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Love & Philosophy

Love & Philosophy

Written by: Beyond Dichotomy | Andrea Hiott
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It's reasonable to care. Exploring philosophical, scientific, technological & poetic spaces beyond either/or bounds. From the heart. Deeply researched. Mostly unscripted.


Hosted by philosopher and cognitive scientist Andrea Hiott. A project with Making Ways. Buy the book Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness. And join the Substack.



© 2026 Love & Philosophy Biological Sciences Philosophy Science Self-Help Social Sciences Success
Episodes
  • #88 How Life Works Beyond Genes: the New Biology of Meaning with scientist and author Philip Ball

    #88 How Life Works Beyond Genes: the New Biology of Meaning with scientist and author Philip Ball
    Jun 2 2026
    Send a love messageBeyond Genes, Toward Meaning & Care, But RigorouslyAndrea Hiott hosts British science writer Philip Ball (former Nature editor; trained chemist and physicist) to discuss his book How Life Works and why the popular idea “it’s all in the genes” is untenable. Ball argues biology is shifting beyond mechanistic, bottom-up “blueprint” metaphors toward a view of organisms as open, adaptive informational systems with complex genotype–phenotype relations, constant interaction across levels (genes to ecosystems), and robust behavior emerging from “committee-like” molecular collectives. They discuss why biology has avoided purpose, teleology, and meaning, yet living systems make contextual value judgments and goal-directed decisions, with continuity from cells to human minds and emotions, emphasizing embodiment and symbiosis. Ball links these themes to his prostate cancer diagnosis while finishing the book, reflecting on mortality, persistence of patterns and information through art and writing, and the open-endedness of life and evolution, ending with love as a real evolved capacity.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro00:35 Why Biology Is Shifting02:09 Cancer, Meaning, and Patterns04:37 Challenging Gene Determinism11:03 Beyond the Machine Metaphor17:52 Purpose and Teleology in Life23:58 Messiness and Higher-Level Causation31:54 Meaning Making in Cells38:10 Embodiment and the Mind-Body Link41:20 Embodied Minds42:23 Nested Bodies and Meaning43:52 Molecular Caring and Committees45:02 Physics of Collectivity47:19 Universality From Traffic to Cells51:11 Leaky Layers in Living Systems53:20 Beyond E. coli to Elephants55:49 Caring as a New Metaphor57:44 Symbiosis Parasites and Affordances01:03:23 Brains Agency and Emotions01:08:10 Mortality and Whirlpools of Meaning01:15:42 Uniqueness Open-Ended Evolution01:18:25 Love as Evolutionary RealityTRANSCRIPTAndrea Hiott: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Love and Philosophy. This is Andrea Hiott, and I’m glad you’re here. Today is a really special conversation, which I had quite some months ago, back in February, with a writer who is one of my favorites, Philip Ball. He is a British science writer. He used to be the editor at Nature for over 20 years. He’s trained as both a chemist and a physicist, and he’s written a lot of really good books. Critical Mass was a prize-winning book, and there’s also H2O, The Music Instinct, and the one we’re talking about here, How Life Works.Let me tell you a little bit about this book. It comes at a moment when I think biology is really shifting. It’s a shift that’s been going on for a while, but it’s at an important moment now where this mechanistic gene-first story we’ve been telling — the one that says you are your genes, you are your DNA, the selfish gene, that whole idea — is really changing a lot. The idea of the body as a machine assembled from the bottom up, that story is coming apart.But it’s interesting because we don’t want to just flip to the opposite, to reject all that came before. That’s what this book is doing that’s so interesting, and also this conversation. I think you’ll hear it. We’re trying to hold a certain tension because even though that story is coming apart, it’s not that everything is wrong about it. The hope is not to flip into the opposite, but rather to hold the tension and to really open up a new space about how we actually think about what life is and what we are.We have more ways to communicate and more ways to study this that can help us get more rigorous even as we also open up. So that’s what we’re trying to do in this conversation. It gets a little bit messy — that’s a word I’m always using, but in a good way — because we’re trying to talk about a lot of very hard things here, and we’re also trying to talk about them in a way that isn’t the usual way.You’ll hear that Philip is very articulate about this. He’s even better in the book, so I really highly recommend it. He’s also written some very beautiful essays, and one of them, which is in Nautilus, is about how at the end of writing this book he got diagnosed with cancer. We get to that by the end of this conversation because he’s come through well. He had surgery. All is good. It’s all gone. But there was a time when it was very tense for him, and he was writing this book about life, so can you imagine? He was really having these questions pressed on him directly as he had been thinking about life and trying to understand what it was.There’s something very moving about that. What he came to through this was that we are made of this material that’s changing all the time, but what persists are these patterns that come through us, or are in the world with us, or that we create and give to the world that then go on without us. It’s not that they’re floating around in the air. It’s that I can read this book again that he wrote, and there’s an imprint to the ...
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • #87 the Money Koan: towards a new philosophy of curren(t)cy and care with investor Jenna Nicholas

    #87 the Money Koan: towards a new philosophy of curren(t)cy and care with investor Jenna Nicholas
    May 21 2026

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    Andrea Hiott in conversation with investor Jenna Nicholas.

