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Say Goodbye To These 17 Products Apple Discontinued In 2025
As you'd expect, Apple's had a handful of new devices throughout 2025. Here's everything it stopped selling this year, and what the company replaced it with.
Fortnite Winterfest 2025: Collabs, Cosmetics, Gameplay Changes, And Everything Else To Know
There's less Harry Potter than you'd think.
What your mouth can reveal about your health
Scientists are discovering that the oral microbiome—home to hundreds of species of bacteria and fungi—may help predict everything from cancer risk to heart and brain health.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment 1.0.3 update out now, patch notes
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has received its version 1.0.3 update, and here are the full official English patch notes.
10 Things I Loved in 2025: Mike Kazimer
Everything from powerful brakes to good books (and more).
We relied on my mom for childcare. She was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, and everything changed.
My mom used to provide childcare for us, but after her cancer diagnosis, I'm her caregiver. I became part of the sandwich generation overnight.
Where To Find Candleberries In ‘Arc Raiders’ During The Cold Snap Event And What They’re Used For
Everything you need to know about candleberries in Arc Raiders during the Cold Snap event.
Where To Find Candleberries In Arc Raiders And All Flickering Flames Items
Here's everything you need to know about the Flickering Flames project in Arc Raiders.
All you need to know about Sports Personality of the Year 2025
BBC Sport has everything you need to know about BBC Sport's Personality of The Year 2025 and how to vote.
Sports Personality of the Year 2025: Date, time, how to vote & nominees list
BBC Sport has everything you need to know about BBC Sport's Personality of The Year 2025 and how to vote.
Mario Kart World 1.4.1 update out now, patch notes
Nintendo releases new version 1.4.1 update for Mario Kart World and here are the official patch notes.
Holow Knight: Silksong - Sea of Sorrow DLC revealed
Holow Knight: Silksong has just revealed brand new DLC, which is known as Sea of Sorrow. Team Cherry is prepping it for a 2026 debut. Sea of Sorrow will feature new areas, bosses, tools, and more. Team Cherry teases: “Hornet’s adventures continue in our nautically themed expansion, coming free for all players next year. We’ll keep further details a secret...
When Does ‘The Traitors’ Return? Everything We Know About Season 4
Plus, everything else we know about the upcoming season.
Is the sacred becoming political?
“Do you expect most of your donors to come from the political right?” The question caught me off guard. After more than 20 years in public-facing roles in the Jewish world, I’ve been asked just about everything. But this question,...
Quantum science research is full of promises. When will they happen? : Short Wave
This year, quantum science and computing came up a lot. There have been broad claims that quantum science and engineering could one day help cure diseases, design new materials, optimize supply chains -- or help in other ways not yet fathomable. And, while the Trump administration has made strides to cut scientific funding, quantum research is one of two things they’ve pledged to continue investing in – along with artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, scientists have been hard at work, pushing the research to move quantum engineering from sci-fi to real-world usefulness. All of this got science correspondent Katia Riddle wondering: When will all of this effort actually pay off? She talked to a lot of scientists to figure it out -- and to figure out how much scientist really understand about quantum science. She brings everything she learned onto the show today. To hear more Short Wave reporting on quantum clocks, check out this episode: Quantum Mechanics For BeginnersInterested in more quantum science? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
Everything New In The Arc Raiders Cold Snap Update
Here's the new content you can check out in the Cold Snap update.
Aspyr explains how it approached the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, patches planned
In a recent interview with Nintendo Everything, Aspyr explained how it approached the recently-released Nintendo Switch 2 version of Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition. There’s been a lot of talk about the port since the launch last month. Especially given that there’s also a version for the original Nintendo Switch, some have speculated that the Switch 2 version is based on...
Rihanna Gives Business Meeting Dress Codes a Very Rihanna Spin
Master of high-low, below-the-bump, and just about everything else fashion—while the rest of us limp toward the 2025 finishline, Rihanna stands on fashion business.
iOS 26.2 Features: Everything New in iOS 26.2
Apple released iOS 26.2 on December 12, introducing the latest version of iOS 26. iOS 26.2 isn't the biggest update, but it brings quite a few...
Browns vs. Bears: Week 15 Need to Know
Cleveland is off to chilly Chicago looking for a rare road win over the Bears. Here is everything to know about the game.
