into a task force drawn from the shadiest elements of the US government. The assignment: to disrupt, infiltrate, and take down a major Mexican cartel. But what's the deal with Alejandro, and who does he work for? This is Roger Deakins in God mode and Villeneuve, Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, and Benicio Del Toro at the very top of their games.
Plus, we select 16 topics from the hundreds submitted by our beloved patrons for VBW Madness 2, a tournament to determine what we discuss on the listener selected episode. Join the VBW Patreon to vote on the winner!
Sicario [wikipedia.org]