    Jenna discusses her book The Enlightened Bottom Line and how spirituality, love, and purpose can inform investing and business rather than oppose them. She traces formative experiences from ages 11–14 in a Swiss “Transformation for Peace” program and speaking at Commonwealth Day in Westminster Abbey, including meeting Desmond Tutu, to the confidence instilled by her mother and grandmother, faith, and a lifelong practice of hosting “Saturdays at Jen’s” discussion groups.

    After moving from London to Stanford, she was inspired by social entrepreneurs, worked on socially responsible investing in China with mentor Wayne Silby (Calvert Funds), and later organized experiences and interviews exploring profit–purpose paradoxes. She describes practices like symbolic objects to bridge divides, dreams-based decision-making in the Amazon, and a HEAL framework (Hope, Empathy, Abundance, Legacy), emphasizing pauses, stewardship, seven-generation thinking, and money as “currency” valuable when in motion.

    Find Jenna’s book The Enlightened Bottom Line here.

    Parker Palmer conversation with Andrea is here

    Jacob Needleman conversation with Andrea is here.

    00:00 Welcome and Book Setup

    00:25 Teen Years and Abbey Speech

    02:25 Tutu High Five and Lasting Joy

    04:01 the Women Who Raised Her

    06:48 Holding Paradox in Community

    08:56 From Stanford to Impact Investing

    11:40 Choosing Stanford by Fate

    14:43 Wayne Silby and Legacy Shift

    17:18 Bhutan and Business of Happiness

    19:24 Enoughness and Inner Compass

    22:52 Saturdays at Jens Conversations

    25:14 Fierce Love in Organizations

    27:25 Creating Listening Spaces

    28:03 Building Impact Experience

    28:40 Coal Meets Solar Values

    30:13 Redefining Money Capital

    34:00 Heal Framework Questions

    35:37 Hope Empathy Abundance

    37:16 Playful Abundance Wand

    40:04 Amazon Dream Circles

    43:03 Death Joy Legacy

    46:31 Stewardship Seven Generations

    49:02 Reflection Questions Pauses

    52:40 Grandmother Loving Kindness

    55:37 Honoring Stories Love

    57:15 Podcast Farewell

    The Enlightened Bottom Line by Jenna Nicholas

    Jenna’s Substack is here.

    Jenna on LinkedIn

    Baha’i Faith

    Books discussed in addition to the Enlightened Bottom Line:

    InnSaei: the Icelandic Art of Intuition by Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir

    The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

    Full intro and notes here.

    Care is not the opposite of love. It is the very urge of life. 'Caring for what?' is the primary question. That we have a choice about what we care for and how is what makes us human, but it's quite the challenge and responsibility. Let's help one another handle it.

    Support the show

    Buy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea Hiott

    Sign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects.

    Please rate and review with love.
    YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack.
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • #86 A.A. Kostas and his WayMarkers (including Chris McCandless, C.S. Lewis, Robert Pirsig, Thomas Merton, D.T. Suzuki, & Christian mystics)

    #86 A.A. Kostas and his WayMarkers (including Chris McCandless, C.S. Lewis, Robert Pirsig, Thomas Merton, D.T. Suzuki, & Christian mystics)
    May 7 2026

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    What Marks our Movement through life?

    Andrea Hiott interviews A.A. Kostas, a Singapore-based lawyer and writer who runs the Substack Way Markers, blending poetry, fiction, and essays. They discuss how moving through different places shaped his writing and his interest in avoiding simplistic binaries through discernment—first identifying what kind of decision is in front of you—using hiking metaphors of many paths versus a narrow ridge. Alex cites Into the Wild as a cautionary way marker about seeking truth without rejecting human connection, and describes a Cradle Mountain hike where his wife had to find her own route. They explore how technology reinforces binary thinking, why poetry and music hold meanings beneath prose, and the value of humility from engaging Western and Eastern traditions (including Merton and Suzuki). They examine care as uncomfortable attention, the importance of embodied presence, and Alex’s experience of fatherhood as immediate responsibility and obligation where love grows.

    00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
    02:21 Becoming a Writer
    03:51 Growing Up Everywhere
    05:15 What Is Way Markers
    07:12 Pilgrimage and Substack
    10:29 Into the Wild Lessons
    14:29 Beyond Binary Thinking
    18:49 Cradle Mountain Metaphor
    22:36 Discernment and Ridge Lines
    25:20 Tech Shapes Our Minds
    27:00 Why Braid Genres
    31:04 Music and Poetry Under Language
    34:12 Law as Applied Philosophy
    37:41 Zen Meets Catholic Mysticism
    43:00 Humility and Unknowing
    46:48 Craving Oneness Safely
    48:19 Mystical Moments Explained
    50:20 Flow State With Meaning
    51:00 Desire Points to God
    52:25 You Cant Conjure Awe
    56:14 Care In Writing
    58:36 Audience Capture Trap
    59:27 Pamphlets Off The Internet
    01:02:40 Love Is Uncomfortable
    01:17:58 Fellow Travelers And Faith
    01:24:28 Humor Holds Paradox
    01:28:34 Fatherhood And Obligation
    01:32:18 Closing Reflections

    See the Substack for links to the books mentioned.

    Full intro and notes here.

    Care is not the opposite of love. It is the very urge of life. 'Caring for what?' is the primary question. That we have a choice about what we care for and how is what makes us human, but it's quite the challenge and responsibility. Let's help one another handle it.

    Support the show

    Buy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea Hiott

    Sign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects.

    Please rate and review with love.
    YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack.
    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 40 mins
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