Everything Greg Gard said after blowout loss to Nebraska
The Badgers had a tough day on the road on Wednesday.
The Search for Life Tops NASA's Science Goals for the First Human Mars Mission
A new report identifies searching for life as the top science priority for humanity's first landing on Mars, ranking it above understanding water cycles, mapping geology, or even studying how the Martian environment affects astronaut health. The report outlines four possible exploration campaigns, with the highest ranked approach calling for missions totalling 330 sols at a single scientifically rich site where crews could investigate everything from ancient lava flows to active dust storms. By placing the search for extraterrestrial life at the centre of human Mars exploration, the report reimagines the first crewed mission not just as a milestone for spaceflight but as humanity's best chance to answer whether we're alone in the universe.
Embracing Entrepreneurship: Zoë Tsoukalas - Mays Business School News
From Lemonade Stands to Ledgers “I’ve always had the mindset of entrepreneurship. At a very early age, I began my journey towards entrepreneurship with the typical lemonade and snow cone stands. In high school, I launched a clothing and jewelry business, where everything I sold was handmade and one of a kind. I continued with
Kirby Air Riders team is disbanding soon, but game could get another balance patch
According to director Masahiro Sakurai, the team behind Kirby Air Riders will be disbanding soon. At this point there largely isn’t a reason to keep everyone together. Development is finished, and as previously announced, the game isn’t getting DLC. However, we’re likely to get one more balance patch. Sakurai shared the following on social media: “As discussed in Air Riders...
Round Up: Everything Announced At The Game Awards 2025 - All Switch 1 & 2 Reveals
The Leon and Winding Road
Everything announced and all the winners at The Game Awards 2025
This year at The Game Awards, if your game wasn’t melodramatic, mechanically innovative, beautifully presented and aggressively French, it really didn’t stand a chance.
Orbitals announced exclusively for Nintendo Switch 2
During The Game Awards 2025 tonight, was announced exclusive for Nintendo Switch 2. The title launches sometime in 2026. Orbitals, a co-op space adventure game, comes from Kepler and Shapefarm. The goal of the game involves going on a search for the crumbling station home of Maki and Omura. Here’s a bit of additional information: Grab a friend and launch...
Everything announced at The Game Awards 2025 — Xbox, gaming handhelds, PC, and more
Here's a complete overview of everything from The Game Awards 2025 announced for Xbox, PC, and handhelds.
Wario World has just arrived on Nintendo Switch 2 for Switch Online members
We have news about another classic game on Nintendo Switch Online, as Wario World has now gone live on Switch 2. The GameCube title first debuted in 2003. Now if you have a membership to Nintendo Switch Online’s Expansion Pack tier, you can play the game now. Here’s an official overview: Go on a garlic-fueled rampage in this action title...
McDonald's AI Christmas ad controversy explained: How the fast food chain has responded to the backlash
McDonald's is under fire for releasing an AI-generated Christmas ad. Here's everything to know about the controversy, and how the fast food chain responded to the criticism.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk put science on the chopping block in 2025
The Trump administration has targeted everything from public health to space missions for funding cuts, bringing an end to the longstanding US policy of scientific pursuits as a path towards progress and economic prosperity
Adobe Just Landed Inside ChatGPT -- And It Could Change Everything
Photoshop, Acrobat, and Express now run inside ChatGPT, giving Adobe access to 800M users in a single bold move.
GTA Online: A Safehouse in the Hills Now Available
Status is everything, and in GTA Online: A Safehouse in the Hills you can now revel in your rightful position amongst the city's elite with a lavish new mansion property.
Warner Bros. Video Games Business 'Relatively Minor Compared to the Grand Scheme of Things,' Netflix Says
Netflix has admitted it did not attribute any value to Warner Bros.’ video game business in its $82.7 billion acquisition deal, sparking concern for the future of everything from Mortal Kombat to Hogwarts Legacy.
I burned out from 2 years of job hunting, so I changed everything about how I apply. I won't let the job market break my spirit anymore.
A single mom spent two years searching for work before noticing her burnout. A moment with her son pushed her to change her routines and recover.
Brett Cooper says she makes up her own mind — about Trump and everything else
NPR's Steve Inskeep asks conservative commentator Brett Cooper about her YouTube following, her recent criticisms of President Trump and her opinion of Nick Fuentes.
