Episode
Lesson 0: Welcome to The Functional Mind
- Podcast
- The Functional Mind
- Published
- Apr 20, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 451
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-functional-mind-7826989/episodes/lesson-0-welcome-to-the-functional-mind/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-functional-mind-7826989/lesson-0-welcome-to-the-functional-mind.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
The question that has followed me for fifty years: what are we, exactly — not biologically, but scientifically? This is where the journey begins. The Functional Mind is a complete argument in 28 lessons, released fortnightly. By the end, you will have a coherent scientific framework for understanding life, mind, and what it means to be the kind of thing we are. Not a survey of existing ideas — a new framework, built from first principles, that I believe resolves questions that have been officially unanswered for a century. This is Lesson 0: the welcome. It tells you who I am, why I've spent thirty years on this question, and what we're going to build together. The written version of every lesson is available at thefunctionalmind.substack.com — same content, readable at your own pace. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thefunctionalmind.substack.com