The search is on for Business Report's Influential Women in Business
Business Report is now accepting nominations for its 2025 Influential Women in Business recognition. The awards annually honor professional women in the Capital Region who have distinguished themselves in business or through government or nonprofit work. Get everything you need to know about nominating someone here. The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 7. Honorees will be profiled […]
Pokemon Legends: Z-A 2.0.0 update out today, patch notes
A new version 2.0.0 update has been announced for Pokemon Legends: Z-A. The patch will soon be live on both Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch. As expected, the update is primarily focused on support for the Mega Dimension DLC. As part of that, new Pokemon that have been added can be accessed by everyone – though if you don’t have...
A Rivian spin-off is betting $305 million on e-bikes. I rode it around New York City, and it felt natural
I use my steel Fuji road bike for everything. So when I heard about a new e-bike from Rivian spin-off Also, I couldn't resist trying it out.
Analysis: Trump’s answer for everything: Blame Biden
It feels like a lifetime since Joe Biden was in the Oval Office, such is the turmoil and transformation unleashed since he went home to Delaware. But one person in Washington never stops obsessing about the 46th president — his predecessor and successor.
Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch 21.1.0 update out now, patch notes
Another system update has been released for both the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. Version 21.1.0 should be rolling out now. The big N has stricken once again with unspecified adjustments in this update, with the patch notes headliner being more stability. It is likely that we’ll be seeing more backwards compatibility patches with this update however, so we’ll...
‘A huge rupture in everything’: US science faced major upheaval in 2025
Amid enormous shifts, many scientists pushed back and risked dismissal from their jobs even as federal agencies fired thousands of employees
Google's AI try-on app Doppl adds a shoppable discovery feed
The tech giant says the idea behind the new feed is to display recommendations so users can discover and virtually try on items. Nearly everything in the feed is shoppable, with direct links to merchants.
Womens Champions League Matchday 5: Everything to know
CBS Sports' coverage of the men's and women's Champions League will converge this week with joint coverage, complete with a jam-packed edition of the Golazo Show
The Times-Picayune to host live forum on New Orleans' future with Moreno, Morrell, more leaders
The panel will explore everything from public safety and economic growth to the city's legislative priorities. You can watch live at 11 a.m.
Here's everything new in Samsung's One UI 8.5 update [Gallery]
Samsung’s latest major Galaxy update, One UI 8.5, has just debuted in beta. While the full rollout won’t take place...
Wall Street Gets a 3-Second Head Start Over Retail in Event Bets
In the fast-moving world of sports betting, a few seconds can mean everything. On Crypto.com’s prediction market, those seconds now belong to the pros.
2026 World Cup Matches in Monterrey: Start Times, Dates, Locations
Here is everything we know about the World Cup matches in Monterrey, including dates, start times and locations.
2026 World Cup Matches in Houston: Start Times, Dates, Locations
Here is everything we know about the World Cup matches in Houston, including dates, start times and locations.
2026 World Cup Matches in Miami: Start Times, Dates, Locations
Here is everything we know about the World Cup matches in Miami, including dates, start times and locations.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth on boat strikes: ‘Everything that they have done has been illegal’
I joined a company with an AI mandate. I was daunted at first, but I've saved hours by solving a big, boring problem.
When Komal Amin got a job at a company with an established AI mandate, she felt intimidated. Now, she uses it for everything from sending invoices to planning dates.
Former Nintendo staffers explain why Nintendo ditched the "Nindies" name
Do you remember the “Nindies” term that Nintendo used to bring up on a regular basis? It was very prominent in the Wii U / 3DS era, and even the very early Nintendo Switch days. You probably don’t need us to tell you what it was for, but essentially it was an easy way to label indie games on Nintendo...
Sunday Preview – Festive squig clothing returns!
Your preview of everything available next week.
People Are Surprised To Learn That The Closest Planet To Neptune Turns Out To Be Mercury
Everything you've been taught is a lie.
QUARLES: When math adds up more in sports than in classroom
Everything went according to planned Thanksgiving week, at least as far as college and pro football games having the results I wanted to see. The right teams — Dallas, and
15 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 26.2
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below. Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the download by going to Settings ➝ General ➝ Software Update on your iPhone.
How healthy is Austin and Travis County? Assessment explains
Austin Public Health's Community Health Assessment looked at everything from disease and poverty rates to access to food and child care. It's the first step in implementing changes.
FIFA World Cup Draw: Everything you need to know
The FIFA World Cup is only played once every four years, and it is arguably the most eagerly anticipated event in all of sports.
'We Didn't Really Care About Balance' — How the Developers of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 Made Primarch Lion El'Jonson Playable In-Game
IGN interviews Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 developer King Art Games to find out everything you need to know about playable Primarch, Lion El'Jonson.
NFL Week 14 picks, Cowboys-Lions preview for TNF and playoff projections
Here's everything you need to know about the NFL for Dec. 4
EBay's New Sports Card Price Guide Could Change The Game for Collectors
EBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY) is rolling out a comprehensive pricing tool designed to revolutionize how trading card collectors navigate the marketplace. New Pricing Tool Targets Trading Card Collectors The online marketplace giant is introducing a price guide for trading cards that draws on actual marketplace data from completed and paid transactions, collectible news site CLLCT reported last week. The feature offers "a clearer view of everything from rarity to real market value," eBay Vice President
Pokemon Legends: Z-A starts up new Mystery Gift distribution
Pokemon Legends: Z-A has released a new Mystery Gift code distribution for items that can be claimed right now.
Through the lens: Four decades of arts & entertainment with photojournalist Roger Mastroianni
For more than 40 years, photojournalist Roger Mastroianni has chronicled Cleveland's arts, healthcare, and corporate landscapes—capturing everything from Cleveland Orchestra performances to hospital operating rooms.
Everything new in Samsung's next major Galaxy update, One UI 8.5, just leaked
Every new feature coming in Samsung Galaxy's One UI 8.5 update has leaked, and there's a lot in store for next year.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond 1.1.0 update out now, patch notes
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is getting a day one update with version 1.1.0, and here are Nintendo's patch notes.
Analysis: Trump is talking about everything — but not two things that really matter
Amid a deluge of jokes, insults, social media rage and warnings of imminent military action that have spilled from President Donald Trump in an especially loquacious few days, there have been two startling omissions.
Law of 'maximal randomness' explains how broken objects shatter in the most annoying way possible
A new mathematical equation describes the distribution of different fragment sizes when an object breaks. Remarkably, the distribution is the same for everything from bubbles to spaghetti.
Steam Machine today, Steam Phones tomorrow
The Steam Frame is a Trojan horse carrying Arm’s gaming future.
How Product Replaced Art (or ‘A Recipe for Entertainment Soup’)
Podcasts, videos, TV, films: is everything starting to look (and taste) the same?
Alabama lawmakers in 1965 risked everything to stand up to an unstoppable George Wallace
A dozen state senators withstood arm-twisting by the governor and handed Wallace one of his few political defeats.
We asked readers about how prices on everything from rent to groceries have changed. Here's what they said.
Most respondents felt that it has become more expensive to grocery shop and dine out.
How upcoming business leaders are using AI to prep for high-stakes deal negotiations—and everyday interactions
Students at American University’s Kogod School of Business are learning how to use AI to sharpen the way they negotiate everything from job offers to high-stakes mergers.
Science on Tap: The science behind food
Wisconsinites tend to take pride in being the dairy state, encouraging the love of everything from cheese curds to custard to cream puffs.But are you aware of how much research goes into perfecting the products?
Science must move from materialism to mystery
Theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that modern science has become trapped in a framework that mistakes matter for the whole of reality. In this wide-ranging interview, Gómez-Marín challenges the foundations of materialism, defends the scientific study of near-death experiences, and calls for a new type of science grounded in mystery and a renewed sense of the sacred. He suggests that abandoning materialism could open the door to a deeper understanding of consciousness, death, and the purpose of human existence. Simon Custer: You are both a theoretical physicist and a neuroscientist, and you have also been fiercely critical of materialist theories of mind and consciousness. What do you think the ultimate nature of reality is?Àlex Gómez-Marín: I don't know what the ultimate nature of reality is, but what I try to first assess is whether the stories that they [mainstream science] have told us about it are right, or maybe whether there are other alternatives. That's why I've been a fierce critic of materialism. As a scientist, I realized that they had sold us this idea that to be a good scientist you also had to subscribe to many other -isms, like materialism, reductionism, and even secularism. And so first I think one needs to unmount these -isms, and then, as is happening today in consciousness studies, we have a huge landscape where there isn't only one game in town, the idea that matter is the only thing that really exists. But because we are studying the hard problem of consciousness, it may be the case that other views of reality, like idealism, or even dualism, or other theories like dual aspect monism... these are philosophical ideas that now, I think, have room in science to be taken seriously. How does something like materialism relate to dualism or idealism? What is materialism in the first place?Well, materialism is the philosophical position that matter is the only really ‘real’ thing in the universe. And I think that worked kind of well because science started 400 years ago and Galileo made that split, I call it the foundational wound. It was a great business move.He said, let's start doing science on that portion of reality that lends itself more easily to mathematization and measurement. So, for some reason, the solidity of this table or the movement of planets lend themselves very well to this foundational idea of science. But as time went on, 400 years later, we realized that we had forgotten the other side, which is what really matters.What really matters is pain, is love, is feelings, sensation, consciousness, which is very hard to define, but very intimate. We all know what it is. It's that thing that disappears when we go into deep sleep and comes back in the morning. SUGGESTED VIEWING On the edges of knowledge With Michael Shermer, Rupert Sheldrake, Güneş Taylor It's what it is like to be, as Nagel said. It's the feeling of being alive. So, materialism is good to study certain things, but then when it ossifies into this ideology and then is dressed like science, now it's preventing us from understanding these key questions that are really that everybody wants to know.Why are we here? Why do we feel reality? Where do we go when we die? And so we need other ways. We need pluralism. I'm only asking for having more options on the table and taking them seriously. Why does materialism fail to explain consciousness? For example, if you were to lobotomize me, I would not be a functional human being. What do you say to someone who might think that materialism adequately explains the mind?Well, here we could speak about different things. We could talk about physics or about neuroscience. I happen to have training with both.For instance, for neuroscientists, 99% of them, I'm not included in that portion, believe that the brain can only be a productive organ. It's an organ that somehow, somewhere, consciousness emerges. It's like a lamp. And then something happens, magic happens, and then consciousness emerges.That's the position you need to be if you're a materialist because if the only really ‘real’ thing is matter, then you need to say, just give us some more time and money and we'll figure out how mind emerges or is produced from matter. There are many philosophically sophisticated ways of criticizing this.Now there's another option, which is the brain as a permissive organ. This was said by William James more than 100 years ago.Now then the brain wouldn't be like this machine, like for instance, a heat engine whose smoke is consciousness, which is what we would have in the first big model, the productive model. But in the permissive model, the brain would be a kind of a filter. And so the brain would still have a very important role in consciousness, but it wouldn't be a productive role.It would be permissive, much like a filter or much like a prism which would receive light. And - I'm speaking metaphorically - it would receive the light of the mind and then it could reflect it and refract it.Now, with these two big options on the table, I think we can make progress into what I call the edges of consciousness, which are all these experiences, weird experiences that many people have, but we don't talk about enough, like near-death experiences, precognitive dreams, synchronicities. These experiences are very important for humans and they have a place in the permissive hypothesis and they are literally impossible in the productive hypothesis. So that's yet one more reason to explore alternatives to materialism. There may be anecdotal evidence for near-death experiences, but is there robust evidence that would be accepted by the majority of scientists who subscribe to the scientific method?Sure. And the plural of anecdotes, someone said, is data.And there's a lot of data. Actually, this year is the 50th anniversary, half a century, since Dr. Raymond Moody realized that we have two ears and one mouth and started listening to what his patients had to say about their experiences while they were clinically dead.The heart had stopped, breathing had stopped in these patients. These patients would come back and tell him these amazing stories that some people may say are hallucinations, but for the patients were hyper-real, like seeing light at the end of the tunnels, seeing deceased family members waiting for them, feeling bliss.___I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain.___And so he and others started taking them seriously and writing their accounts down. And then you can do a science based on that material of experience that people have. Now, on the more objective side, more recently people have started to measure what's going on in the brain when people are clinically dead and brought back. This has opened a proper field of study, which is near-death studies.Evidence is a difficult word, because sometimes people think that when you say evidence, this is just the final proof. Evidence is like in a jury. You bring testimony, you bring pieces of data that point in one direction or another.I would say the evidence suggests that the mind can survive the death of activity of the brain. When brains are broken or shut off, there can still be mind going on. And that's revolutionary.That would entail that when we die, it's not game over, which, by the way, is the thesis of materialism. If consciousness survives, materialism dies. It's game over for materialism if something of us continues after we die. Do you think that there is mental continuity after death?Well, I think so, and I believe so, and I could also say I may have experienced it myself, because four years ago I had a near-death experience. I was in the hospital, I lost a lot of blood, and I saw those beings at the end of the tunnel, three beings, and there was yellow light. I was in a well, I was looking upwards, and I hadn't read about NDEs by then, but when I came back from this experience, I decided I would try to integrate this also in my professional life. Not just my personal life, of course, but my professional life as a physicist and as a neuroscientist. So I may have had the experience of glimpses of what an afterlife would be, and I'm not ashamed to say it in this way, and then one can do science of it, and then one can do philosophy of it.One can think about what -isms we were discussing, what views on reality would allow those experiences to be really ‘real,’ as opposed to, well, poor guy, the brain was kind of broken, it must have been a hallucination. Do you have a view about whether individuality or “the ego” persists after death, or whether we sort of merge into some sort of cosmic consciousness instead?I don't know, but my view would be along those lines you're suggesting. I think we could speak about a kind of universal mind, and then the problem is not how we emerge from matter, but how we fragment from a more holistic consciousness into these individual eddies and then when we die, this kind of dissipates.But I'm not sure. For instance, idealism would promote that view, but then what would survive of us after these eddies just vanish and become again the big Consciousness, I'm not sure what that would be. I don't know for sure, but I would tell you I believe something of us survives.And there are other lines of research, not just near-death experience, that can address this really hard question of survival. For instance, there are children who remember previous lives. This was studied by Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia for more than 50 years.___Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.___It's amazing research. He went all over the world, especially in the East, and collected all these case studies, all these stories. In plural, these were data of kids, very young age, who would describe up to 40 items that then he could go and verify.There was no internet. There was really no way the kid could know. Why would the kid say that when I was living in this other body and I was a woman and that's how my house would look like or that's how I would die, right? Again, there is evidence, not proof, but there's evidence not only that something weird and interesting is happening as we cross the threshold, but also when we come back to this life.Scientists should not be afraid of studying this, but they are because there's stigma. There's usually stigma upon the enigma, and this is so unfortunate. And one of the reasons is because of the ideology of materialism, because those things cannot be possible. What is wrong with the politics of science such that they have generated this stigma?So many things. Science is a human activity to begin with.So it falls prey to all our passions and ego and greed. That's one thing. Science is a job for the good and for the bad.You need to get a salary. You need to get grants. Research takes place within a selection mechanism that also sometimes reinforces things that are not very scientific.And then, we didn't have time to unpack this, but science for many years become entangled, as I was suggesting before, to other -isms, materialism, secularism. So anything that smells like the afterlife, people may think has to do with God, and then they freak out.Anything that suggests that there's something about the mind that may not need a physical material substrate to exist, it smells like non-materialism. So, all these -isms are ideologically blocking that kind of research, and then there are all these sociopolitical constraints as to what should be studied and what shouldn't be studied.I call it the backstage of science. Sometimes we scientists or science communicators seem to speak as if the data is the only thing that matters. We say, well, data and theory.But then there's a third leg of this stool, which is all the politics that goes behind the scenes. And we often don't speak about this, and it's quite vicious and petty, and it's very real. Why is materialism so attractive to most scientists?Well, an easy answer is because we've grown up with it.It's what the educational system promotes, and that's what you hear when you go to university. So it's like growing in a culture. It feels like the air in which you breathe.So it's very hard to begin with to detect, well, maybe there's another alternative. Maybe there are other ways of doing science, other environments in which one could do science. That's one reason.And other reasons maybe are more profound, and I'm not qualified to explain them, but I could say, looking at this 400-year history of science, since it started around 1623 with Galileo's book The Assayer, that science went and coupled with all what's going on in the West.And so the fall of religion, you could say, and science presented us this new alternative that then could be coupled very well with other -isms, and this idea of growth, and then science losing its good twin brother, which was philosophy. There's a whole natural history of science starting as philosophy, kind of emancipating or breaking out from philosophy, and then marrying technology, and then marrying other social systems.From that point of view, materialism is a very convenient idea to propose. There were attempts, like the German idealists tried to do a more romantic science. But no, the idea prevailed, like Francis Bacon said: You should pursue nature through all her corners, he said, and make her spill her secrets.Our attitude towards nature in the science that dominates is very much reflecting how we treat nature in our society, in our culture, like a resource to extract secrets by force and then dominate it. How is materialism related to the notions of growth and progress? What's wrong with having a productive citizenry?This is another very interesting and very difficult question to answer.But there's this recent book coming out by Paul Kingsnorth. In it, he explains this idea of the machine and this idea of progress. And this, again, this conflation of more is better, of we need to go forward always, and convincing us that the way to do that is to continually extract more from nature. But because we don't have the religious context anymore, because God is dead, then what do we have? We have what we can do as humans with our own gadgets.It's kind of the story of the Promethean fire. We will just build anything to make ourselves God.A good example today is transhumanism. Transhumanism is this pseudo-religion dressed in technoscientific language whose goal is very religious. They promise immortality, they promise redemption, they promise transformation of the entire natural world, but it's done by human means through technology. Are you suggesting that we can't have ethics without religion?Well, we should have ethics with or without religion. That's another pruning that has happened in science. We say, forget about aesthetics, although some physicists still think that beautiful means probably true, and forget about politics. We pretend there's no backstage of science, and even let's forget about ethics.___Science needs to be in the service of mankind.___Scientists, when they become more like engineers, they're just thinking how to make things work so that they can go to the moon, go to Mars, make machines that think, but they don't think whether that's a good idea.And also consider metaphysics. Many scientists for a long time pretended, and maybe that comes from the stream of positivisms, that really one doesn't need metaphysics at all, except that materialism is always the metaphysics running the system.You see, it's not just ethics. It's the pruning of all of these, you could say, five main legs of philosophy that just makes a kind of unconscious science, a science that doesn't really know what it's doing. It's doing it very well locally, but it just doesn't know what it's doing globally. Do you think science has to have an ultimate vision and purpose behind it for it to be effective or for it to be meaningful and transformative?Yes, a way I would say that is that science needs to be in the service of mankind. And it hasn't been that. And we can see it through, you know, when we discovered the secrets of the atom, and all of a sudden, the Manhattan Project, and then we create nuclear weapons.And now we're trying to crack how machines may think, and now we're creating this mess, right? So science needs to be in service of mankind, not in service of a few ideas that maybe want to make more money or just dominate upon nature. What about planes, trains, automobiles, and modern medicine? Hasn't science served mankind by helping us develop those technologies?Yes and no. I see where you're going, and it's fair.I came here by plane, and it's a blessing. When I almost died, the surgeons did their job, and they saved my life. But these two forced choices between Luddites and Silicon Valley types, I think, of course, it's a false dichotomy.Progress, in a way, it's good, but we often don't speak about the dark side of the moon. We say the great things that progress has brought, and we don't speak about the disasters, the side effects that it has come with, and the same when we promise new technologies. We tend to think that any technology is great, that email is going to save us so much time because we don't need to write letters and send them anymore.Is that true? I spend so many hours a week writing emails. Let's just say there are great things about it and bad things about it. People like Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, for example, argue that we've made moral progress over time because of the Enlightenment. Do you think that's totally wrong-headed?I think he's emphasizing a side of the moon, and he does that very well, and you can find tons of plots where there's a slope going up and say it's great. But I think he should also tell the not-so-friendly story.But if your ideology is just to resist and continue to explain that the Enlightenment is the best thing ever and reason is the best thing ever… this feels to me like you're worshipping these abstractions.I'm very critical of it and also of these, again, science communicators and scientists that say, Oh, science says, in the name of science, experts say. It's like, come on, let's be careful because we can shoot ourselves in the foot by putting forth to the people an image of science that we know is not really true. Recently there's been a resurgence of spirituality and of people who say that they're spiritual but not religious, especially in the United States. If materialism is going away, what is going to fill that gap? Are we going to return to traditional religion? Do you see that being connected with the rise of the political right?I'm not a fortune teller, so I don't know what's going to happen. But, yeah, we could say we're in this post-materialist age and even post-secular age. One cannot come back to the past, but maybe just to contact with the roots is a good idea.What do I mean by that? I think we need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method. We need to do so in a culture where we realize humans cannot thrive in a vacuum where there's this idea that the sacred has to be removed.Now, how do we do that without bringing in back all the vices of religion? I don't know. I'm from a Catholic country.Here we are in England, so there are differences and interreligious dialogue has always been a challenge. But I think maybe a way of putting it is: after all these conflicts and branchings I was quickly alluding to, science from philosophy and then also from religion, now there's a time of reconciliation perhaps and maybe debates in the proper sense, like exchange of ideas in service of learning and getting into something higher than both poles. We need science to talk to religious people and it's interesting when people say they're spiritual and not religious.I think this is just a way of saying, no, I don't want to go back, I want to go forward. But at the end of the day, religions have offered us practices and grounding that we now desperately need. Everybody can and should just meditate or pray or do whatever they want, but we're in a crisis and it's time for reconciliation. What do you say to critics that say you are merely projecting our need for meaning onto a fundamentally indifferent universe?Yeah, I know that the typical science communicator says something like this. But we're not projecting. Human beings feed on meaning.It's the other way around. If you're a materialist, because the only thing that there is is matter, all that comes next, free will, consciousness, meaning, this is a kind of illusion that we need to explain.They're just craving for meaning, but there isn't really for them. I would also like to remind my materialist friends that for decades, if not centuries, they've said in the name of science, we know that this and this and this doesn't really exist. I think now they sense they're forced to say, well, actually, we don't know. We've been saying, for instance, that there's nothing after you die, and now probably they need to admit that they don't know the answer.___We need to do a science 2.0, a science that says thank you to Galileo and thank you to materialism, but we need to reinvent even a new kind of scientific method.___So it's a moment to open up possibilities and also to gently but fiercely critique these claims that I think harm society. If you say in the name of science, get on with it, when your father dies, you'll never see him again. Well, what the F do you know about it? You haven't studied the literature, you haven't had any of those experiences, and basically what you're doing is you're just doing marketing on ideology. This needs to stop. Do you think that it's scarier for some people to entertain the thought that there might be life after death, compared to a materialist worldview where you just die, given that there might be consequences for unsavory behaviour?Well, death and dying is scary. It's maybe the ultimate ending. It's a limit on life, and when we're in this conquest mode, we don't like limits.And it also has, there's a shockwave backwards, so I think if you change your notion of what death is or may be, you live differently. It also has consequences, as you're saying, for the future because this is not our only goal here and we come back in whatever form. And again, different religions would say different things. I the East, they are more happy with the idea of reincarnation, and here in the West, there are other preferences. But in any case, it changes how we live, and that's really what matters.It's not about just projecting or imagining what we'll be after, but how we live now and also how we treat those who are dying. So it goes from the individual to the families, to the hospitals.Now in the near-death research I do, this has ramifications at all these levels, all the way to society.But our society is thanatophobic. It has a phobia of death. We don't want to hear about death, and this is another thing we need to put on the table and be willing to talk about it. Do you think that we might get closer to answering ultimate questions like why is there anything at all if we jettison materialism?That’s an excellent question, Simon. Two things: we should stop treating reality, I believe, as a great sudoku, as an enigma, as something that with intelligence, money, and time that we will crack and instead treat reality more like a mystery. And what you do for in front of a mystery is not to be the clever guy in a class and say “I’ll solve you” but more like “I will bow and you will transform me.”I know this sounds a bit like a scientist speaking like a mystic. But I think this reorientation is needed. In the end, we won’t crack the big questions, but they will transform us. If we free ourselves from this prison of materialism, the way we will explore these questions will be freer, more creative, and in service of mankind. Do you think exploring mystery is the reason why we are here?I think we are here because, and this pseudo-theological argument I’m making off the cuff, But the One, the Absolute, if there is such a thing, had everything except limitation. We are that absolute experiencing that contingency. It’s like an act of divine proprioception. It’s a wonderful adventure, it’s just incredible to be alive. Perhaps we have forgotten why we are here and the whole point is to experience the flesh.Let me end by saying this. I criticize materialism harshly. I bang on this dead horse, because I think it’s dead. But matter is a great mystery. So maybe my invitation is as follows: hey materialist friends, come here, let’s work on materialism 2.0! Consciousness is a mystery, but matter is also a mystery. The fact that we can have an intersubjective experience consensus, the fact that we can apply mathematics, that we can measure things... the physical world we take for granted, but it is a great mystery too.Maybe that’s related to your last question: why are we here? Why did spirit decide to incarnate? Being in the flesh may be a great thing if spirit decided to do so.Àlex Gómez-Marín, thank you very much.My pleasure.
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